My favorite has to be spot and stalking big blackies. The adrenaline rush I get getting close to black bear on the ground is quite something, everything seems to amplify, sounds and sight. The moment I release an arrow, I freeze in time hoping I wasn’t heard or spotted, then the heartbeat and shaking starts all ending with a huge sigh of relief.

Probably the critter I get the most opportunity to sling arrows at would be squirrels. No, Greattree, not greys or foxes like you have back east, but our pint-sized reds here in Montana. Total length, tip of nose to tip of tail might be as much as 12-14 inches, and they don’t have much for girth. I get lots of shots at these little chatterboxes all year long when I’m in the woods. We don’t have a specific “small game season”, so opportunities to do some “live stumping” are readily available.

Michael

For me it will always be the beloved Whitetail Deer, archery and deer hunting have always been synonymous. It has deep roots into me.. back when I was a little boy, playing with cedar arrows and watching deer in the same fields. I have never lost my love or fascination with the whitetail deer or traditional archery.

I love to bowhunt just about anything that’s in season, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be squirrel. Deer (whitetail) hunting is a close second, but there’s just something so relaxing for me about squirrel hunting… less pressure, you don’t have to be near as serious about things, and it’s just plain fun! Rabbit’s great too, but where I’m from the rabbit population seemed to go in the crapper about 10 years ago, although it appears to be picking up again here lately.

i like to hunt whitetail deer the most but like to whatever i can depends on time of year have hunted hogs twice never taken one but had a shot last year but missed but i had fun trying

I’ve hunted alot of different critters. But I guess I would have to say my favorite and mainstay is whitetail deer. I’ve hunted them more than any other animal and know them better.

Hogs are great! I guess they would be my second choice. Bears?? Man the ONLY thing about hunting bears thats fun is the actual hunting and taking of one. Because the absolute second he’s dead and in your posession?? He’s nothing but alot of hard work.

I’d rather cut/quarter/carry/process 20 deer than ONE bear.

Yup… Lance makes a good point. At least here in the east, most game departments want to inspect the bear before it is butchered. Meaning all you can do in the field, is field dress them. That being said. If your bear is more than a couple hundred pounds, which many are well over. You’re going to need plenty of help getting him out!:)

GTA,

It’s always good to check with your local DNR in person and find out exactly what it is they are going to prefer to see.

As a hint I befriend and get on a first name basis with a couple of our game wardens around here. Makes life alot easier. Heck I have one that will give you GPS cordinates to where he’s seeing the best bears on the WMA he watches over.

But around here it’s usually the case that our DNR treats you more like you are in a murder investigation as oposed to just trying to check your bear in. Considering baiting is illegal here, and every nature lover that has a house close to bear turf usually places feeders of some sort for wildlife on their property……. it’s not uncommon to find bear scat 3 miles from no where with corn in it.(bears the most opportunistic feeder in the world, he’s as bad as a feral pig). Since I have a good report and relationship with a couple of the local game wardens as well as my official check guy I usually don’t have any problems. But the beast my wife killed last year gave me a scare. When field dressing him I felt what I knew for sure was corn in his stomach (made me nervous because Lord knows I wouldn’t know how it got there and have no clue as to how I would explain corn reminants inside this bear to DNR)But fortunately when I cut his stomach open what I was thinking felt like a huge gut full of corn turned out to be a huge gut full of acorns and sour wood berries.

She killed that bear at 3:45 in the afternoon. It was 9:47 p.m. when I got him in the back of the truck. It wasn’t that far of a trip, it was just straight up (bears love to run straight down hill when shot) and although we may not be known for it, Georgia has some serious mountains!

3yrs ago a friend of mine killed a decent bear close to 4 miles from his truck. He cut quartered and packed it out. Man the local DNR up there gave him some serious grief! As in they actually laid the ticket book out to give him a ticket if his “parts” of bear did not reach the minimum wieght requirements for a legal bear in this state. Thing is our legal minimum wieght for a bear is 75#s. His bears hide and skull alone wieghed 60#s So there wasn’t really any doubt of it not being big enough and anyone experienced with bears could have looked at this ones head and known that.

Why our DNR is so protective over them is a mystery to me. We are over ran with them, only allowed one a year. and they decimate the local fawn populations. Nuisance bears have went for a rarity of maybe one a year at local camping spots to the norm of one or two a month anywhere cabins or camping sites border their areas. A local bar in Helen Ga. usually has 2-4 a night raiding and trying to get in their trash dumpster around 2-3 a.m. in the morning every night. This is in the middle of town.

I learned a long time ago. Spend your bowseason hunting bears and you waste a ton of valuable deer hunting time. But get to where you really don’t care if you see one or kill one or not and you’re over ran with them. Last year I had 15 bear sightings of 11 seperate bears in a mere 3 days of hunting one area. I never took one because I had already had the displeasure of getting one out of that area and did not feel like going through the hassle again. Besides there’s good deer in there and why would I mess up a good deer hunting trip for a stinkin bear?? One of my favorite deer hunting spots and what used to be my most succesful mt. hog hunting area is now nothing more than bear turf. They dig up yellow jacket and bumble bee nests and if you accidentally walk pass the nest the next day the ticked of insects left will wrap you up. Nothing more exhilerating than trekking through late summer Georgia temps, 6-12 yellow jacket stings a mile from your truck.

Bears get on my nerves. I shoot them more on spite than opposed to sport. I say that because I’m not going to leave one to waste after I kill it. I accept the responsibility of getting my game out of the woods. And although it’s not the greatest meat in the world there is an awful lot of it. So to me when I have a bear down?? It comes across more as a hard task and difficult job, than the rewarding pleasure of trekking your tasty venison out of the woods. I bring deer out, hot, sweaty, tired, exhausted, and smiling. I bring bear out hot sweaty, tired, exhausted and cussing.:P

Rabbits are number one for me and my son ( I asked him before I wrote this). With squirrel being second and deer third.

You can mix anise oil and vanilla butternut cake flavoring together and dip a drag rag in it and keep some in a spray bottle to “spritz” out here and there on the way to your stand.

Works as well on bears as any doe in heat on a drag rag has ever worked on whitetail bucks for me.

Without a doubt I am an elkoholic. ELK, ELK, ELK…..that’s all I think about:roll: I need help…bad:D

Brett

I would have to say whitetails. They are the only big game in N. Mich. I can get tags for over the counter. I do apply for bear and elk permits. I’ve never drawn a tag for elk. I’ve drawn 2 bear tags over the last 15 years, the 1st hunt was unsuccessful and the 2nd was cancelled due to circumstances out of my control. I also love to chase bunnies and squirrels with my longbow. I would really like to hunt hogs, moose and caribou someday.

I’d have to say bustin bunnies is my absolute favorite, then deer, turkeys, and tree rats. But I’m waiting on the chance to go after some feral hogs!! Here in MO., there’s no limit, no method restriction, and they’re classed as a nuisance animal with a shoot on sight order from the Dept. of Conservation! Just need a small game permit, and you can actually go to some areas, hit the VFW or Elks Lodges, and have people begging you to come harvest ’em!! But I first got my love for hunting and a lot of great knowledge and awesome memories bunny hunting with my Pa-Pa and Dad, so B’rer Rabbit holds a special place in my heart.

Mine has GOT to be the Wild Turkey!! Why? Because I havent Arrowed One Yet!!:roll: I have turned it inro a Personal Mission / Goal To get me a Big Tom This Season!!
Either the Last Fall Season of this Year, or Spring Season Next Year, there is a Drummer Out There Waiting for My Self-Made Arrow to Send Him Off to the “Promised Turkey Land”!!:D

I’m still sampling…got a few more species and hunting style/techniques to try before I settle on a favorite. I think it may end up being spot and stalk mule deer over elk just due to the sheer size of an elk after it is down. Hard to compete with all that bugling though…

I’m going to have to go with our wild hogs here in California. I look at hogs in much the same manner as deer hunters back east regard the whitetail.

I’m fascinated by their ability to live nearly everywhere, and, therefore, the endless variety of country in which they live. I’ve hunted Cali hogs in the snow, in the redwoods, coastal rolling hills, and nearly everything in between.

I cut my teeth hunting the wild hog and I appreciate what I have learned from them.

great topic, by the way….
J

Steertalker wrote: Without a doubt I am an elkoholic. ELK, ELK, ELK…..that’s all I think about:roll: I need help…bad:D

Brett

Yea what he said! LOL Been into some just not had a good shot opportunity. OH and the smell elk, just smelling one gets me going.

Turkey followed close by squirrels. I am obsessed with whitetail deer but I seem to run into more horn porn idiots in the woods every year and kinda takes the fun out of deer hunting. You don’t find these people in the squirrel woods.

I’ve not sampled much of the western game, but that said, my favorite is the whitetail. He’s enough of a homebody that the chess match can become very personal. He’s accessible to most of this country, and populated enough to offer plenty of opportunity in most areas.

I might add that Lance made one point that’s worth repeating. Get to know your local conservation officer/game warden. I know mine very well. I’ve turned in poachers, I talk to him every time I see him around town, consult him now and then for my weekly newspaper column, his number (and the sheriff’s) are on my cell phone, etc. I even carbon copied him a letter we sent to one individual letting him know his hunting access was terminated (and let this dude know we were sending it to the warden). In other words, I keep him in the loop. And if sometime I were lucky enough to kill a 180″ buck, he’d be one of the first guys I’d call just to verify where I killed it and that it was legal, etc. Ethical hunters should be on the same page as their CO’s assuming the latter are not power-happy people with badges and attitude.

We’ve had some infamous CO’s in this state do just asinine things like: 1-wrestle legal roadkills away from citizens because of the size of their racks; 2-confiscate rattling antlers and threaten to arrest hunters with deer lure because they are deer “parts” (that law now changed); and, 3-go out into a farmer’s field and cut off the locked racks of two trophy bucks without consulting or telling the farmer and then leaving the headless carcasses behind. Thankfully these are the minority. If you would happen to bump into one of these, it would help to have others in the force who know you.

Hunting whitetails with archery gear has always been my passion. I often carry a blunt when the squirrel season starts and sometimes I get a chance to hammer a squirrel on the way to my stand. There is nothing like fried squirrel, mashed potatoes with squirrel gravy and some big ole homemade biscuits and honey.

For me it has to be moose. I am most at home in the same kind of country that moose live in. Caribou are really great too, but I’m much more a fan of the taiga than the tundra. I like everything about hunting moose. Even packing the meat out if I have no time restrictions.

The calling, the intense feelings as the moose closes in… Awesome. Now, sheep hunting is pretty well up there too…

Maybe I should change my answer to WHERE do I like to hunt most? ALASKA!!!!

Blessings! todd

I’d have to say Indiana whitetails. Mainly because it is something I can do with my boys relatively easily. After that, alligators have been a hoot to go after.