What's yer total?

[Dave N]

I used to keep the pins the same stopped when the check stations went to the wayside.

I make sure to get one for each deer. I keep them in a beer glass and until this year we used them as ornaments for the Christmas tree.

 

[The Hedgehog]

I was just joking I’ve shot 2 cows. One in the Bridgers, one in the bitterroot back in the college days. Things have changed since then. The more impressive stat would be 25 bulls and no raghorns? I was happy as hell when I shot a small 5 point north of Missoula, my first bull. I will not be posting my stats to save myself the embarrassment.

I've got a SE MT cow B tag that I was expecting to use. No freezer space though, otherwise I would have made a trip over to try. Pretty sure I'm totally done with doe deer for the remainder of my life though. Not sure on antelope does, probably them too even though they are pretty great eating.

 

[Doublecluck]

I should go to church or ask for forgiveness or something. that’s the count.

 

[Nick87]

I really have no idea. That's not saying there's been that many but it kind of blurs together. Out of state though 3 muleys. 1 pronghorn.

 

[Bambistew]

Not to detract too much from the original post, but it would be pretty neat to hear your favorite two or three hunts.

For myself, I have taken a dozen elk with half of them bulls, close to the same number of deer and bucks, and one bison. Been on a 30 day Alaska hunt helping my dad (one moose, one grizz, one caribou), packed out a Utah moose that was brutal, and been on a mountain goat hunt that made me question my sanity. Only missed one animal and it still haunts me.

There are some good stories on here, but I'm prejudice. My honeymoon sheep hunt in 2012 was pretty good. Dislocated shoulder, run in with a pack of wolverines, and a scuffle with a sow/cubs on a glacier... all while packing two smoker rams and camp over the course of two days.

One trip, I dont' think I posted here was when my dads long-time friends/first clients from IA, OH and MA and two of their "kids" came elk hunting with us. The last year they were all alive. We shot 6 bulls and a cow the first day of the season, everyone tagged out except for my dad, who didn't want to pack any more elk, he passed up a nice bull that about ran him over on the trail. We packed fuggn elk for a week it seemed, and had horses.

Another good one was the unanticipated over night trip caribou hunt. Wyodeerhunter(banned) shot a B&C (or damn close) bull. We ended up chucking the antlers in the bushes because we had all we could chew and a long as ways back to camp. We got back to camp more than 24hrs later after crossing a river probably a dozen times, a few of those times water was waist deep. We saw 7-8 bears in 2 days, and ran across a giant grizz laying on a hillside about 200 yards away that just watched us walk by. We were too worn out to even think about skinning one. We didn't take many pictures, but it was a very memorable trip. Sheep, moose, bears, bou all in a couple days. Don't trust contours on a map...

 

[Nick87]

I make sure to get one for each deer. I keep them in a beer glass and until this year we used them as ornaments for the Christmas tree.

My mom bought me a really nice glass display case for them in middle school I should have kept it going. It held 33 pins I remember thinking I'll never fill this thing...looking back I'd likely have filled it twice by now.

 

[FairWeather]

That’s easy,

0!!

 

[DFS]

My best muley I shot when I was in high school. My brother was in college at Butte and left at 4 am when he got off thanksgiving week excited to go hunting. I slept in woke up and decided to go hunting, he got there just in time to help me drag it out. Rut hunting the great equalizer. The look on his face when he saw it was priceless. Things have certainly changed for Montana hunting. Glad I caught the tail end of it. No plans on stacking up body counts like many on here.

 

[BuzzH]

My sea gull number would be surpassed only by someone who specialized in explosives.

My buddy Tom asked some people on our Alaska fishing trip one time what they would do if they had only one day left to live.

They gave the usual responses then the older lady asked Tom, "do you know what you would do?".

Without missing a beat Tom said, "Absolutely, I'd fill that giant fish box with 12 gauge shells and shoot seagulls all day off a garbage barge"...

There was no more questions...

 

[The Hedgehog]

I do keep track and have been keeping journals for a long time as well. Almost embarrassing to post this but I guess I will:

Elk: 83
Deer (total, coues, whitetail, blacktail, mule deer): 128
Moose: 4
Bighorn: 2
Desert Sheep: 1
Dall Sheep:1
Black bear: 5
Pronghorn: 78
Musk ox: 1
Mountain goat: 1
Lion: 1
oryx: 1

I've also shot a lot of hogs, sika, fallow, axis, aoudad, etc. on a buddies place in Texas, didn't keep track of those.

I'm slowing down as I get older I could easily have a bunch more pronghorn, I haven't killed a doe in over dozen years. I don't shoot many deer anymore either.

Been sort of tough on the elk since moving to Wyoming though.

How in the absolute hell can you keep count of 200+ deer/elk kills? And you seem to take at least triple the amount of folks out as you hunt for your own animals.. that’s a lot of knife use.

Only 5 bears? My guess in the spring the LAST thing you want to do is hunt.

 

[BuzzH]

How in the absolute hell can you keep count of 200+ deer/elk kills? And you seem to take at least triple the amount of folks out as you hunt for your own animals.. that’s a lot of knife use.

Only 5 bears? My guess in the spring the LAST thing you want to do is hunt.

Just wrote them all on index cards since I was 12. I have every single tag as well, a few gallon zip locs full. My first punched deer and elk tags were $2 each.

I do take a lot of friends/family and I do most, if not all the knife work. Do my share of the packing as well.

I enjoy helping them.

 

[The Hedgehog]

Just wrote them all on index cards since I was 12. I have every single tag as well, a few gallon zip locs full.

I do take a lot of friends/family and I do most, if not all the knife work. Do my share of the packing as well.

I enjoy helping them.

What’s the best knife you own?

 

[Dougfirtree]

I counted once a few years ago, though my note taking has gone by the wayside. 60-something all up probably? As is common in middle age (I'm 36), I've gotten better at finding legal animals, but also much pickier in what I want to bring home.

Damn, is 36 middle-age now?

 

[BuzzH]

What’s the best knife you own?

The bigger havalon...no question. You can flat get some shit cut up with that thing. Plus it's easy to resharpen the blades and I can get them sharper in about 5 minutes than when they're new.

 

[BackofBeyond]

13 elk (10 bulls, 3 cow)
21 Whitetail (~50/50)
5 MD (all bucks)
7 bears (4 boar, 3 sow)
4 Axis (all bucks)
8 Blackbuck (all Bucks)
1 Gemsbok (bull)

 

[rogerthat]

I was just joking I’ve shot 2 cows. One in the Bridgers, one in the bitterroot back in the college days. Things have changed since then. The more impressive stat would be 25 bulls and no raghorns? I was happy as hell when I shot a small 5 point north of Missoula, my first bull. I will not be posting my stats to save myself the embarrassment.

Your stats ain’t that bad.

 

[Carl]

I've been keeping notes since I moved to Montana. It keeps me from mis-remembering and I enjoy looking through the log from time to time.

 

[The Hedgehog]

I've been keeping notes since I moved to Montana. It keeps me from mis-remembering and I enjoy looking through the log from time to time.

Was scrolling down, looking for 2022, but no such luck.

 

[FI460]

I did some back of the napkin calculations and came up with what I believe to be an accurate accounting.

11 12 blacktail bucks- Edit: I just remembered another forky.
5 whitetail bucks
1 mule deer buck

Of those 17 were in my first 12 years of hunting, and just 2 in the last 9 years. Yikes...

1 turkey hen
1 coyote

 

[Carl]

Was scrolling down, looking for 2022, but no such luck.

Ha! There's the finish. I need to spend more time hunting...