Best hunt you ever been on?

[3Blade]

Yeah that's the problem with getting one of those monsters, they take up a lot of space and it ain't cheap. Great bear and memories for your son

[Buck154]

9 hours ago, Russ 11 said:

Mike , just had the skull done .  Didn’t have the coin nor the room for either a rug or a full mount . I could only imagine what a full mount would have cost . 

Tan the hide at least? You could carpet a room with it!!!

[Greybeard]

15 hours ago, BHC said:

I can't believe I didn't add this....

My first hunt, 1980 I was 10 years old...sitting next to my dad,and a few friends with their fathers.

I had my 20ga Ithaca, my father had the 12ga Ithaca Deerslayer.

At just after sunrise I see a bear, yes I was scared !!!!  My father is sleeping, I'm wide eyed !!!  I see a herd of 12 deer standing maybe 30 yards, my father is still sleeping....and remembered him saying to me the night before wait for the buck when the does come. The does walk off, and I see another deer coming, Holy F*CK , it's a buck, basket 8 pt.....He's standing broadside at 30 yards and looking at the does I assume looking back.....BOOM!!!!! deer takes off and as fast the deer ran my father jumps up, he yells out and remember it like it was yesterday "WHAT THE F*CK !!!" Dad I shot a deer!!!! We exit the blow down, and my father looks towards the direction I said the deer ran, and he saw the white under belly, he ran no more then 30 yards !!!! my father didn't get heads mounted and something I didn't even think of as a kid....Pictures and antlers got thrown out by my sister's back in 1997 while on a bear hunt in canada, basement got flooded

First hunts and deer are always ones to remember, especially since they will surely include family and friends when you start out young.  Sorry you lost those momentous, but you will never lose the memories.

[Hawkeye57]

So many great stories!

For me, I think Waterfowl hunts end up being the most fun- I love the group hunt aspect. Texas Cranes was amazing- if you have never tried "ribeye of the sky" -it is a must! 

[LPJR]

Great thread 57.....

Hands down, the best hunt has to be this one for me with Jr.

Long story, but was just cool in the end! 

[JHbowhunter]

7 minutes ago, LPJR said:

Great thread 57.....

Hands down, the best hunt has to be this one for me with Jr.

Long story, but was just cool in the end! 

That slammer he shot with bow a few seasons ago has to be up there too!!!

[thefirstndsecond]

The best hunt/hunts i have been on involved my pop. I was younger, sometimes he went with me sometimes he stayed in the club house. 

I will never forget taking my animal while I was 20 yards away from him. I will never forget the time I took him archery hunting and he was bored to death. I was in a tree stand and he was in a ground blind. He hated the ground blind. I already had the doe comfortable with me in the stand. There would be 20 something doe at night fall.

My pop around 4:30 PM walked out of the blind and sat on a stump. I was in a tree stand. I walked up to him and said what are you doing. He said and I quote, "They can't see me I am in camo." lol.. I smiled and laughed. He just hated sitting alone in the blind. From then on I sat with him in the ground blind. 

Not a day goes by that I don't miss him or see something that reminds me of him. 

 

[Gunsmoke]

Just too many to mention.  It's not only deer hunting but also pheasant hunting over your dog with family members.  Fishing trips chasing striper, blues and fluke.  The stories are not always based on success or even big bucks as one of my most memorable is me and my dad tracking a doe quite a distance in the dark when it looked like we weren't going to recover her.  Between family & friends we still rehash stories that are the funniest.

I cannot imagine my world without hunting.   

[Hawkeye57]

1 hour ago, Gunsmoke said:

Just too many to mention.  It's not only deer hunting but also pheasant hunting over your dog with family members.  Fishing trips chasing striper, blues and fluke.  The stories are not always based on success or even big bucks as one of my most memorable is me and my dad tracking a doe quite a distance in the dark when it looked like we weren't going to recover her.  Between family & friends we still rehash stories that are the funniest.

I cannot imagine my world without hunting.   

Agreed that it isn’t always the game but the experience. I’ve been on some amazing hunts in some amazing places but my favorite ever was a day where everything froze over and my buddy and I were miserable cold and only shot one goose. So miserable we laughed for hours. 
 

some of my fondest hunts I didn’t even carry a weapon. I run my dog/dogs for new hunters and something about the first retrieve or point for a new hunter- makes all the time/money/stress of building good bird dogs worth it! 

[Russ 11]

3 minutes ago, Hawkeye57 said:

Agreed that it isn’t always the game but the experience. I’ve been on some amazing hunts in some amazing places but my favorite ever was a day where everything froze over and my buddy and I were miserable cold and only shot one goose. So miserable we laughed for hours. 
 

some of my fondest hunts I didn’t even carry a weapon. I run my dog/dogs for new hunters and something about the first retrieve or point for a new hunter- makes all the time/money/stress of building good bird dogs worth it! 

No pics of any of your favorite hunts ? 

[Pqreturn62]

Backpacked into the Adirondacks for opening weekend of rifle season 5 years ago with a buddy. Both of us overpacked but didn’t want to risk being cold, plus we were packing into an area without any lean-to’s so that meant tents, tarps, and wool blanket floor liners in addition to clothing, food, some water, and our hunting gear - packs ended up being around 70lbs each. We got up there Thursday  around midday and started our slow trek up into the mountains to an area I had hiked to in the summer well off the most popular hiking paths. Set up camp around 5pm, made some dinner, and then sat around the fire for a few hours before calling it a night. Got up Friday, made some breakfast, and then covered the last few hundred yards to a beautiful oak flat that I discovered over the summer and wanted to at least start my scouting in. We got to the edge of the small beaver flow and looked up at the bowl-like hillside and just as the story typically goes, saw a few tails bouncing away in the distance - a great sign. It didn’t take long before we found a great deal of fresh sign and picked out where we would each sit at first light without spreading too much scent around, or at least that’s what we thought. On our way back to the tent site we walked through a few other pine thickets and swampy lowland areas in an effort to learn more about where the deer move around, but given the time of year, there was no question that the heavily rubbed and scraped oak flat hillside was where to be. Opening day comes, we see a few does but nothing with horns. Sunday was a little warm and we didn’t see anything until last light when we saw a small buck skirting the top of the hillside nose buried in the leaves clearly tailing a doe. Monday was our last day so we decided to try and get higher on the hill to find where that doe might have been that we never saw on Sunday. Sure enough the herd was much more concentrated on the higher portions of the hill. Yet again no bucks though. Around 11am the rain moves in and we decide that’s enough. We make our way back to the tent sight, pack up, and start trekking down to the truck to leave for my cabin and a much needed shower and soft bed. All the same we decided to walk 50-100yds apart from each other just in case. Not even 10 minutes into our “push” down the ridge I hear my buddy fire, followed by a yell to me screaming, here he comes! By sheer luck I was on top of a rock line at the moment scanning a briar thicket when I hear this deer crashing through it coming right at me. It pops out at 25yds and I can clearly see my buddy hit him in the front leg down by the elbow. He was hobbled but had enough adrenaline to get through some of the thickest stuff I’ve ever seen...too bad the 30-06 was waiting on the other end. I was able to drop him in his tracks. It was at that time when we learned what it truly meant to shoot a mountain deer. The drag out took almost 8 hours and my legs had nothing left by the time we finally got to the parking lot - had we not been absolutely drenched with rain we may have stayed another night, but I wasn’t about to be in the Adirondack mountains wet and without the appropriate gear or resources. It wasn’t until the next day when we got unpacked and sat down on the deck of my cabin that we realized how memorable that hunt truly would be. Every year since then we have gone in a hunt, but for some reason never are able to commit the 5-6 day needed to make it worth going back up to that hillside for another remote Adirondack hunt. Would love to do it again though, it is by far my favorite hunt and makes me appreciate the deer we harvested that much more.

[archer36]

Pqreturn62, that's a hard earned deer. Not like most deer hunts in NJ. Get out of truck, walk 150 yds to stand, climb into tree or ground blind. Congrats!