Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Do you keep count.

No I lost count --- probably 45-50 years ago

What was the one you had scored?
I’ve never put a tape to any I’ve shot, don’t hunt places that grow anything that would likely make any book and generally just hunt for mature specimens of whatever I’m after. My keeping notes has more to do with the scientific aspects of conditions, bullet performance, reliving the story, etc.

Montana wolf, killed in the first season in 2009. I think he was the 14th one killed, or at least the 14th one checked in. SCI scored him as a silver, barely not making gold….whatever that means. B&C didn’t score wolves then but now since you can substitute them for Quebec caribou in relation to the NA 29, maybe they do? I haven’t really payed attention.

By default he was the state record for a time but was surpassed a few years later.

That’s cool man. I didn’t even know that there was a scoring system for wolves. I figured they were kinda like my buddy says about goats, the difference between an average one and a big one is about the distance across your fingernail. Still a great trophy just to get one.

It is just like bears or cats....skull length plus width.

Easy peasy.

A buddy asked ne a couple of years ago, how many deer iv shot. I said do know probly 70-100 or more. He's 19 years younger than me, said he was up to 47 deer. I never kept track, but have 1 elk, 1 mule deer buck, and 3 black bears. In the 1990s I started marking on the brass, shell. of the animal , date number of points. Iv always liked to shoot and hunt with different rifles. Over 20 I'd think from 44-77 black powder cartridge to 50 Beawulf.

Not hunting but I used to keep a fishing log.

I can remember the highlights over the years but count coyotes per year, 54 this year and most per day 16. A good year 75.
A nice gun I know the round count and have the brass.
I do know people who keep records like a statistician.

Very interesting threads,

I’ve shot way too many deer over the past 65 years to remember many of them. My Montana deer are mounted and on the wall. Didn’t even think about writing down anything. Having been to Africa, RSA and Zimbabway and Tanzania 5 times I don’t even remember many of them. Don’t even remember many of my European kills. I’ve alway Enjoyed the experience and the gun and caliber more. I do remember that a 270 and 308 has worked every time.
Life is in the living and I still enjoy my hunts every year. God bless all you and enjoy your memories.

I am patriarch of our deer camp, and one responsibility I have is keeping the log. I actually started the log before our camp started, lost it in my divorce from Satan, and then recreated it. What spurred me to start it up again was finding the resources to recreate the meteorological data. If you know the date and approximate time of the kill, you can find temp, barometer, wind direction and speed. I have since built a moon age calculator.

For each harvest, I record about 30 columns of data about the deer, the weather, the location, and exact date/time, and the rifle and load.

What works? Moon age really correlates well. Harvests are skewed dramatically towards the first two quarters, and almost no deer are taken in the last quarter. Day of the Month is a biggy, especially for bucks. There is a spike from the 9th to the 11th of November. I can also tell you that if you haven't taken a buck by 1000 on the Opener, your chances of getting a buck that season drop precipitously.
There are also upper and lower limits of barometer, temp, wind, etc.

I'm currently doing the same for our Turkey Camp. I'd always kept my own personal record, but now that my sons and my granddaughter have come online, it's time to add them in. I've still got about half of the meteorological data left to fill in. It's a tad tedious.

Is it worth it? Besides the data I keep in the logs, I also write something for my weblog-- been doing that since 2004, and adding in the bits and pieces I'd written before that. It has become invaluable. At 65, the seasons are beginning to all blur together.

I realized the other day that I was losing track of all the antler racks I have hanging up in my office. I had 3 on the wall next to each other and I had stopped being able to tell them apart. ENOUGH! I went on Ebay and bought brass tags engraved with the year and stand location of each and every one of them as well as my full head mounts. What saved me was the pics from each weblog entry. I could count points and note idiosyncracies. After I get that done, I'm going to tackle the Dink Wall at camp. Guys are required to donate their dinks to the wall. Sure, you can shoot it, but it's going up on the wall in the dining room.

now that i look back at all those years of hunting with family and friends i wished i would have kept track. oh well its my lose but if your young and read this keep track of all your hunts good and bad some day you will have some great memories.take care,Pete53

Yes, ...Unfortunately before 30 years old I was in NYC and Europe so no hunting big game.
Since 1995 yes every one of them.

I did the first ten years in Montana but lost count of deer. Been here 14 years now. I would guess around 70 deer in that time.

Sure....#40 Archery Super Slam which is also #199 Super Slam by any legal means of take (rifle, blackpowder, pistol, archery or crossbow). 20 of the 29 species were taken self guided...was lucky to live in CO for 35 years and BC for 15 with a lot of variety of species I could hunt as a resident.

As per # within a species it gets a bit vague when you talk about elk, black bears, antleope, mule deer and whitetails. The rest of the species are much easier to remember.

Also 17 (or is it 18?) species of western upland birds, all with a female Vizsla over her 13 hunting seasons.