Posted: 8/30/2013 11:01:51 PM EDT
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How many of you are into hunting?
I grew up hunting and enjoyed it. Big game, dove, quail, waterfowl you name it. When in college I hunted pretty much every day of season. It used to be my top priority I would practically beat off to the Cabelas catalog. I have been hunting maybe three days in the last five years. For whatever reason I just don't seem to give two shits about it anymore. Dove season starts this weekend and I have had invites to go and I am not even excited about going. I am thinking I won't go I would rather get some shit done around the house or something it just isn't appealing to me anymore and I don't know why. It has nothing to do with not wanting to kill animals or anything like that. Anyone else like this? |
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When I was a teenager I hunted all the time. Deer, dove, quail and ducks. When there wasn't a real season I would hunt rabbits and squirrels, just to be in the woods. It helped that family members took didn't expect me to pay for hunting leases and would take me along whenever they went.
Now I am lucky if I get to sit in a deer stand a couple of days a year and no one takes me along. One of these days I might be able to to get my own lease but with the fucked up "land management" get rich schemes in this state I probably won't ever be able to afford one. 
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I think a lot of my problem is he hassle of it. Pretty much am hour drive from here to do any kind of hunting. No public land and leases are a pain. Either it is expensive as crap (5 figures) or you are sharing the property with a half dozen people you don't know. Every lease I have seen is a bunch of drama and politics. The whole process just doesn't seem enjoyable or worth it. If I lived by thousands of acres of public land or if I had a huge ranch I might look at it different.
The other thing is I work outdoors in the woods. If I was stuck in a office I might be more inclined to want to get out and go hunt but just being out in nature is t that exciting anymore as I am there all the time for work. |
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I am. Lived and breathed any kind if bird or deer hunting. I haven't been bird hunting in at least five years, and the only thing I have gone for is deer.
I really have the desire to hunt some doves this year, its really more of a problem for me finding other people to go. It isn't that much fun to go alone. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Looking back over the past 50 years hunting used to take up more of my life/money than I wished. If it was in season and local to me I hunted it.
Now I just squirrel hunt a good bit and maybe take a deer (on my own property) if I want one and that's about it. I still really like squirrel hunting (bought a can for the purpose) as there is not much hassle involved and you won't find tastier wild game. 
It does not matter much when you get into the woods and to me it's almost a "Zen" type of hunting experiance. I've also found that many land owners will give you permission to squirrel hunt when compaired to other forms of hunting as they don't see either dollar signs or dead livestock like when it comes to deer/turkey/bear hunting. |
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For 20+ years, My best friend and I hunted hard all Deer season long, archery, Muzzleloader, Rifle, late season, turkey, and fished in the summers.
5 years ago, he married a girl from Nebraska, quit his job in Florida moved and started driving a truck around the west, following his dream of being able to hunt the west. Since then, I fly out every other year and we hunt Elk, mule deer and in the future , antelope. It's great, and a new adventure for us, but I don't hunt nearly as much. I still hunt Florida solo, and with other friends, but it's not the same. Sold the camper, and just go on a few local hunts a year. 
Wife and kids now make it a lot harder to get away. |
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My grandfather and several uncles and cousins hunted when I was a kid growing up in IL, but I never did. Fast forward to my late-20s - I'm living in TX and my friend, who had moved to NM, invited me to come out and hunt with him. I've been applying for NM tags almost every year since then, but only have about 50% draw rate and we have only taken one elk in all the times I've gone. I love every minute of it. Being in the mountains, hiking, camping, the hunt, just spending the week with my bro and seeing his family too. But at the same time, I have zero interest in hunting locally... buying a deer lease, setting up a feeder, and sitting in a blind. No thanks. I might try duck hunting one of these years, that sounds fun.
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Archery for deer. My first "weapon" was a bow. Love being in the woods in the fall. I love the scouting, checking the deer cameras. Sitting in the stand watching the world go by as it has for millennia seems "right". The animals don't check their watches and run off to do things they hate on someone else's clock.
Man alone bears the burden of time. Man alone lives and dies by time. Man alone fears running out of time. It's a release to let go of that in the woods. |
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Quoted:
How many of you are into hunting? I grew up hunting and enjoyed it. Big game, dove, quail, waterfowl you name it. When in college I hunted pretty much every day of season. It used to be my top priority I would practically beat off to the Cabelas catalog. I have been hunting maybe three days in the last five years. For whatever reason I just don't seem to give two shits about it anymore. Dove season starts this weekend and I have had invites to go and I am not even excited about going. I am thinking I won't go I would rather get some shit done around the house or something it just isn't appealing to me anymore and I don't know why. It has nothing to do with not wanting to kill animals or anything like that. Anyone else like this? At one time I too really enjoyed hunting and the Cabelas catalog. Now, I could care less. I'm not sure why but I think part of it was other hunters and I don't find it challenging like it once was. In the 80's and 90's my area went through a hunting club war. There were nails placed in paths, foreign locks put on gates, tree stands torn down, and bait piles placed in known hunting areas. |
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ive only got back into hunting since I moved back to Indiana and can shoot deer off my back porch and turkey off the front. When I lived in a city and had to wake up in the middle of the night and drive someplace to hunt, yea I just didn't have the motivation.
I grew up in the country and hunting was something you did around the house, so Its just not ingrained in me to do the things that other folks have to do to hunt. Ive never spent a night in "Deer Camp" Depending on the weather this year, I might be doing a canoe trip/deer hunt the weekend and first 3 days of the week prior to Thanksgiving. If its freezing then I cant take my bark canoe and will just hunt around the house. |
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I am. Lived and breathed any kind if bird or deer hunting. I haven't been bird hunting in at least five years, and the only thing I have gone for is deer. I really have the desire to hunt some doves this year, its really more of a problem for me finding other people to go. It isn't that much fun to go alone. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile A good bird dog makes it real fun. |
I specifically moved to the Grouse and ptarmigan hunting capital of the world for the sole reason it was such good grouse hunting. I took a job that let me take off for three months every year. So from Sept-Nov I could do nothing but hunt. Have some very nice hunting dogs. Convinced my grandparents to enroll the family farm (they no longer farm it but were renting it) in a Pheasants forever habitat restoration project.). I am a member of every /insert name here\"forever or unlimited" group known to man. One of the major reasons I married my wife was she was one of the first women I met that would actually put up with me doing that much hunting. I could go on and on but that is a window into my obsession.....passion, yeah that sounds better
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A good bird dog makes it real fun. Quoted:
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I am. Lived and breathed any kind if bird or deer hunting. I haven't been bird hunting in at least five years, and the only thing I have gone for is deer. I really have the desire to hunt some doves this year, its really more of a problem for me finding other people to go. It isn't that much fun to go alone. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile A good bird dog makes it real fun. There are almost no wild birds in Ohio anymore...I feel bad for the OH guys. You NE guys will be in the same boat soon. With all the corn going in and the fence rows coming out most of east NE will be in the same boat as OH in terms of lack of habitat. |
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I hunted most of my life, mostly birds. I haven't gone in near a decade now. I might take up grouse hunting again. WA has some excellent opportunities for that, your dusky/blue/sooty grouse hunting is only eclipsed by OR. You guys have a really good population of Spruce and Ruffed grouse as well. |
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I love deer hunting!
I process everything I shoot myself, lots of meat on the cheap. Actually, the best thing about deer hunting is being in the woods and nobody asking you for something or I want this or that. Just blessed silence. I would love to hunt elk, moose, bear, etc., but not really that in Missouri. I usually bag 3-4 deer a season. Hunting is kind of like sex. You get ready, the anticipation, your gun is ready to go, there it is!, you shoot your bullets, and then clean up the mess. |
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I did, up through my late 20s.
Then kids came along... I'd rather sit with my boy watching cartoons or doing something with him on Saturday mornings instead of missing it by sitting alone in a tree by myself. The deer will be there. Now that he's 9, he's addicted to hunting and I'm back in it full-bore. Got his first deer with a crossbow in January, and him and I doubled up on spring gobblers this year. His new Wicked Ridge Raider crossbow came in last night, I bought a T/C Hawken flintlock that he's excited to use, and he's anxious to help me handload the .243 rounds he'll use this year as well. He's hoping we can work in a hog hunt sometime if we figure out where to go. I don't care if I harvest another game animal again, but taking him out in the woods... Feels Good Man. |
| I used to hunt and fish all the time when I was younger, now I rarely fish and don't hunt nearly as much anymore. I still bow hunt a lot, but I think a lot of the reason for that is because I can just sit in the treestand and wait for the deer to come to me. I guess I'm getting lazy as I get older. Plus I really don't have anyone to hunt with anymore and bowhunting is the only type of hunting that I prefer to do alone. |
