How often do you hunt?

[Grayrock]

Just wondering how far behind the norm I am here. If you ask the people I work with, I'm this big time safari dude because I'm always talking up hunting. But if you ask real hunters, I am a pipsqueak. I get to hunt deer usually 1 weekend a year at a friend's ranch, where he lets me hunt free. Then I hunt doves about 3 times when the fall season opens (1 day per hunt, usually). My free time is spent with my family. My wife stays home with the 2 young kids. When I'm off I need to give her a break. On abnormal years I get a hog hunting trip in now and then. Squirrels, skunks and 'coons in my back yard as they present themselves. So how often do you get to go hunting? How many days a year do you spend in the field?

 

[Art Eatman]

During my active years, it was a bunch, particularly if you include coyote calling. Dove, quail, deer and Ol' Wily...I dunno. Probably somewhere around fifty-plus times a year, if you count a couple of hours of hunt for doves or coyotes. During the eleven years on the old family ranch near Austin, I jeeped around checking fence, and always had a gun along; feral cats, mostly.


Nowadays I mostly watch the critters that hang around the house looking for a handout.

Art

 

[birddog]

During October and November, I bowhunt nearly every day, even if it's only a couple hours after work. I bird hunt twice a week while on vacation, usually for about 4 hours each day, while still bowhunting the other half of that day. During gun season for deer, I take a week's vacation and hunt all day every day. After vacation is expended, and I still have tags, I hunt every evening after work, even if it's only for one hour or less. I've been lucky having places close to home to hunt and have found that many, many hours on stand are required if you want to regularly shoot mature deer. I hate hearing "oh, you're so lucky" when people see the deer / bear on my walls. I'm as unlucky as anyone else, I just hunt a lot more than most.

 

[Charles S]

I will hunt 15-20 days in October alone. I have hunted 2 so far and it is only the October the 3rd. I probably won't go hunting again until Wed though, but after that every day until the following Wed.

Charles

 

[LHB1]

How much do I hunt? Not enough. I was really looking forward to retirement when I would have lots of time to hunt and just be outdoors. Then lost lease and haven't been able to hook up with right people/right place. So now I'm retired with no place to hunt. Have to console myself by punching holes in paper at the range.

Good shooting and be safe.
LB

 

[sumpnz]

Big game seasons here are pretty restrictive, and I only have so much vacation time. If I can get 10 days in the field I'm pretty darn lucky (that's not counting scouting).

 

[Lennyjoe]

Every weekend between Oct and 31 January. If it isn't for deer then its for doves, quail and rabbits.

My golf game suffers immensly during hunting season. I put up the clubs and replace them with a bow, rifle or shotgun.

 

[dakotasin]

i go a lot between late september and early march.

usually try to bust a couple antelopes, 3 whitetails, 2-4 mulies, coyotes, pheasant (daily beginning on the 3rd saturday of october), canadian goose, snow goose, might even get half dozen or so duck trips in, and i go prairie doggin' at least monthly beginning in may, and some months it is a weekly event.

so... how many days do i actually hunt (not counting prairie dogs)? best guess would be around 75-100 days. what do i do w/ the other 265-290??? i'm sure i don't know, but wish i could be as productive! time is measured by hunting seasons, broken into hunts... so your 290 days is my sleeping time, evidently!

 

[JJE]

Since I live in Oakland, every hunting trip is a big deal and I probably only spend 6 or 8 whole days hunting. Pig season runs all year in CA, but it's tough going - a lot more hiking and fighting through brush than shooting. For some reason I've never been much interested in deer, and I pretty much have to be begged to go on a deer hunt. Hopefully I'll get a Ruger Single Six .22 before rabbit season ends in January and get in 2 or 3 days this season.

 

[frankt]

I can start bow hunting in the middle of September and finish Gun season the first of january. I usually hunt one or two days every week so it adds up by the end of the year.

 

[Fastman]

I shoot all kinds of creatures in my backyard everyday. Preferably squirrels. The squirrels around here are half rats and have rabies. Cant wait for the leaves to go away.

 

[Oldnamvet]

LHB1 - I am in exactly the same situation. Would hunt a lot more if I had a place to go. Used to go on State land but it is usually hopeless. Years back I had a place all scouted out and knew when and where the deer moved. Muzzleloading season is after rifle season so I gave it a couple of days to calm down and went out. Didn't see or even hear a thing. Looked around in the new snow -- no tracks -- nothing, not a squirrel, rabbit, even bird - nothing. Talked to a farmer nearby and he told me a group of 10 from down state had camped there and marched back and forth every day shooting everything that moved - sparrows, crows, even saw them gingerly carrying a skunk back to camp to show the guys. I don't know if they got any deer (hope not) but they drove everything out of the 80 200 acre patch of state land I wanted to hunt. I went back several days later to check again and still no tracks or sign of anything. During rifle season, State land is risky. I had bullets clipping branches over my head so got out and haven't been back. Will only hunt on leased/private land now. Farmer where I used to hunt sold it to, get this, a group of guys from downstate who wanted to hunt. Sure hope they weren't some of the same clowns - unlikely.
Long winded post and result is that I have to go with an outfitter and pay him if I want to hunt (which I do). Expensive so I get to go every other year, maybe more often when social security kicks in.

 

[tuna]

As often as possible. I'm usually fighting sunset, since I've got an area I can hunt birds 10 minutes away from work. You'll usually see me running out the door half dressed once pheasant season comes around.
I have exceptionally terrible luck with deer, so my enthusiam usually wanes after 5 or 6 outings. I still plug away from pheasant opener in mid October to the last day of muzzleloading season on New Year's Eve Day.