How and where do you hunt?

Donut Slayer · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 6:42 pm Post subject: How and where do you hunt?

I'm curious as to how and where other hunters hunt in other areas around the country and world. Here in the south, we have a long tradition of hunting with dogs. The dogs drive the deer to "standers". I havent hunted like that, I still hunt. That is find a tree and climb and hopefully catch a deer or hog moving. Dog hunting has recieved a lot of political pressure to end here in the past few years and the numbers have dwindled. I used to have private land to hunt, but the land owner sold out, and I have had to hunt public land for the past several years. I dont like being in the woods with some of these armed dummies, so this year I coughed up the money and got into a hunting club. It wasnt cheap, but now I dont have to worry about getting shot or have my tires flattened cause I hunted somebodies favorite spot on public land.

Pumpkinslinger · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

Also in the South. Most deer hunting here seems to be from tree stands. Hunting areas are relatively small, at least where I get to hunt, and not much chance for spot-and-stalk. Also hunting from a tree tends to make the bullet go down, decreasing the chance of a shot hitting something it shouldn't. That said, my closest shots have been taken while I was on the ground, sneaking in or sneaking out.

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

Rocky Mts, usually around 8000ft elevation. Here's a quick video I took while returning from a successful hunt. It was a beautiful albeit rainy day.

utahsportsmen.com/vide...EO0056.3gp

-DallanC

Donut Slayer · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 7:36 pm Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

DallanC wrote:

Rocky Mts, usually around 8000ft elevation. Here's a quick video I took while returning from a successful hunt. It was a beautiful albeit rainy day.

utahsportsmen.com/vide...EO0056.3gp

-DallanC

Now thats what I'm talking about. I'd love to hunt out west in the mountains and do a glass and stalk. A few years back while on vacation in Colorado, my boy and I stalked a mule deer from about 500 yards to 30. Kept the ridges between us and the wind in our face. It wasnt hunting season, but was a thrill none the less. I'm going back one of these days and hunt for real.
First pic full zoom:

We got this close:

Suzanne · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:17 pm Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

When I lived in Arizona the hunting was so different than here in Oregon. In Az. you can see for miles, glassing the hills and canyons then stalking, or you can just sit on a hilltop and sooner or later you either get too drunk or it gets too dark and you end up running into cactus on the way down or starting a fire and spending the night with the snakes and coyotes keeping you awake unless you have more booze, then you can sing along with the coyotes, they like a chorus at night.

Here in Oregon you go out to your local tree farm sort of forest and find a dirt road that dead-ends on a recently logged hillside and glass to your heart's content, well if that's what you want to do cause most folks here just run the dirt roads hopping to see a deer cross it, then they chase after it. I've still not figured it out....eastern Oregon is like Az. hunting or the high desert as it's called, but I live in western Oregon and unless you're friends with a private land owner you end up hunting the timber farmed, very dense dark forest. There's deer in there you just have to be lucky. I found a sparsely treed hill that I go to every year (shot one deer there) and if anybody else is in there I try and spoil their day if I can and end up with the place all to my own the rest of the season. Just my way of sayin howdy. There's a bear in there that's taken up residence now and I haven't seen a deer in there in years, except for my game camera you'd think there weren't any deer in there. There's some nice ones but they're spooky. If I was able, I'd spend my time in eastern Or. and have better chances. I've lived with muledeer and know them pretty well and that's the deer eastern Or. has, really nice ones too.

Beautiful country Dallan
Great close-up
DonutSlayer

Suz

Elvis · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

Us Kiwi fellas don a pair of racing bullers and go stalking in the bush/forest eg we go walkies and when we find a good area or fresh sign we engage low ratio four wheel drive (walk slowly) into the wind till we hopefully spot and shoot the beastie before removing the poohs n wees bits and giving it a piggyback ride home to the freezer.
some of our hunting is more spot and snipe.....sit glassing bush edges or grassy faces usually near cover.
MOST north island hunting is bush stalking whereas alot of the south island stuff is bush edge or alpine.

gelandangan · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 11:43 pm Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

Here in Oz, the land are vast.

Often private hunting ground can cover 100 000 (100 thousand) acres or more.
Some hunters here like to shoot from their vehicles (4wd, bikes, dune buggies etc) since it is quite difficult and often dangerous to walk.
Besides due to the dryness of some area in a vast area often game are scarce, so to cover a lot of land you may need to use vehicles.
Sometime they use helicopters or ultra light plane to find the animal before sending the cars.

OTOH, personally I more likely to go to public lands (state forests) here we drive to a likely spot then walk it.
I only went to a few really large hunting ground and I can tell you that the experience is AWESOME!!!

Vince · Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 11:57 pm Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

Gelan summed things up pretty well. Large areas, often very dry, but mostly private land.

I only hunt private property where I have been able to get approval from the land owner. I don't do a lot of walking these days because my knees simply aren't up to it now, so I usually move in by vehicle, have a short walk around then sit and snipe. Spot lighting at night is quite common and I have used this method for rabbits, fox, roos, cats and deer. I'd like to be able to afford a 4WD quad bike, but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

shrpshtrjoe · Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 2:34 am Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

Small woodlots and hunting from tree stands here. I got a new lease this year I'm hoping it turns out some deer Very Happy

Bushmaster · Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 8:03 am Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

A minor correction Donut Slayer. "Still hunting" is not climbing a tree. Still hunters are on the move in that they will stealthily walk 10 to 15 feet and stop, look and wait. Then repeat.

I was taught a long time ago to still hunt and track. I hunted the Cascades of the Great Northwest and the Sierras.

I haven't hunted sense moving to Missouri mostly because I can not hunt safely. The hunters here are ambushers rather then hunters. They "climb trees" and wait for the game to come to them. I have a feeling that if I was hunting I might get shot (mistakenly or not) when crossing an "ambushers" line of sight.

Donut Slayer · Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 8:23 am Post subject: Re: How and where do you hunt?

"I have a feeling that if I was hunting I might get shot (mistakenly or not) when crossing an "ambushers" line of sight." to quote Bushy. And I agree, thats why I dont hunt public land. Too dangerous with all the toothless rednecks around here. Every year someone gets killed by somebody else shooting at a sound in the bushes.

tikkat3 · Super Member Joined: Jul 30, 2006 Posts: 800

I know its fuzzy, I know I have posted it before.
If you ignore the chooks on the road and look towards the horizon
There is a lot of ground to cover and cover is very sparse.

tikkat3 · Super Member Joined: Jul 30, 2006 Posts: 800

But you can be rewarded with sights like this when you get close to water

Victorian · Member Joined: Jul 07, 2014 Posts: 29 Location: Melbourne

Takes me about a 2 hour drive to get to anywhere to hunt. I am about 1000 miles south of Gelandangan and 2000 miles South of Vince, its not so big or dry. A lot of Sambar deer hunting in what we call high country forest (less than 5000 ft). Public land managed by State Forestry Commission. A lot of hunters use hounds to drive deer to guns. Others stalk or still hunt (tree stands are rare if any) and some use GSPs, GWPs, etc to help find deer.

Fallow deer are often on private land.

Deer have no closed season, no bag limits.

Roos are protected except on private land with cull permits.

Victorian · Member Joined: Jul 07, 2014 Posts: 29 Location: Melbourne

Having trouble with pics. This is typical sambar country [img]