Nick87
Well-known member
Somebody had to say it..maybe has something to do with there diet in other places?
What's yer total?
- Thread starter TOGIE
- Start date
The Hedgehog
Well-known member
I got my first elk in 94 and can remember the last day of season every year I didn’t get one, counting on one hand. I don’t remember having fun those exact days, but there was some fun even those no elk years.
The Hedgehog
Well-known member
Is that legal?
BAKPAKR
Well-known member
36 is middle age? Crap!!!!
Hunting Wife
Well-known member
I didn’t start hunting until late. I think I started in 2005 or 2006? Can’t even remember that. I started with deer, then over the years added new species as they started to intrigue me. Elk would be the most recent new species for me. Didn’t take an interest or try hunting them myself until about 5 years ago.
Other stats pertaining to comments in this thread:
I guess I’m a conservative shooter because I don’t miss very often. Not afraid to wait or let them go. Never lost one that I know was dead, yet.
I think most of mine have been taken in the 10 am to 2 pm time, followed by sunrise to 10 am. I think the reasons for that are two-fold. I like being out and spotting at sunrise, but sometimes it takes hours to close the distance or make the stalk. And I also spot a lot of animals when they get up to move midday.
No actual tally and I can’t remember them all but ballpark:
Elk- 1 bull, 1 cow. For those tracking misses, shaved the neck hair off the first elk I ever shot at. Killed my first the next day.
WT deer maybe 10, half of those being bucks. Drew 2 drops of blood from one buck that I never found.
MD probably pushing 20, mostly bucks. Completely missed the biggest buck I ever had a shot at my second year of hunting.
One blacktail in AK.
Antelope have to be around 9 bucks and 3 does now? I’ve completely missed 3 that I can remember, usually because I misjudged the distance.
Turkeys I think 4?
Coyotes I’ve missed way more than I’ve killed. I don’t know why but I get the worst buck fever when coyotes are coming in than any other hunting. What in the world is wrong with me?
Birds- no tally but the species list is something like redhead, canvasback, mallard, greenwings, bluewings, gadwall, pintails, hoodies, wood ducks, lesser scaup, common goldeneyes, long-tailed duck, Canada geese, snow geese, specks, cranes, tundra swan, ruffed grouse, sage grouse, sharpies, huns, pheasants, mourning dove, California quail.
I think that’s it.
Other stats pertaining to comments in this thread:
I guess I’m a conservative shooter because I don’t miss very often. Not afraid to wait or let them go. Never lost one that I know was dead, yet.
I think most of mine have been taken in the 10 am to 2 pm time, followed by sunrise to 10 am. I think the reasons for that are two-fold. I like being out and spotting at sunrise, but sometimes it takes hours to close the distance or make the stalk. And I also spot a lot of animals when they get up to move midday.
No actual tally and I can’t remember them all but ballpark:
Elk- 1 bull, 1 cow. For those tracking misses, shaved the neck hair off the first elk I ever shot at. Killed my first the next day.
WT deer maybe 10, half of those being bucks. Drew 2 drops of blood from one buck that I never found.
MD probably pushing 20, mostly bucks. Completely missed the biggest buck I ever had a shot at my second year of hunting.
One blacktail in AK.
Antelope have to be around 9 bucks and 3 does now? I’ve completely missed 3 that I can remember, usually because I misjudged the distance.
Turkeys I think 4?
Coyotes I’ve missed way more than I’ve killed. I don’t know why but I get the worst buck fever when coyotes are coming in than any other hunting. What in the world is wrong with me?
Birds- no tally but the species list is something like redhead, canvasback, mallard, greenwings, bluewings, gadwall, pintails, hoodies, wood ducks, lesser scaup, common goldeneyes, long-tailed duck, Canada geese, snow geese, specks, cranes, tundra swan, ruffed grouse, sage grouse, sharpies, huns, pheasants, mourning dove, California quail.
I think that’s it.
Irrelevant
Well-known member
Maybe, I used to think that way too, but anymore I think it's just like everything else, prep and proper cooking style, don't overdo it.
Every different animal I’ve ever eaten that someone told me tasted like crap and I shouldnt bother with tasted great.
My rule of thumb, if someone says an animal tastes bad it actually tastes just fine, if not good.
The weirdest part is a few of my friends that are adamant about mule deer tasting bad have actually never shot a mule deer
appaloosa
Well-known member
Guys who keep an accurate tally of how many animals they have harvested probably measure the length of their d*ck with a ruler too?
RyGuy
Well-known member
Do you use a caliper? Or a protractor, or what
appaloosa
Well-known member
GPS
BackofBeyond
Well-known member
Speaking for myself - micrometer, not a ruler.
Range finder
The new ones adjust for angle
I have had people tell me that I don't know how to cook duck. I admit it, I am ok with it, because it turns out that they didn't know how to cook duck either.
Nick87
Well-known member
I prefer a ruler as it let's me push into the belly a little further thus giving me that little extra I need.
buffybr
Well-known member
I didn't start hunting until I was in college and had some roommates from NW Colorado that invited me to hunt with them. My first hunt was in 1965 where I shot a spike mulie buck and I proudly hung his antlers on my college bedroom wall. The next year I went with them again and shot my first elk, a 5 point bull. Again, I hung his antlers on my wall. That got me hooked on hunting and now I can say that I've had a pretty exceptional hunting career.
I moved from NW Colorado to Montana in 1975 which was before the big hunting craze that we have now. Back then we could buy an over the counter Grizzly tag for $25 and all of the Montana hunting units bordering Yellowstone NP had Unlimited Bighorn Ram tags that were also $25. I also had a couple of horses back then that helped put comfortable camps in the backcountry and they carried my deer, elk, and moose out. Unfortunately, I didn't take full advantage of those cheap (and available!) tags.
In the late '70s and early '80s I did get lucky in the special tag drawings and I shot 3 Bighorn rams (Unlimited tags), 2 Shiras bull moose and a Mountain Goat. All were DIY hunts and all but one ram and one moose were solo hunts.
The only animals that I wrote down the number that I shot were elk. I have a couple of pages in a little bound book that I wrote down the year, the number of points if it was a bull or if it was a cow, where I shot it and sometimes what I shot it with. It has 35 entries. I've never kept count of the number of deer or pronghorn antelope that I've shot, but I'm sure the deer number is over 40 and antelope is over 30.
The only "lower 48" American hunts that I've paid to hunt and had a guide for were an exotic hunt in Texas, an American Buffalo hunt here in Montana, and a Mountain Lion hunt in Colorado.
In 2000 I went through a very ugly divorce where she tried to get every penny that she could from me. For example, I had shoulder mounts of my largest elk and largest Shiras moose, that I had shot and had mounted years before I even met her. She listed the elk mount with a $15,000 value and the moose as $12,000, and she wanted the court to award her half of those values.
Luckily, it didn't, but afterwards that got me to make a computer spreadsheet of all of my taxidermy. I have the cost of all of my taxidermy listed in one column of that spreadsheet. I have 80 animals listed in that spreadsheet and have those 80 mounts in my house.
In the 20+ years since my divorce, I've been able to go on 6 African hunts, a hunt in New Zealand, and a hunt in Azerbaijan. I've also been able to go on 7 hunts in Canada and Alaska. I've brought home 40 animals from Africa to be mounted, and I shot another 10 or so animals there for camp meat or for leopard bait.
I've shot and have mounts of 18 of the 29 species of North American animals plus a Wolverine and Coyotes.
In 1988 I built an addition to my house that included a 1,000 sf Trophy room on the top level. Back then I only had about a dozen animal mounts and had only dreamed of hunting outside of the US. Now I have 60 mounts in that room. I call it "Kurt's Critter Cave" as it's full of horny critters.
I posted a thread titled "48 Years of Memories" in the Taxidermy section of this Forum that I think has pictures of all of my taxidermy mounts.
I moved from NW Colorado to Montana in 1975 which was before the big hunting craze that we have now. Back then we could buy an over the counter Grizzly tag for $25 and all of the Montana hunting units bordering Yellowstone NP had Unlimited Bighorn Ram tags that were also $25. I also had a couple of horses back then that helped put comfortable camps in the backcountry and they carried my deer, elk, and moose out. Unfortunately, I didn't take full advantage of those cheap (and available!) tags.
In the late '70s and early '80s I did get lucky in the special tag drawings and I shot 3 Bighorn rams (Unlimited tags), 2 Shiras bull moose and a Mountain Goat. All were DIY hunts and all but one ram and one moose were solo hunts.
The only animals that I wrote down the number that I shot were elk. I have a couple of pages in a little bound book that I wrote down the year, the number of points if it was a bull or if it was a cow, where I shot it and sometimes what I shot it with. It has 35 entries. I've never kept count of the number of deer or pronghorn antelope that I've shot, but I'm sure the deer number is over 40 and antelope is over 30.
The only "lower 48" American hunts that I've paid to hunt and had a guide for were an exotic hunt in Texas, an American Buffalo hunt here in Montana, and a Mountain Lion hunt in Colorado.
In 2000 I went through a very ugly divorce where she tried to get every penny that she could from me. For example, I had shoulder mounts of my largest elk and largest Shiras moose, that I had shot and had mounted years before I even met her. She listed the elk mount with a $15,000 value and the moose as $12,000, and she wanted the court to award her half of those values.
Luckily, it didn't, but afterwards that got me to make a computer spreadsheet of all of my taxidermy. I have the cost of all of my taxidermy listed in one column of that spreadsheet. I have 80 animals listed in that spreadsheet and have those 80 mounts in my house.
In the 20+ years since my divorce, I've been able to go on 6 African hunts, a hunt in New Zealand, and a hunt in Azerbaijan. I've also been able to go on 7 hunts in Canada and Alaska. I've brought home 40 animals from Africa to be mounted, and I shot another 10 or so animals there for camp meat or for leopard bait.
I've shot and have mounts of 18 of the 29 species of North American animals plus a Wolverine and Coyotes.
In 1988 I built an addition to my house that included a 1,000 sf Trophy room on the top level. Back then I only had about a dozen animal mounts and had only dreamed of hunting outside of the US. Now I have 60 mounts in that room. I call it "Kurt's Critter Cave" as it's full of horny critters.
I posted a thread titled "48 Years of Memories" in the Taxidermy section of this Forum that I think has pictures of all of my taxidermy mounts.
Because that thread by @buffybr is worth looking at, here is the link - https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/48-years-of-memories.290279/
Mtnhunter1
Well-known member
Your divorce statement brought back memories that I have not thought about in a very long time. A buddy of mine went through a similar bad divorce in the early 80's. At that time, he was married to his high school sweetheart and was consumed with being the youngest person to acquire a sheep slam. He returned from a 21 day stone hunt to find that his wife had completely emptied out their house. Well not completely, she did leave him one paper plate, cup, plastic utensils and a napkin. Held all his mounts in a locked storage as hostage until she got half the declared value, which she did. Completely wrecked my buddy for few years after that life experience and ended his dream. He did accomplish his goal in later years though.
Sorry to derail. This thread has been a fun read.
