Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why do hunting shows suck so bad?

I have hunted deer in the Midwest with a bow for 25 years and I can tell you a mature buck is anything but naive, rut or not. Once the crops are out they pretty much go nocturnal. If you think that bowhunting big bucks from a tree stand is easy it's because you've watched to many shows where the deer are probably fenced in. Don't mean to offend anyone, but for the average bowhunter getting a mature buck on the limited land he is allowed to hunt aint easy. Took me 5 years to get my first one with a recurve.

Orion03, I'll second that. If someone has done it enough, they know it aint't easy. If their only experience is watching tv shows it may seem that way I guess. I am actually pretty impressed with the guys who can pull it off with a tv camera and a second person in the tree. Hard enough with just me up there.

Bow hunting from a treestand is not what it appears to be on television. I've spent plenty of seasons sitting in trees without ever drawing my bow. I do not consider the time so spent as wasted. I wish that my internal movie camera was well-developed enough to bring back all of the sights, sounds, and smells exactly as they happened.

All,

The real problem with hunting shows on TV is that there are few hunters that are actors, and few actors that are hunters.

Tom

One "hunting tactic" used by many of the whitetail shows is to lease private land exclusively for making shows. I don't know of any that are made on high-fenced properties, but do know of quite a few that are made on leased free-range land in various states. A few companies shave even purchased land just for whitetail bowhunting, some here in Montana. The Milk, Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in eastern Montana are all fairly popular destinations for TV shows, because there are a lot of deer and many good bucks.

The top trophy-hunting area for whitetails in Montana, however, is in the western mountains, where deer are relatively few in number compared to the river-bottom deer in the eastern part of the state. Thus typical tree-stands simply don't work as well, because there isn't the concentrated movement of deer near crops. I don't know of ANY TV shows that have been made in the whitetail areas of the western mountains, even rifle-hunting shows, because the hunting is just too tough and unpredictable.

Not sure what you're talking about, whitetail don't leave the river bottoms in western MT... and surely don't wander onto public land
I actually did see one show where a guy was hunting whitetail on logging land, think it was taxidermy trails, the guy from PA.

Its kinda like hunting for coues, if they were big.

Oh, my mistake! I meant MULE deer....

Amen to that!

Don't watch hunting TV shows. Too much drawls and golly gee for me. I too dislike the 1,2,3,4,5, count on the danged deer, if you can tell he is "160 class buck" from the tree, you can tell he is 10 points without counting out loud.

I prefer hunting videos by Foiles, Robertson and Anderson. I watch them over and over. Dig their style. Can't like Drury - the way they do things isn't for me in the least.

Nothing like a good "I'll tell youuuuuuuuuu what" every 2 minutes as well.

Goooollllyyyy look at that buck Jiiim, he's a freak nasty buuuck. Golly. I tell youuuu what, we was hunting in horrible conditions all week. I bet it didn't get above 65 degrees, and then Stevie ran outta the special sauce for vitles. I can't believe we pulled it off. Son what a buck, Freak NASTYYY.

Hoss, check us out next week as we rough it at the Best Western while hunting for 160 class continental breakfast.

I hardly watch them either but dvr predator quest with Les Johnson. Les is a regular guy and puts together a good show. You can tell he has a bit more of the sponsorship infomercial these days compared to the first season but it pays the bills and his hunts are still interesting.

I also occasionally watch eastsmans and that's about it. Don't watch too much tv anyway.

I don't watch the hunting shows for all the reasons mentioned . But --- I was watching the History Channel awhile back [ beats hearing Hannity rant , OK ? ] ,one of the Monster Quest series . They were looking for a 1000 lb feral hog .

Some guys had designed a camera they could strap on a hog they had trapped and maybe it would lead them to a 1000 pounder . Also had GPS on him . Then they have the little side dramas like trail cameras and traps .

Then I recognized one of the hog guides . I've known him since he was born . Knew his Daddy and Mama . Then I recognized the terrain . They hadn't mentioned where all this activity is taking place except to say it was in Texas .

ALL the show was filmed in a high fenced pasture about fifteen miles from my house . It's doubtful there is 500 acres inside the fence . Typical scrub mesquite country . You can bet they know every hog in the pasture and his weight since as soon as they hit around 200 lbs . the clients get to shoot 'em .

And they got this pig with a camera mounted on him " trying to locate a thousand pounder "!

That's another thing that really irritates me. The host/hunter is in a stand and sees a nice buck or bull come up and says, something about "he's a nice, mature animal about (insert score here) but not what I'M looking for." That's the kind of thing that makes it look easy and misleads so many hunters. They don't show the months of scouting done by the guide/outfitter to locate the big animal for the host/hunter, and make it look like the guy just walks out and shoots it. As hard as I've worked for animals, I shoot the first legal one I can.
I've never been impressed by antlers, anyway. They're hard to cook, and tast terrible. Whenever I have a choice, I put in for antlerless tags.

Muledeer,
I think "most" of the filmed Whitetail hunts in Texas are fenced deer, as they usually discuss managment at the end of the show, and I personally know some of the owners also, and some of the Eastern hunts are fenced also.

However, I don't see a lot of difference in shooting a whitetail from a blind on open land or on a 10,000 to 50,000 acre fenced ranch in Texas..Lots of elk and deer are shot over salt licks and at water holes, rattled or bugled up, in the North so not a heck of a lot of differnce in my mind. Killing a bull elk in the rut with a bugle is about as easy of hunt as I know of. I know a rancher that bugles his elk up every year and shoots him from his barn loft.:)

I have an aquaintence that can show you pictures of huge bucks on his fenced ranch taken at blinds with cameras, but they never kill these really big bucks as they are totally nocturnal..I was amazed..My son hunted there by invitation and shot a nice buck but never saw one of those monsters and they got pictures of them during the time he was there. They tried really hard but no monsters showed..In five years the owner shot one and that was basically a fluke..For what it's worth and I thought it interesting.

There seems to be a influx of television fishermen coming in off the water to hunt.

Ray,

I have hunted some high-fenced places, both in the U.S. and Africa, though not for whitetails. (I've only hunted whitetails in Texas twice, both times on free-range properties, the King Ranch and another place in the Hill Country.) I decided to try it because I at least play at being a serious journalist, so figured instead of pre-judging fenced hunting I'd find out about it for myself.

I agree that fences don't guarantee anything--as long as the place is big enough and the animals are bred and born there. I also agree that often fenced animals are at least as hard to hunt as are free-range animals, and sometimes even harder, simply because they are hunted more or less constantly and get to know their hiding places VERY well.

Still, I don't go hunting just to get something. I also go hunting to get out amid whatever passes for nature these days, and fenced properties just don't pass that test. Too often the animals are specifically bred for big horns or antlers, or don't even live in anything like their native habitat. In both Africa and Texas they are also often brought to a property specifically to be shot. One of the recent problems in South Africa is that some places in the Eastern Cape are importing kudu from further north, so that hunters can claim to kill a "Cape kudu" with larger horns than any real Cape kudu will ever grow.

I get more out of hunting here in Montana, especially on public land, even if all I'm after is a doe deer or pronghorn, or a cow elk. I don't object to anybody else hunting fenced properties, but I discovered what I wanted to about them and have no more curiousity about them.

I saw one show where the fella was hunting in western MT although I cannot recall exactly where. He was hunting public land and the host (normally a bowhunter) carried a rifle on this hunt and finally did take a whitetail buck. He made mention several times the difficulty in hunting the area and that the deer weren't concentrated like other areas of the state. I believe the show is called The Huntley Way. It's one of the few shows that aren't 20 minutes of advertising and 10 minutes of hunting.

The big difference to me is that fenced deer, elk, etc are inside the fence, no matter how big it is. Just because you may not see them every day doesn't mean there not there. There are many pieces of public land with little or no game. Big difference to me. I can assure you any lard ass can kill big whitetails at the Sanctuary, or big bulls at the Jicarilla, etc.

I miss Colorado Buck...