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Squirrel hunting when the hickory trees are full of nuts. I use a pellet rifle with moderator. The leaves are so thick you can hear the squirrels but can't see them. I've spent a half hour trying for a head shot.

We had great times shooting jackrabbits at night in Ozona back in the late 70’s

For me, nothing can compete with the carefree days in the field as a kid. Squirrel hunting with a German Shepard named Chrissy and pushing heads for deer, when nobody cared about what a buck scored and the buck you shot hadnt been named. Ignorant of the coming inherent stress and anxiety of adulthood. A bolt action Mossberg .410 for squirrel and a Mossberg 12 gauge pump with 00 Buckshot for running deer. Those were the days. Nothing can replace them.

Elk hunting in Teton Park back in the early 90's (pre-Clinton wolves) it was as good an elk hunt for big bulls as any you could find. I shot my 2 biggest bulls there.

I love being in the Cascades in October whether I'm hunting elk, hunting deer, fishing, or just backpacking. Crisp frosty mornings, warm afternoons, amazing colors, and usually not that many people. I feel much the same way about the southern part of the Oregon coast range though the rain often starts earlier. I've shot enough deer and elk, caught enough fish ... I don't really need to do it in the rain anymore. If I want to get serious about killing something, then just above snow level .. cutting sign and tracking individual critters in the snow is fun.

Tom

A 2008 fly in horse back elk/moose hunt in northern BC. An incredible wilderness experience. I will be back up there for 16 days this fall chasing goat, elk and moose. With some luck a mountain caribou...

NICE!

Any, but Africa hands down, the hunting I did in Alaska was limited but it still ranks highly.

Just had a great hunt for red billed pigeons and whitewing in Tampico last August, hope I can go again. We didn't shoot huge numbers but plenty enough to be satisfied at over a 1,000 for two of us. We stayed at a friends ranch and it was hunting like it used to be in Mexico. The full experience and not some lodge trip where you get carted around. Great local food and company. Saw Jagurundi which are very secretive, no jaguar this trip though.

Elk hunting in the high country in Colorado for the past 15 years with my friends. I think I have killed 9 elk in that spot in 15 seasons. Winding down with old age setting in, but I’ll keep going until I can’t.... Happy Trails

[quote=scenarshooter]


Do it while you're young.
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F A N T A S T I C even A W E S O M E !!

I'm 70, when is too old ?


Jerry

Man I sure hope you have Good Luck & a GREAT fun time.


Jerry

When you are 6 feet under or bed ridden. Other than that were there is a will there is a way!

Man, you hit a chord with me. I love deer and hog hunting but for the whole experience you can't beat squirrel hunting. Especially with a rifle of some sort. And the quarry is much better than any game I've eaten. Fried young tender squirrel with biscuits and/or mashed potatoes and milk gravy made with the water you boiled the potatoes in and some good hot coffee. Damn I live for that to happen again before I die.

hanco, you struck another chord with me. When I was a kid like from 10-15 years old, I had a friend, well he was more like a relative since we had a common great aunt and uncle, (my great uncle was married to his great aunt)and his dad's family ranched on Matagorda Island. They used to take me over there and we'd drive around n the jeep checking the cattle and we'd shoot Jack Rabbits. We'd have 8 or 10 at a time and take 'em back to the ranch house and fry 'em up. Damn those things were tough, but it was a great experience for a kid. I think if we'd had a pressure cooker and could have parboiled them first or maybe fried 'em under pressure they would have been good eating. As it was I always had sore teeth for about a week.

JustinL1, That would have taken place on a cold morning, December 28th.1963. I had just recently turned 11 years old, and I was hunting Whitetails with my “one armed” grandfather (Paw Paw) that lost his lower right arm in a sawmill accident when he was in his teens. At that time, deer were almost non-existent in Louisiana. We were sitting in the top of an oak tree that had recently been cut down.

We were cold, so, we had started a small fire. It was about 8:00 in the morning, the smoke from the fire was drifting down the little “two-track” road which passed by our stand. Suddenly, my Paw Paw whispered to me, “There’s a deer boy, he’s big as a yearling”! The deer was standing in the “two-track” with a thin veil of smoke around him. The smoke may have helped cover our scent, as he was downwind from us. My Paw Paw told me to shoot, but I was petrified, as this was the first deer I’d ever seen. I insisted that he take the shot. I didn’t realize that, from his angle he had to shoot between two trees. We later found out that 8 of the nine pellets from my Paw Paw’s Model 12, 12 gauge, printed a nice tight pattern in the size of one of those trees. At the time of his shot, the deer jumped strait up....then stood for a moment at “high alert”! This is when I took my shot! I was using my Stevens 22/410 over/under, and at the shot, the deer jumped straight up, seeming to do a 180 in mid-air and vanished into the timber.

We initially thought that I had missed, but, while following tracks in the muddy ground....my Paw Paw found a bright red blood drop. We followed blood, for what seemed a long ways, once finding a large pool of blood with a track in it, on a little high spot of ground beneath an old Beech Tree. The deer went into a “low lying” (we called it the “Flats”) area, which was covered with water.....making tracking a bit difficult. My Paw Paw was leading, and suddenly shouted, “There he is boy”! The deer had crawled into the top of another recently cut tree, and had died there.

We, with help from my Dad, got the deer back to my grand parents home, where we skinned him out. From there to a local community store/butcher shop to have him cut-up. It didn’t take long before the word was out, about the kid that had killed the big deer. Local folks came to the store to see the deer and meet the kid! I quickly became a “little, local celebrity”!
The deer, was a fairly large bodied, nicely balanced, 8 point (4x4)......all of 11” wide on the inside.

My Paw Paw, lived his entire life in the backwoods of Louisiana, trapping, hunting and cutting timber to support his family. He passed away in his late 80’s......never having killed a deer!

Since then I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to take, Deer, Antelope, Elk, Moose, Bighorn Sheep, and Bear.....but, none compare to that hunt! memtb

Hunting Whitetails in the Kentucky woods like my ancestor pioneers is as good as it gets for me. I even use flintlocks like they did during ML season. I'm hoping some day to get the chance to take a KY elk like they did also. Any time I can get in the woods hunting anything it is good though...

memtb:

I'm few yrs. older than you and we also had NO deer in S C Ark in the 50-60s.
My G father loved to hunt also and he died in 1978 at 72 y o and never killed a deer either.
Memories, Memories

Jerry

Varmints in SEA. Challenging but rewarding.

Locally I enjoy pig hunting a bit but my favorite is quail and turkey.

My favorite is shooting jack rabbits. Everything else is like shooting stop signs.

Mature (Really Mature) Whitetail bucks, anywhere they live, with any legal weapon you choose.