Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game The next generation - going solo

I'm in the happy position of having a 22yr old son whose both followed me in serving and also hunting.

We started with him on my lap in a stand sucking candy (the stop at the gas station to choose being the most important part of the hunt) and practicing counting on flighting birds.

Pellet guns, 22s and a steady procession of rabbits, foxes, does and bucks followed. Slowly my status has changed from teacher to mentor and is now currently between knowledgeable and old fart. My ideas and outlook may be viewed as yesteryear but just occasionally the level of effort and knowledge that's gone into providing equipment and hunting are truly appreciated as he branches out on his own.

The long awaited desire to go solo is also tempered with a realisation that hunting solo isnt as easy as all that.

The pleasure if this is immense but lack of sleep when hunting and age related views of what's correct can bring out the old curmudgeon. Leaving a pack to crawl more easily after a buck was one such cantankerous old git moment

Any such stories of new meeting old?

I don't know if I have any stories concerning this or not....but I almost exclusively hunt alone on DIY hunts.

Sometimes I may have a friend camping with me, but in the mornings we go to separate spots. Same with bird hunts. I'll work one drainage while he may be in another, or at least on the other side of the same drainage I am on.

I like going my own pace, stopping when I want to stop and not having to deal with people complaining about how far we've hiked, why we haven't seen anything yet, why we got up so early...yadda yadda yadda.

Added benefit of never experiencing a negligent discharge from hunting partners.

My hunting partners are time tested, capable and close friends whose company I enjoy. Part of the joy for me is sharing that experience with those I love so doing it solo doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I’m talking true backcountry-wilderness-high country type or week/s long hunts that you fly in and out type stuff. Not a day or three here and there.

It’s the old adage about the stages of the life of a hunter. The experience becomes the goal instead of the horns. I’ve made some grand hunts but I missed sharing that beauty with my wife and children. I was lucky to have and still have the best hunting partners a guy could want but as the kids are getting older I want to share that unique and beautiful experience with them and my wife. I’ve made enough mistakes with my buddies, suffered enough equipment failures, dealt with many snowy or rainy and cold nights running around fixing something that was “good enough” or “it should hold”. I know enough now and have acquired proven equipment so, for me it’s about the experience and sharing that experience.

"Wake me up when you see one dad" was my first clue that the kid had inherited his mother's non-existent hunting gene. I'd bought him a mint .300 Savage 99F and later that day I identified the strange scraping noise I heard when he was sawing the forearm checkering back and forth on the metal edge of the deer stand because he was bored. He wouldn't get up early for day two. Then there was the day up at grandpa's cottage where the kids could have been castings off the end of the dock. Nope, they were inside playing a virtual fishing game on the TV. I went wrong somewhere.

Hunted with my dad, brother and a few friends until I was in my mid 30's. Been hunting mostly solo for the last 40 years. Both have pluses and minuses.

I love Solo hunting. But I do hunt with a select few friends at times.

I mostly hunt alone now that most of the guys I've known & hunted with for decades are either retired and out of state permanently or leave in the fall before the weather turns or just don't hunt anymore for a variety of age related reasons. At age 69 I prefer a ladder stand or blind but there's still a couple spots with a 45 degree uphill climb that I can still get to without a problem. When not solo I usually hunt with a buddies younger brother who's only a mere 60 or 61 this year. Either way I plan to hunt as long as the good lord lets me.

I like hunting solo for many reasons but often my wife accompanies me , when the weather isn't too bad. She is recovering from a fractured patella but hopefully will be soon able to pull a sled on snowshoes. Wolf season opens in 19 days so she better heal fast.



mike r

I've enjoyed hunting in a camp of 6 - 8 hunters, with a single partner, and solo. It's all good, but in different ways.

Much of the hunting we do in AK is very hard, if not impossible to do solo. I have killed many large game animals solo in really rough country. I have guided to many more with zero expectation of getting any helping recovering the trophy. Do a few hunts packing 90% plus of a moose and you will begin to understand the glitter of an AK guide's life...

Though my last bull moose was a 500 yard pack and all I had to carry was the bloodstain on my waders. Riley returned a favor or three...

Few realize the difficulties involved in packing out a single moose...

I have walked away from Dall sheep kills with all of the sheep on my back many times. They are not small. A small percentage of hunters can do that. I left that elite group four herniated discs ago. I have carried a number of 100#+ packs since then, but it is far from the good old days...

I still solo hunt several days each season, mainly for deer...I agree that it’s easier to hunt alone. Deciding how or where to hunt an area when you’re only talking to yourself about it is a lot simpler then deciding with a crews input of ideas.

The solo humps seem harder each year, but, I’m sure it’s just the foresight of knowing what’s coming after the shot is made. Phone a friend is always an option, but wisely used...

I do like hunting with a small crew of good guys, too. Best of both for me, I guess. 😎

My doctor tells me my most significant health issue is.... my life style. I've been a solo hunter off and on for most of my life. That means I've been privileged to hunt with some really good people who love to hunt. But these days I don't know anyone who wants to hunt where I do, and for as long as I do. I take off the last weekend of October and often don't come home until after Thanksgiving. I hunt an area where you might not see a legal buck for weeks. Hunters who don't understand the country often try it for a few years and then don't come back. Almost 90% of the people that hunt there are local residents.
Why do I do it ? I love that type of country. I seldom see another hunter. Lots of room and little competition. Last of all, there are some fabulous animals there. You can't hunt them by conventional methods. You must find a set of fresh tracks. Roughly 6600 square miles of range. The DFG says there are between 5000-6000 deer. And you can rarely see them in the desert washes full of Ironwood, Palo Verde and various scrubs. Buck to doe ratios run anywhere from the low 20's to about 40 per 100 does. DFG says they can't get accurate counts for a number of reasons. The yearly kill has been running from 75 to 150 bucks. Even at a buck to doe ratio of 25 to 100, that means there are 1000-1200 bucks. The hunters aren't getting many. That and they live a lot longer than 8-9 yrs. like they do on most ranges.
So, that's why I hunt there. Someday..... E

Big fan of solo hunting, however I have found myself in more of a guide position over recent years with the advent of son in laws, and grandsons. While I am content with that, I can usually find a few days later in the season to wander about on my own.

I enjoy a hunting camp with good friends and my sons but lately I am going solo. My eldest son is busy running his business and the youngest is working hard on higher education. I've recently moved to New Mexico and retired so I go solo or I don't go. Same with fishing, if I didn't go alone I wouldnt get to go.

I have the same problem. My hunting partner lost his house to the bank after his company was bought out, and his position was lost. (This after major upgrades in insulation, windows, roof, ect.) . He ended up moving out of state for a new job, and I'm still looking for a hunting partner.

I hunt with some good guys, my son went with me until he joined the Navy. He was in 7 years. When he got out he went every time for about three years. He got married, had a baby, bought a house, got a job that takes him out of town. He got a job where I work last week, so he will be able to go again. My grandson Jack will be able to go before long too.

I've done it both ways and started out going with dad and a bunch of his older friends. I figured out that I was pretty much along to help with the dish detail, but as I got older and smarter I was the guy who was getting the deer and ended up setting up the other guys with good spots. I remember one guy that dad brought up who had never been in the woods before. The week before I had jumped up a small buck, walked out to the road and painted a red X on the tree. Opening morning I told the new guy to go to the first little hill in from that X and sit down. He had that buck on the meat pole by 8:00 that morning. Then the old guys started bringing their kids up and I spent as much time finding those kids when they got lost as I did hunting. Great memories of those early years, but hunting with other guys got me too tied down to a schedule of I'll meet you back at the trail head at a certain time and I didn't like that because stuff came up with them or me and we couldn't be there. I like hunting alone now with no schedules. The wife worries something could happen the older I get and I think about that more now too.

Both of my sons got an early intro to camping and hunting. They both discovered that camping involved dirt and hunting was 'boring'. Then they discovered soccer and that was the coup de grace for their outdoor careers. Maybe I'll live long enough to pass things on to my grandsons but the oldest is 7 and none of them live closer than 600 miles.

I hunt with my dog, she never bitches about my driving, willing to share whatever I brought for lunch or snacks. Bird hunting fool and waterfowl retriever as needed, never gives me [bleep] about my gun or loads. She can give you the 1000 yd "look of distain" if you miss as good as anyone. I all ways have to buy the gas but she all ways finds the birds. She won't retrieve deer so I leave her at home or in the truck for that. She is an English Springer Spaniel, little narrow tween the eyes and picks her own friends. Little smarter than the rest of us , huh? MB