Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Anybody else changing?

The last 2 years, I have noticed that I'm not hunting as hard as I had in the past. I tend to pass on great spots that are hard to get to.

Mostly been hunting pretty good, easy to get to spots.

Still enjoy my time outdoors, maybe more now than ever before. I still like killing good bucks, but they will have to be on my terms. If I don't, I'm fine with it.

Since 1996, my hunting has been geared towards getting my son opportunities. I always thought that once he got on his own, I'd go back to hunting like I did in the past.

Now, half of the time I sit at the camp to make sure angry bucks don't come ransack the place while we are gone.

I watch TV, tell stupid stories and cook. On occasion, once everybody has left to hunt, I slip out and do a little still hunting, which I still enjoy.

I have spent a good part of my life learning about whitetails and how to successfully hunt them in a variety of environments.

Now, I just like sitting on my ass at the camp and enjoying the atmosphere. I still get excited about trying to help someone get their first buck, but Ryan has kind of taken that over as well.

I guess my best hunting days are behind me, but I sure seem to enjoy it more than ever before.

JM

Its because when your younger its all about the horns/antlers and the shooting the big one... As we age its more about the time spent with friends/family and the hunting trip, the bonus is if you get something. I am not old (38), but find that the hunting session and memories it brings is more than getting the big one. More like seeing the big picture than the pulling of that trigger. Your hunting days are not behind you.... unless you dont get excited when seeing game and do not want to kill it because you would be taking away a beautiful creature.. then maybe.!

My main goal is to not see a 4 wheeler/boat/human all day while hunting.

I wouldn't mind the getting back there a-ways so much as the dragging something back.

John,

Your right about not as many guys hunting deer - most expensive meat you can get, so now it's more horns or something to try vs. a family tradition - that sucks.

Hunting is hard, but you can't replace the time alone to give youself time to think. I'm not retired - don't know if you are or not but I'm wondering how that will impact the value I get out of hunting.

For me I've had less time to hunt due to work demanding more and more hours, but that makes getting out there to hunt even more important.

Still plenty of woodland craft to try out, leading others by example is still pretty important. And in the end age and wisdom tend to beat out youth and exuberance.

Spot

At 52 i have slowed down some, and tend to pass, more game than i used too. but the thrill is still there, if I ever lose that than it will be time to quit!

" The last 2 years, I have noticed that I'm not hunting as hard as I had in the past. I tend to pass on great spots that are hard to get to."

Comes to most all of us JM. Just wait until you hit the stage where you look at a shootable deer and think, you know if I shoot that deer then I got to get it out someway. And then I got to dress it by my self. Then I got to take care of the meat by my self. Hell, it just ain't worth the trouble today.

I have been like that for a while now.

BCR

JM,

At 57, I know what you mean about changing. I have hunted since I was a boy and I still dearly love it, but I can't do the things and hunt some of the places I did when younger. Arthritis has taken a toll on my body, but my spirit remains strong. Passing the hunting tradition on to others has become increasingly important to me as well.

I wrote a similar post a while back. I wake up in the morning and if it windy, or too cold I shut the alarm off and go back to sleep.

Hunting has always been my way to get in tune with nature. So much more now that the economic environment has rendered me a stay at home Dad, I find that spending time outdoors, even in crappy weather, gives me a sense of being able to participate more in God's great creation.

Frankly, I fear the time that I am no longer able to be the steward and caretaker of all that I have been entrusted. I will get into it as much as possible, as often as possible, just to make sure He still needs me here.

And it is hard, with two bad shoulder's, and dealing with the toll that I've taken on myself over the years, but its hard not to walk the fences and hills and subsequently give thanks for the opportunity, if nothing else.

sounds to me like you're doin' just fine these days. deer hunting is about alot of things, but most importantly enjoying yourself, which still seems to be your case.

don't know how old you are but we have very similar situations. i've been rifle/bowin' deer for almost 40 yrs now. i'm also not as earnest as the "old" days where i used to stay out from dark to dark. don't get me wrong, i still put a good many hours into each hunt and get to camp every weekend of the season but spend less time in the woods than before. my guy's hunting for years now with me and turned out to be a real hunter. he's been coming along with me since he was 8 or 9. i get more pleasure seeing him shoot rather than me. that's just part of being a dad i guess.

-ken

It' not that my desire has lessened over the years, but I live with the fact that I can't physically exert myself as much as when I was younger.

I usually hunt alone, and find myself passing on shots that require a lot of effort to get out of the woods.

I'm mostly hunting for the meat and have no problem shooting a deer that still has milk on its lips. I'll not pass on a wall hanger though.

I still get up early and hunt all day, but at a much more leasurely pace. Don't have a problem stopping at noon for a buger either.

Plan on keeping it up for quite a while yet. I'm sure I'll get slower still, but hope I make up the difference in smarts.

Ditto all that has been said above. Sounds like you old farts should come visit me. My cabin is in the middle of a great swamp and built 8 feet off the ground. I generally sit on my deck with a cup of coffee or drinkie in hand(depending on what time of the day it is)and a rifle propped against the rail. There is generally a pot of soup, stew, red beans, chickin'N dumplings or whatever bubbling on the stove. Last season while hunting like just described I shot a nice 10 pointer off the deck. Sure messed up my day but I didn't spill my drink or burn the stew.

If you are enjoying it, thats what matters most. And doing it legally...
You cover the 5 stages I used to teach in hunter ed.... makes no sense until you get to each one.

I don't have kids, but have taken a few out, and LOVE to do it. Private land makes it hard to do though...

I no longer have to kill to be happy, one of the stages was shooting, one was killing, one was limiting out,one trophy hutning, one just being out there...

I still love the meat. I try to take 3-5 deer each year for the meat. Love making sausage. I"m only 46 basically in a few days, but things do get harder.

Funny thing is I almost tend to go deeper and hunt harder now than when younger. Its like I just enjoy it more the more I"m out there and the less folks I have to deal with.

As far as shooting a trophy, I could care less, but it doesnt' mean I dont' have room on the wall and still try like heck. I"m more about managing at this point, make sure enough does are gone, and that trash doesn't breed.... but I still hunt, sometimes to the last minute.

As a different point of view though, while I enjoy camp life, we don't enjoy cooking etc.... we are still there to hunt, not to kick back and cook etc... we do the cooking in the non hunting seasons while out camping. Though others in the camp cook and we take advantage of it, the wife and I alone in camp means sandwiches and naps while not hunting.

Bottom line though, each has to enjoy it on their own. And yep, I am to the point I let deer walk that should be shot.. let a tall spike go last night since we are loading up for a doe/cull hunt on Thursday... and I just really didn't have the time to mess with him and wanted the tags left for the cull hunt anyway. But then he was a yearling.... so no big deal, I can still kill him before he breeds more than likely....

I know I'll probably get to the point of not caring to shoot too.. wife is already there. But I still make this fun to me. Either challenging shots, new guns and bullets so I can "test" issues RE performance out and so on. I switch off... MZ, handgun, rifle, bow, crossbow etc.... it sure keeps it fun that way. I actually don't do the bow itself much anymore since I kinda burned out of that after so many years of bow only.

Life changes. You change with it mostly. And if you are happy and satisfied along the way, thats all that matters. But boy is a nephew going to have his work cut out for him later on... cleaning my deer...but I've done plenty of his and taught him a ton and we've had a blast along the way so I won't feel guilty...

Jeff

JM, like you I have more hunting seasons behind me than ahead of me. I am 66 and hunting big game has not just changed recently, rather it has evolved over the years. When hunting Whitetails as a lad with my granddad, dad and uncles I could not stand or sit. I was always going over the next hill to see what was there. Deer drives - I loved it even though I was the youngest and ended up doing more than my share of driving for the elders.

When all my deer hunting elders passed on I changed to hunting out of tree stands and now I am thinking I need more creature comforts so I am going to build a stand with some of them in it.

When it comes to hunting Mule deer, hunting on foot was the norm much to surprise of my Montana relatives. While they were tooling around in their pickups, I was off-road. - way off-road. Recently a ATV is my friend.

Elk hunting was always on foot, now horses are my friends.

Antelope hunting has really not changed...pickup truck and stalk, pickup truck and stalk, etc.

Moose hunting has not changed either - boat or canoe - spot and stalk.

Bear hunting has changed - no more chasing hounds to the kill. Hunt over bait.

Still have the fire in the belly and hunt dawn to dusk, but am adapting to extend my years in the field.

One of the best changes in my hunting behavior is when hunting Whitetails at my cabin. Go in for a noon lunch, start a fire in the cookstove and take a power nap.

In summation, when it comes to hunting change can be good.

My father is about to turn 57 and had reached this stage that John Moses speaks of. We hunt on about 2,000 acres of private land and he is most happy just to ride around and "check on things" or hang out at the log-cabin camp he built there. He still hunts, but he isn't die-hard on having to kill deer. It's mostly the hunting scene that he enjoys. To be honest, I have just about as much fun going up to the camp and shooting as I do hunting, but I'd imagine that to be fairly common amongst gun nuts.

John,
I wrote this here on the Fire a while back:

One of the older gentleman in the hunting camp in South Carolina explained it as well as anyone.

A hunter goes through stages:

1)Just trying to kill one!
2)Just trying to kill a buck!
3)How many ______ can I kill in a season?
4)How many ______ can I kill at one time?
5)How big a _______ can I kill?
6)Can I beat what I have already killed?
7)How much meat do I need for friends and the freezer?
8)Do I really want to drag that big azzed bastud out of here?
9)There is no freakin' way I can drag that out of here.
10)Man it's nice just to get out here away from everyone.
11)I really enjoy just being here cause I do not know how much longer I can even get here.
12)"Did I ever tell you all about the time I ........"

I am firmly on #7. Although, if a particular critter flips my switch, it gets shot. I just try to be sure I can get help to get it out, vehicle/extra hands.

_________________________
Nothing is fool proof for a sufficiently talented fool !!

To Error is Human, To Forgive is Devine,
Neither is Marine Corps Policy

I just have gotten to the point that I'm more concerned with having a healthy population and working to make sure we have good bucks available than actually shooting one.

I do plan shots a little more carefully now. For instance, if a buck is near the edge of a ravine or deep water, I make damn sure I have a dropping shot on him or I let him get away from those hazards. It's cost me a few good deer.

It's not so much about avoiding a bad drag, as the fact that I have been extremely lucky and never lost an animal.

I don't want to screw that up now, and have eaten out alot of ass over the years about stupid shots and lost animals, so I got people waiting on me to mess up.

So I try to be pretty careful. The kill doesn't mean what it once did, so it's got to be solid for me to shoot at a good buck.

John

Sounds like you are perfectly normal to me!

As an aside...(soapbox time) when I taught hunter ed I always was amazed if you offered up the scenario, you are sighted in at X, and you've never shot past Y, yet a doe shows up at Z distance. You want a doe, you have a tag... IE its all legal, a norther is blowing stiffly, would you shoot. Most say no, and answers are mostly not sure about the shot, don't know the distance, have never shot that far etc....
Then I turn it and give a similar scenario, with a big buck.. buck of a lifetime and make it basically set up so that combined with a short zero and a 25 gusting mph wind... that the distance to the buck is really workable assuming you have a lot of practice, but in reality if you go bang without thinking, you probably have a gut or belly shot depending on the wind... Almost all will take the shot and shoot multiple times. Shows a lot of folks priorities are wrong.

Jeff

Jeff, people get attacked on here all the time for idiotic posts etc....

But that statement is wayyyyyy over the top...