The average western hunter

[utah400elk]

My Dad shot a deer today. About a half mile later found this.

I'm not afraid to hike in the dark, but I get why some aren't keen to.

Hunting in grizzly area would definitely change how I hike in and out in the dark. This guy almost cried when we were hunting in unit 15 in NM for elk. No big bears. He was more afraid of snakes and in general the dark. He needed two to three flash lights just to take a piss. Kind of funny to me. Now if I had seen a big grizz track like that, I would have been a little more cautious.

 

[mtmuley]

I access where I hunt mostly from a gate on a closed road although I do use other access points. Seems like people will go further on a road or trail than they will off of them. When I leave the road or trail I am by myself. mtmuley

 

[elkhuntinfool78]

Imo there are way more people willing to go in farther these days than I saw 10 years ago. It's made it harder to get away from the crowds. I agree with mtmuley that getting off the main trails is key however I still have ran into a few guys in spots i never would have thought I'd see anyone. For myself finding success means longs hikes in the dark off trail.

 

[hank4elk]

Used to never see anyone way back. Except on main trails. A few.
I have always used game trails or no trails to hunt from. A quarter mile from trailheads and trails have been productive recently.
Over the ridge where everyone is driving....asking if I have seen any elks.

Hunters here just watched several road hunters drive right by herds of elk.No clue. 100 yards away from road.
None here so they are heading behind my mesa to walk into the wind.

 

[Pagosa]

I'm finding more hunters both along the roads and in remote areas. We have hiked several miles and hour or hour half before daylight and have multiple hunters with the same plan. Road hunting in crazy in the area I'm in, I feel bad for the wildlife in Montana

 

[WesternWyoming]

I'm happy for road hunters. That means there are fewer folks on the game trails where I hunt.

 

[BuzzH]

There's your argument for hunting elk and deer with a 375 H&H...............

7-08 for me even in griz country, I'm not skeered. Will use it to hunt grizzlies too.

 

[406dn]

I'm going to be nicer than some. Every hunter is dealing with something. It might be physical, it might be emotional. Most people do not like to get too far from their comfort zone.

A big consideration is can you get an animal out if you get one. If you are older, out of shape, dealing with a bum back, you aren't going in very deep.

That said, the worst thing about being a road hunter is that so much of what a hunt offers, goes missing. This fall, while we did not kill a bull, we saw many interesting things. We saw fresh black bear tracks most every day, in the area we hunted. I'm a bit surprised we did not get a glimpse of it. We were into cows and spikes nearly every day, but not brow tined bulls. But it is always fun to have elk close by.

Last year after I killed my bull, we packed it out on horses, to a road, since that was much closer than getting back to where we were camped. I rode one horse back to camp, my brother stayed with the other horse and the meat. When driving a truck up the road, I came around a curve. The was a pickup parked in the middle of the road, with a hunter standing in front of it, using his binoculars. He was 40ish and likely north of 250 pounds. It amused me that he was glassing from the road, at maybe 1030 in the morning. I don't think his plan included getting in deep.

When we hunted a different area, where horses can't easily go off trail, we were in about 9 miles hunting and exploring. When eating a lunch we heard animals wading the creek. It was a pair of hunters on horses, doing what we were doing. Where we hunt now, there is far more solitude, even thou we are rarely a mile from the road.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

I was hunting in griz country today, and after @BuzzH posted that pic yesterday I was a little on edge , just because I’ve seen a griz twice down there this year, last one was danger close at 40 some yds… I couldn’t get that bear out of my head this morning

Every time I heard something weird I’m spinning around thinking he’s gonna be like 15 feet behind me coming to eat me. Ha ha ha ,

I was hunting in a blizzard, hoping it would push some elk down out of the hills, but the only thing I saw was a whitetail little buck cruise past me at 100yds



I got back into hunting about a decade ago after my divorce and heavily pressured public land is the only thing I’ve known and I just figure out how to make it work, I’m stubborn and I just keep grinding every day.

Driving out , 2 different groups of bulls looking at me from private that have already slipped through my area . One of these days I’m gonna get one of these big boys to walk in front of my rifle, but until then I’ll be back in the woods at sunrise tomorrow.

 

[Hunt&FishCO]

The “average” western hunter:

- Won’t be in the woods before/after dark
- Hunts morning & evenings
- Will not hike uphill/downhill or further than 3/4 of a mile from a truck
- Hunts weekends only
- Does not have time to scout
- Does not understand forage, migratory patterns, weather, etc that impact behavior
- Repurposes Whitetail hunting tactics
- Does not hunt inclement weather
- Does not hunt late season
- Will not cross water
- <10% successful on any given year
- Prioritizes comfort over success

 

[Ought Six]

The “average” western hunter:

- Won’t be in the woods before/after dark
- Hunts morning & evenings
- Will not hike uphill/downhill or further than 3/4 of a mile from a truck
- Hunts weekends only
- Does not have time to scout
- Does not understand forage, migratory patterns, weather, etc that impact behavior
- Repurposes Whitetail hunting tactics
- Does not hunt inclement weather
- Does not hunt late season
- Will not cross water
- <10% successful on any given year
- Prioritizes comfort over success

Solid description

 

[TOGIE]

- Repurposes Whitetail hunting tactics

this has always been the most baffling one to me.

guys i know that grew up in colorado, grew up hunting in colorado, their parents grew up in colorado, their parents taught them how to hunt and your only elk hunting tactic to is just go sit in same 3-4 meadows 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening every fall? this is the best you've been able to come up with across two generations of western hunting?

how can that be real? and it's a pretty damn good profile of the average colorado elk hunter.

remember folks, the harvest stats can be misleading for many reasons, the average hunter being not insignificant among them.

 

[shb]

If everyone was a genius, there'd never be any margins.

 

[DFS]

this has always been the most baffling one to me.

guys i know that grew up in colorado, grew up hunting in colorado, their parents grew up in colorado, their parents taught them how to hunt and your only elk hunting tactic to is just go sit in same 3-4 meadows 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening every fall? this is the best you've been able to come up with across two generations of western hunting?

how can that be real? and it's a pretty damn good profile of the average colorado elk hunter.

remember folks, the harvest stats can be misleading for many reasons, the average hunter being not insignificant among them.

I think success would increase if everybody used that technique.

 

[TOGIE]

I think success would increase if everybody used that technique.

I mean one of the guys i've known who's been using that technique his whole life has put down 3 bulls in 21 or 22 years of hunting in the same unit in the same area. So, let's call it 14% success whereas the statewide average rifle is 18%.

Seems like the guys I know who have mastered the spot and stalk tactics, especially in units they know well, tend be batting closer to 500 or, for some, far better. Some don't go a year without a bull. Some willfully pass on stuff and choose to go home empty handed.

Sort of an impossible question to be sure. If everyone hunted the same way who knows how the dynamics on the mountain would change favorably or unfavorably.

Really my point was when you consider the average hunter and the type of success they have the way they hunt, it shouldn't take all the much to push yourself above average.

 

[Dsnow9]

I learned to elk hunt like the average hunter you speak of. We camped in the same spot and checked the same couple spots every day. For the first couple years as a team we were around 50% for tags filled. Then the area got over grazed by sheep and cattle and we didn’t see an elk for a couple years.

I started hunting my own way after that. It was a big learning curve but feel like I turned the corner a few years ago after a lot of hard lessons and miles.

 

[hank4elk]

I learned to elk hunt like the average hunter you speak of. We camped in the same spot and checked the same couple spots every day. For the first couple years as a team we were around 50% for tags filled. Then the area got over grazed by sheep and cattle and we didn’t see an elk for a couple years.

I started hunting my own way after that. It was a big learning curve but feel like I turned the corner a few years ago after a lot of hard lessons and miles.

You turned the corner and crashed head on into them.

 

[Dsnow9]

You turned the corner and crashed head on into them.

Hahahaha

Yeah it’s been a wild couple of years!

 

[TOGIE]

I learned to elk hunt like the average hunter you speak of. We camped in the same spot and checked the same couple spots every day. For the first couple years as a team we were around 50% for tags filled. Then the area got over grazed by sheep and cattle and we didn’t see an elk for a couple years.

I started hunting my own way after that. It was a big learning curve but feel like I turned the corner a few years ago after a lot of hard lessons and miles.

The crux right there IMO.

I know folks who are on the verge of hanging up the rifles because their units have changed. They can't draw every year anymore, the pressure dynamics have changed, the grazing leases like you said, whatever it is, it's changed and their unit isn't working anymore. But they never learned how to hunt and can't imagine where else to go or what else to do now because all they know are their dozen different meadows and their same campsite every. single. year.

Nothing wrong with it at the end of the day. It's just not the recipe for success in my book, especially long term.

 

[Gr8bawana]

I have seen the same thing here in NV and in AZ. Last month while helping my brother on his cow elk hunt people were doing the same thing, driving up and down the roads on quads or pickup trucks.
We had one herd of elk simply wander back into a screen of brush and watch two clowns drive within 40 yards of them. We actually heard them talking very loudly to each other to be heard over the sound of their quad at least 5 minutes before we saw them.