Toughest species you have ever hunted

I haven’t hunted many different game species but here is an insight from moving down south.

After you get used to midwestern whitetails, mainly MI, southeast GA whitetails can present a real problem.

They are way more skittish, more attentive to smells and movement. They move more quietly. I got busted more times in the first season of hunting than I ever did in the entirety of my MI hunting. Bow hunting them is exponentially harder because of the movement required and less coverage offered by the average bow hunting specific stand.

I used to downplay camo but now I wear a face mask even when I’m in a tower blind.

I’m sure others have noticed these regional differences in deer hunting as well.

Feral Hogs...Damn things are smart and tough as nails. Head shots are my preferred target to bring them down quickly.

When I was little I went stripe hunting many times and I never flushed one, as I got older it was the opposite sex but I finally found one about 42yrs ago and stopped hunting them, now I'm struggling getting the coyotes to get close enough to shoot at low light

Esox Masquinongy. The fish of a thousand casts. Then unlike most other game animals, you have to handle it live as it thrashes in your boat, remove your bait from a mouth full of razor blades(as it continues to thrash) and then return it to the water while you aid it to recover. All without getting your boat tore up, your hands torn up, and without getting any of the razor sharp hooks on your bait.....stuck in you. Oh, and without killing the fish.

A large rat in my barn. Took me a month to nail his hide.

Toughest to locate or toughest to kill?

I don't hunt that big of a variety of animals, hogs being the largest and oft-claimed being tough. A lot of that mystique for me faded when I started taking them apart an analyzing exactly where the bullet hit, what its trajectory was, and what was damaged on the way through the hog. Overlapping shots in close proximity, while very good shooting, didn't do a whole lot more damage than the original shot. I learned that I wanted shot impacts to be separated by a few inches, if given the opportunity to choose the shots, so that they damage different areas.

Of course, the only way to shut down a critter is to shut down the CNS. You can do that by direct damage, bullet to the upper CNS, or indirectly through hydraulic shock or hydrostatic shock, neither of which is reliable. You can do it by suffocating the animal with lung shots or by blood loss.

So from cutting up hogs afterwards, things I found that were not uncommon is that a hog may have enough residue oxygen in its blood (and possibly adrenaline) to run up to about 100 yards with a heart shot, though usually much less. A shot to a major blood vessel resulting is visibly gushing on video can have a hog run up to 140 yards. A double lung shot not involving the spine is often a 30 -100 yard run. A single lung shot (n=1) resulted in a 400 yard run. Liver shots were sort of all over the board in terms of distances, but most were under 100 yards as the liver is a good bleeder, but some have gone well over 100 yards.

Whether the hogs drop at 0 yards or run 400 yards, they were just as dead when vital structures were taken out. They didn't know they were dead, yet, and if their legs weren't taken out in the process, then they were fully mobile and did what would be expected. They ran.

I have made 'behind the ear' shots that failed to kill the hog with the first shot and have killed at least two hogs that had mostly healed behind the ear shots. In each case, these were behind the ear, which placed them behind the skull, and were above the spine, resulting in a nice hole drilled through nothing but muscle. These simply weren't lethal shots if there wasn't hydraulic shock or hydrostatic shock.

Hogs do seem to have a great proclivity to run after being hit than some other typical game such as deer and because they often run, we think they are tougher, but it is just a very temporary condition. More is added to the mystique if they manage to run far enough to not be easily found.

In many ways, I think coyotes are very similar. They will often run after being hit. Fortunately for most hunters, they run in circles trying to attack whatever is 'getting them' (the wound) and run out of steam without traveling very far, hence are easier to find. Sometimes, they bolt and run a goodly distance.

Squirrels. The Walter Payton's of the game world. Pound for pound they have no equal.

Definitely, it was a zebra. I hit it 7 times with 140 Nosler Partitions before it dropped. I wanted to shoot it in the neck but the guide said to aim for the lungs. After it was running, I couldn't get a neck shot.

I've killed bull moose and elk. They only took one shot with the same load. Hogs are as easy to drop as deer imo. Same with black bears.

Chamois in Austria.

They're actually easy to kill, it's the getting to where they are that sucks.

I have shot turkeys with a 22 rf also a 410 pistol and all have walked away and I’m pretty sure they laughed.

It’s personal now !

I have often said, and often been criticized, that big whitetails are tough. They are.

Another tough old bird is a rooster pheasant. I've seen them soak up a high-brass load of #6s, hang both legs, and flutter into the next section.

Armored farmer said:

Another tough old bird is a rooster pheasant. I've seen them soak up a high-brass load of #6s, hang both legs, and flutter into the next section.

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Now, if we're talking birds, goldeneyes and mergansers are almost impossible to kill with steel shot.

Archery squirrel

CoalTrain49 said:

Squirrels. The Walter Payton's of the game world. Pound for pound they have no equal.

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I'm going to remember that one!

Armored farmer said:

I have often said, and often been criticized, that big whitetails are tough. They are.

Another tough old bird is a rooster pheasant. I've seen them soak up a high-brass load of #6s, hang both legs, and flutter into the next section.

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Or hit the ground running, never to be seen again....

9x56MS said:

Pretty much everything is harder to kill with steel shot. It was the reason I quit goose hunting.

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Tell it to the Feds.

Mink on a trap line.

Armored farmer said:

I have often said, and often been criticized, that big whitetails are tough. They are.

Another tough old bird is a rooster pheasant. I've seen them soak up a high-brass load of #6s, hang both legs, and flutter into the next section.

Click to expand...

Wild pheasants are second on my list behind squirrels. We hunted with dogs so you had to watch your dog at all times. When I knew where my dog was and a rooster hit the ground I hit him again if I could see him. Broken wings won't slow one down on the ground. Track stars in every sense of the word. They'll even find a hole to hide in. Some people claim turkeys are hard as nails and I have no doubt about that but I've never hunted those. Wild pheasant is much tastier anyway. I've had wild turkey, the kind you eat.

Patocazador said:

Definitely, it was a zebra. I hit it 7 times with 140 Nosler Partitions before it dropped. I wanted to shoot it in the neck but the guide said to aim for the lungs. After it was running, I couldn't get a neck shot.

I've killed bull moose and elk. They only took one shot with the same load. Hogs are as easy to drop as deer imo. Same with black bears.

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How did the Zebra taste?

Barbaroja said:

Archery squirrel

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That would be a challenge. When I get desperate I use a RWS model 36 with a scope. Shoots 2 MOA and that won't leave many survivors at 50 yards. I let most of them live if they stay in their lane. My hanging bird feeders are no mans land. Prepare to die.

Consistently Hardest to kill?
Feral goats.

Single most rounds?
Feral bull Brian shot in the foot as a starter.