Best state to be a resident?

For awhile after I first started hunting them, my wife doubted that chukar even existed. mtmuley
 
For opportunity Western Oregon has a lot to offer. OTC Roosevelt and Blacktail with good trophy potential and plenty of public land. (Unfortunately) Oregon probably has the best predator hunting in the country. You can kill three bears a year in part of the state and I think all the cougars you can kill.

Wyoming is not that far away to hunt Pronghorn if you want. :D Pretty slim picking here for pronghorn tags but if you bow hunt you can draw every year.

The best thing about Oregon is that there is some protein to procure every day of the year! Salmon, steelhead, clams, crabs etc...just have to decide what your going after. I can't imagine living inland but I guess you get used to shoveling snow. :D
 
Idaho. Probably the most liberal seasons, or at least neck and neck with Montana, you can shoot 2 (if you feel the need) of every game animal every year (and we do) by simply going into Wal Mart and buying the tags. No draw, leftover combo, 2nd season, 3rd season tags BS.

Good salmon and steelhead runs. Better bird hunting than Montana and Wyoming from what it sounds like. Less private property too near hunting areas I feel like. Wyoming would be my close second choice, Montana 3rd then Colorado.
 
I think Idaho gets overlooked a lot when compared to Montana and Wyoming. I would love to live in southern Idaho and have access to all of the chukar hunting there. Although the Montana sharptails and Huns are pretty fun too.
 
Idaho. Probably the most liberal seasons, or at least neck and neck with Montana, you can shoot 2 (if you feel the need) of every game animal every year (and we do) by simply going into Wal Mart and buying the tags. No draw, leftover combo, 2nd season, 3rd season tags BS.

Wasn't my experience. Do you still have to pick your unit for elk? We can buy 7 OTC deer and 2 OTC elk up here, but I usually only shoot five deer and one elk since my wife usually gets a couple too ;)
 
Wasn't my experience. Do you still have to pick your unit for elk? We can buy 7 OTC deer and 2 OTC elk up here, but I usually only shoot five deer and one elk since my wife usually gets a couple too ;)

What you shoot are technically deer, but I don't know that I'd brag about them. :)
 
What you shoot are technically deer, but I don't know that I'd brag about them. :)
You got me confused with someone else- I'm the handsome one without the bald head.

Heading out the door to hike Yellowstone. It sucks here - too hard to figure out what to do.
 
Wasn't my experience. Do you still have to pick your unit for elk? We can buy 7 OTC deer and 2 OTC elk up here, but I usually only shoot five deer and one elk since my wife usually gets a couple too ;)

We've got that beat, you can get UNLIMITED whitetail doe tags, 3 elk tags and two antelope buck tags down here.
 
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I'm gonna say BS that Idaho has better bird hunting than Montana. And we have about 4 times the area to do it in. mtmuley
 
We've got that beat, you can get UNLIMITED whitetail doe tags, 3 elk tags and two antelope buck tags down here.
They put a hard limit on us for some reason.... A friend was saying in Alabama the limit was something like 2 per day. Alabama must be heaven :D
 
I'm not bashing on Montana nor Wyoming at all. I'll be hunting Wyoming this year. I'm actually really interested in Montana's waterfowl. At least the TV shows make it look pretty awesome as supposedly it's easier to get access to fields up there than a lot of places. Any truth to that?

You don't have to choose your unit here, but you have to choose your zone for elk, which encompasses 3-4 units. The rifle tags are 3 weeks, October 15th through November 7th. The archery tags run August 31st through September 30th. Plenty of space to hunt and get away from everyone. There is very few units I'd bet in Idaho that if you just got off the road a single mile, you'd have the place to your self. As far as deer goes, it's a state wide general tag that runs October 10th-Halloween in 90% of the units.

I just like our setup because in a 3 week season you should be able to get the whether that you want, unlike the short 2nd and 3rd season OTC tags in CO etc. It also helps with thinning the crowds a lot. You can kill 2 OTC bears a year and the seasons are ridiculously liberal. You can also hunt antelope every year with a bow, but our LE lope hunts odds are too gnarly for the quality of tag you will get, IMO. Definitely not an antelope state that's for sure. Our salmon and steelhead runs are an awesome selling point I think though, as well as NO POINTS SYSTEM HERE!!! Again, not bashing on MT, just giving my biased opinion. :D

Hopefully someone will enlighten me even more with some first hand facts about MT, as it's a state I'd really like to explore. Gerald Martin's goat hunt thread got me pumped.
 
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