What is your favorite style of hunting?

[red rick]

I think stalking would be a fun way to hunt , but it would not work in the terrain I hunt . My favorite hunting is muzzleloader , during the rut from a treestand . Second is rabbit hunting with short leg beagles .

 

[Robert]

I hunt with this lunitic who believes that w have to climb the highest peaks and cover miles upon miles of ridges, valleys and steep nasty terrain. It is a great adventure. We see some country that few others will ever see. And he has yet to break me off, even when pulling up steep, steep mountain sides.

 

[sage5907]

When I was young I did a lot of still hunting and spot & stalk type hunting but as time went by I found out that it doesn't get as many big mature bucks as other methods. Now my favorite way to hunt is to use my binoculars to pattern an animal, and then select a stand location that will put me within 200 yards of the animal for the shot. For me it's like a chess game as I find the animal, pattern the animal, select a stand location, and then make the final shot. I have never shot an animal using a box blind and I never will. The perfect hunting situation for me is have a vantage point in thick cover, with cover behind my back, the wind in my face, sitting in the shade,all the time knowing that the big buck will walk down a trail I am watching. The animal you are hunting should never see your shape, shine, shadow or silouette.

 

[H&Hhunter]

When I was young I did a lot of still hunting and spot & stalk type hunting but as time went by I found out that it doesn't get as many big mature bucks as other methods. Now my favorite way to hunt is to use my binoculars to pattern an animal, and then select a stand location that will put me within 200 yards of the animal for the shot. For me it's like a chess game as I find the animal, pattern the animal, select a stand location, and then make the final shot. I have never shot an animal using a box blind and I never will. The perfect hunting situation for me is have a vantage point in thick cover, with cover behind my back, the wind in my face, sitting in the shade,all the time knowing that the big buck will walk down a trail I am watching. The animal you are hunting should never see your shape, shine, shadow or silouette.

Old age is a steep price to pay for maturity!

 

[jim in Anchorage]

This is tough question for me as I love them all. Except for stalking in the woods. I am not a cat and find that a waste of time.
Pick a favorite calling moose from a tree or the ground. Tree preferred because of the better visablity.
I just love that when they are bellowing and thrashing there antlers on bushs trying To find you.
Note I said bellowing not bugling like a elk.
There is nothing musical about a moose.

 

[.308 Norma]

My favorite big game animals to hunt are mule deer. For hunting them, I like to climb and hike to a saddle, sit down, glass, and wait for a deer to wander through within range.
However, I'm getting on in years, so the "climb" part of my hunting has to be done slower. And I never "hike" too far from the truck. Besides, I try to not shoot a deer that's downhill from the road. My wife will tell you I've never been too successful at that. But it's okay - I've helped her drag plenty of mule deer uphill to the road - and griped all the time I was doing it. Just like she does when I'm the one who shot a stinking old mule deer way down in a black hole.

 

[Robert]

My favorite kind of hunting? The kind where I get to go hunting. I've hiked mountains, sat on the side of windswept hills, hunkered down in cedar thickets, and stood in open fields. I've never hunted from a stand but I don't know if I have the patience to just sit there all day. But so long as I am out in it, I am good.

 

[Sav .250]

Tree rats with a 22 cal.

 

[Oleson]

Sitting at the river bank in late april. Ducks, cranes, geese and otters going up and down. Sun slowly setting.
And maybe, just maybe, the beaver you're actually hunting will show up.

That's zen.

 

[Armored farmer]

Sitting at the river bank in late april. Ducks, cranes, geese and otters going up and down. Sun slowly setting.
And maybe, just maybe, the beaver you're actually hunting will show up.

That's zen.

This pic is taken from a porch swing that I hung over a bluff overlooking the creek that splits our deer hunting property.
From here I have taken deer, Turkey, coyote, and seen fox, and bobcat. Not too bad of a place to hunt.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Still hunter and tracker.

 

[Snowbank!]

I prefer cross country horseback scans followed by jungle searches in 4-10 inches of snow. covering 10 to 15 miles a day on a horse is liberating and has been extremely successful.

 

[Choctaw]

View attachment 229730

This pic is taken from a porch swing that I hung over a bluff overlooking the creek that splits our deer hunting property.
From here I have taken deer, Turkey, coyote, and seen fox, and bobcat. Not too bad of a place to hunt.

Very nice!

 

[ridgerunner1965]

im a box blind hunter. i used to be a walker and stalker. i found spreading my scent all over did not do me any good.

i walk intp my stand and walk back out. i have also shot a lot of deer from ladder stands. walking around in my hunting area just spreads scent and really turns deer off.

i no longer do any walk hunting as i noticed over 30 yrs i rarely killed anything that way.

i have far better luck sitting on my butt and just waiting.

if yu walk hunt a area you are done. if yu stepl ightly you can get maybe 3 days out of a stand. before yu stop seeing de

but when the rut is on all bets are off.

 

[MCgunner]

I've never seen human scent bother deer, not in 50 years of deer hunting, though I must admit I don't like still hunting for the same reasons as the above post, but I'm not sure it's the scent that's the problem. You're walking/stumbling along tripping over vines and sticks and trodding on dry leaves, what the HECK to you think you're going to see? Even the squirrels will run. LOL You just can't walk slow enough not to make noises in these woods around here. They're carpeted with sticks, leaves, and other booby traps and noisy stuff.

Sitting and waiting in a tree or a box blind has worked infinitely better for me and since I grew out of my teen years, I've acquired some amount of patience. You have to be patient to be a good hunter OR fisherman. My grandpa taught me that. Then again, this is probably why given the choice of a duck hunt or a deer hunt, I've always preferred ducks....more shooting, less waiting. ROFL There are other things I like about waterfowl hunting, though, than just the shooting. It's still my favorite form of hunting even if I'm getting to old for the experience. I can still do it, just takes me several days to recover any more.

 

[mokin]

I like taking my single shot .410 hiking. Last time I went out I didn't see any critters but I had a nice day in the woods. I think last winter really put a dent in the cottontail population.

 

[TooTall350]

Tree stands and as I get older (retired 2016) ground blinds. I enjoy spot & stalk but never had any luck. I blame it on my being 6ft9in tall and 350 lbs. Not many deer dumb or deaf enough to let me sneak up on them. Other guys are talking about leaf noise everything I step on makes noise. Hahaha it's all fun though.

 

[Armored farmer]

At my "camp overlook" again today.
Coyote hunting? ???
Okay. ...coyote hunting.

 

[sugarmaker]

Still hunting with a group on large tracts of deep woods where we don't see anyone else. Hunt from trucks dusk to dawn, no road hunting, eat lunch in the woods. The sitters shoot most of the deer, I like seeing some country and maybe sit a little at dawn/dusk but don't like pushing the light too far and having to deal with wounded / downed game late in the day.

 

[guyfromohio]

I used to be a big stand hunter. Now, I like to wander in before dawn, find a nice boulder or Tree to sit against, and watch the sun come up. If an hour or so brings nothing in, I'll stalk a bit. My FIL can sit in a stand for four or five hours. Not me.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Some great points being brought up here. While we all have our preferred methods it is necessary to hunt different terrain in different ways.

 

[pdsmith505]

My hunting experience is a bit limited, having only in the past three years gotten back into it.

I started hunting as a kid in the high deserts of New Mexico... elk, mule deer, cougars and rabbits. Stopped around the age of 16 because cars... and, well, girls. Then it was college and a few short sets of orders for uncle sam.

Fast forward to being 25 and living in VA, and I got back into it pretty heavily.

My favorite hunts and styles so far are a toss-up between the archery elk trip last september and cougars with hounds. Both require you to get out there and catch em!

Don't get me wrong, taking up a tree stand and calling in VA whitetails still gets me giddy, but there's just something about going out and finding the prey that makes it much more fun.

The one thing I really can't stand is sitting around, waiting on the chance of a pack of dogs to drive a deer past me. The guys here in VA love deer hunting with dogs, but it ain't for me.

 

[NickEllis]

Walking western hills is high on the list. But some of my best memories are walking old growth N. Wisconsin woods waiting for a grouse to flush or a dog to point with a 16ga double in my hands.

W. South Dakota or N. Nebraska public land upland birds likewise. Getting out early to hear the roosters, and then tracking them down.

Stand hunting is boring, but even then the thrill of seeing that deer appear almost magically in front of you is hard to beat.

Different strokes for different terrains. No doubt I love walking the most, but productivity depends on the terrain.

 

[Armored farmer]

I had an obsession for Quail hunting for many years. My buddy and I would consider it a bad season if we didn't take over 100 birds per year each.
We both farmed and hunted mostly on our own property. Our families grew and our good dogs passed on, and we don't hunt together anymore. But I still think back to those glory days.
It was all about the dogs, we only shot over points. I used a .410. He had a 20ga.

 

[MCgunner]

I had an obsession for Quail hunting for many years. My buddy and I would consider it a bad season if we didn't take over 100 birds per year each.
We both farmed and hunted mostly on our own property. Our families grew and our good dogs passed on, and we don't hunt together anymore. But I still think back to those glory days.
It was all about the dogs, we only shot over points. I used a .410. He had a 20ga.

This sounds like a truly wonderful time. My uncle was a quail hunter, had pointers. I never had a dog and the quail have sort of disappeared. They seem to be trying to return to my place in Calhoun country, would hear the coveys break up early morning last couple of years I hunted it for deer, but I just never got the chance to hunt bobwhites other than shoot a few targets of opportunity in the past. I think I could have really gotten into it. I have chased scaled quail on west Texas leases in the past. Those things will run you ragged and you don't hunt 'em with dogs as they'll run dogs ragged.