What is your single top hunting season goal this year? I expect updates damn it.

[OntarioHunter]

Lab Ellie came up lame goose hunting this year and initial diagnosis was torn cranial crucial ligament (ACL in humans). I arranged for her to see an orthopedic vet in Great Falls 1st of November. By then she seemed almost normal. He said no surgery at this time. Give her more time off and see how she does. So, with Ellie the rooster killer out of action, sole hunting duty has fallen to twelve year-old cancer survivor Fr Brittany "Puppy." She is AMAZING. Hunting as hard as a dog half her age. She set me up twice today with show-stopping points and I made them count. First day hunting last week we got one rooster but I worked her way too hard. She was unwell for almost two days and gave me quite a scare. I was afraid cancer was back. She's kicking arse again now. I am limiting her to half day hunts only. We are both getting old.
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Lab Ellie had crucial ligament surgery today. Puppy was inactive for the last week of big game season so I gave her a workout today while Ellie is overnight at vet's. She set me up several times for the third rooster but I missed. Shooting the wrong gun today. LOP is too short. These could very well be Puppy's last birds. Conditions were perfect. Memorable day.

 

[Treeshark]

Have a fun Wyoming mule deer hunt with my dad, Godfather and best hunting buddy.

It’s his first trip out west- he doesn’t have a tag, just coming along. My main goal besides shooting a nice buck is that he has a good time.

Update: Did not find a big one to hang my tag on. We had a ton of fun, saw lots of cool stuff, and caught a bunch of fish (a lot of my hunting trips get sidetracked by fish but I don’t fight it).

I even got to taste whiskey for the first time. Cool trip.

 

[Dsnow9]

My #1 goal this season is for a bull to hit the deck, this will be my 12th year hunting and I shot bulls year 1 and 3. I used up a lot of my luck early and hunt an either sex tag every year. I have always followed the mantra of brown it’s down for elk which has led to a lot of cows in the freezer. I have put in a lot of hard work over the last couple years and feel I have learned a lot about elk rather than just getting lucky in the same spot.

I don’t care if @MtnElk shoots one or if I do but I want to see a bull down this year. It might take someone else holding my bullets though.

This season has been a great one!

I started the season off with the cow/clad combo in Wyoming.

Then we went and got @MtnElk a nice big cow and we’re only one click away from getting the bull.

I helped out a number of other people with intel and pointers to the tune of three deer and five elk.

I also filled my buck tag and got a Colorado 4th season bull!

I’ve got a Colorado late season antelope doe tag that my daughter begged to go on that will likely just consist of looking at them and door knocking unless we get lucky. I also have a late season deer doe tag that my daughter and I will go on. She is seven and I love the time together, I would be content not filling tags and just hanging out but she must be related to me or something. She likes when we fill the tags on our hunts.

 

[Beignet]

@Hammsolo you asked for updates, so here it is.

I finally got a blacktail. First deer, and couldn’t be happier about it!

I don’t know how you all take those neat pictures. I tried getting one, but the phone kept falling over. Had to wait until I was home to get a decent pic.
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I somehow missed this one. Congrats! No deer since has tasted as good as my first one. Seems like those blacktails would be hard to hunt in the type of terrain they call home, makes it all the more of an accomplishment.

 

[corndawg765]

First elk. My criteria are Archery, OTC, public land, self guided, branch antler

 

[Hammsolo]

Here’s yer update.

I hunted more than any year in the previous decade.

I hunted with my dad a fair amount, and he shot a buck on a fine morning.
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I hunted the River bottom with my shotgun. Never found a buck I could get a good shot at, but did harvest a doe.

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I spent many days afield with family, hunting and attempting trapping with my wife and kids.View attachment 303769
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I found a cow, and walked, involuntarily swam, and exerted myself in the sacred geographies I love so much.

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Fished a little but not much. As always, a chunk of life for which to be grateful.

That’s some good sh!t right there.

 

[Hammsolo]

Washington buck all done. Working on Montana deer now.

 

[Dan-06]

Goal is to just relax and maybe get lucky while enjoying god’s country

 

[F250]

I started out with a goal of filling a total of 6 whitetail tags between Vt and NY. I filled 5. My wife also took a nice 8 point. Gifted one to a landowner, kept 3 for ourselves, helped my single-mother-working- two- jobs niece can one, and gave one to an old friend. Muzzle Loader, crossbow, and rifle.

 

[Steiny77]

On page #5 I said my goal was a 150" whitetail with archery gear.
Killed a 147", feel like such a failure

 

[Hammsolo]

On page #5 I said my goal was a 150" whitetail with archery gear.
Killed a 147", feel like such a failure

They say that size doesn’t really matter doesn’t matter… I mean come on, it’s only 3 inches.

 

[hank4elk]

Got my friends tag filled and he's heading home.
2 tags filled this year. Not mine but that does not matter.

I am alive and doing better every day now. Meat in the freezer.

 

[kwyeewyk]

Ended up with covid at the beginning of my late archery deer permit, was only going to have a day or two to hunt, and still had an unfilled cow tag for WY, so opted for the meat hunt option. Pretty disappointed I didn't get to do the late deer hunt, but meat in the freezer is hard to pass up.



She had an old collar with no transmitter and needed a pedicure, curious how old she was, meant to look at her teeth but got busy and forgot.

Did spend one day in OK county hunting mulies on the late archery season before my permit area opened. A beautiful area, still almost unchanged since I was a kid, other than WDFW and Colville tribe have acquired much of the land and I can now legally access nearly the whole area on foot from my dad's house where I grew up. As a kid we and everyone else casually trespassed up there, it was the neighborhood spot for riding horses, 4 wheelers, dirt bikes, hiking, hunting and camping. Figured it would be all split up by now but good to see the opposite.

It's easy access, and fairly open so most legal bucks get shot during rifle season. But come late archery and rut there's usually a few barely legal bucks (3pt min) chasing the does, maybe a big mature 2.

Sure enough saw about 40 does and spikes and 1 small 3 point. Gave him a pass figuring I still had a late permit to hunt.

Fun to reminisce, going to have to take my kids up and show them my playground now that we can just walk up the road again. I call it the Okanogan River Breaks.




Our spring break camp site on top of the mountain. We'd sit on top of the rocks above the fire and drink excessive amounts of lucky lager, black velvet, bacardi, wild turkey, etc. We also had another spot down on the river with an island where we built a driftwood cabana and telephone pole diving board. That spot had a bent over tree that we cut the branches off and made into a bucking tree, one or two people would get on and everyone else would shake the shit out of the tree until they fell off. Good times!