Warm fuzzy feeling

Share your tales (tall or otherwise) of hunting adventures.

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Stephen Borud
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Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Stephen Borud »

I always get a warm fuzzy feeling when I apply for my elk, antelope and deer tags in Wyoming. Looking forward to a good hunt with my bow for elk, and a great hunt with my Sharps for antelope and deer. A friend of mine that I've hunted elk with for the past 12 years finally drew a non resident elk tag for the Copper Mountains this year, to say the least he is excited. Good luck to all of you that put in for licenses.

Stephen Borud
bobw
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by bobw »

And goodluck to you Stephen. Just got done last weekend doing the apps online for pref pts for Black Hills any elk(1st year I am eligible for it again as I had a tag in 2001), Bought a point for the early season CSP archery elk and bought a point for the archery Black Hills elk season. I did put in for a tag in a prairie unit that I have 9 years preference in and also put in for the Bighorn Sheep tag for the Black Hills unit. All are hard as hell to draw and usually takes a lot of preference to get one. Sheep are in short supply caused by mountain lions and disease from domestic sheep. Elk populations are in really rough shape in SD right now from to many tag sales in the last 4 years coupled with WAY to many damn mountain lions. The GFP allways say the lion pop is around 175-225 lions but this year 47 lions were killed in the 1st 42 days of the season by guys calling them in with predator calls :roll: . Just the other day I threw some questions at a GFP guy questioning our lion policy and he owed up to the fact that they had way more than there census was and besides the tagged 47 ,the GFP nuisance cats and road kills had claimed about as many and still to many cats out there.I never count on getting an elk tag but will fill the freezer with deer and antelope with fowl and birds also. Best of luck to you. bobw
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Marathonman
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Marathonman »

I got skunked on Colorado Muzzleloading deer this year and have 5 points for next year in a trophy area. Antelope results are not in yet for CO but I did draw a CO cow elk tag for private land in December. Thinking of what rifle to take on the elk hunt and may use my original Borchardt sporter if she settles on a load this summer. Good friend of mine drew a CO cow moose with only 5 years between tags. I'm wishing I had put in also since my last muzzleloader moose hunt in 2007. Still waiting on Wyoming full price antelope buck tag with preference points. I should draw that one for sure but nothing is ever guarenteed of course. Good luck to you out there.
I had gotten possession of a big "50" gun early in the fight, and was making considerable noise with it.

~Billy Dixon~

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Stephen Borud
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Stephen Borud »

Dang bob that's a lot of cats. They do eat the meat don't they! I hope you draw all the tags you put in for.

Marathonman, post a picture of that new sharps you bought, I would love to see it. What calibre is it? I need some details here. :lol: Good luck to you this year.


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Don McDowell
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Don McDowell »

I put in for the landownerantelope,and aType 6 elk permit for the area here at the house. Will see how things pan out this fall, maybe head into the highcountry for a real elk. Will pick up a general deer license later on and see if I can find a good muley here, and if not , if time etc allows go after whitetail at Hulett.
Then when the 44 gets here see how lucky I can get in the Bison priority list.
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rdnck
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by rdnck »

I feel sorry for you guys out west. I really do. Even as residents of your respective states, you still have to draw for tags and can't even hunt on your own private property without drawing for a tag. Waiting for years to draw a tag as a resident is, to me, totally unacceptable. Not being able to hunt on your own property that you pay taxes on seems somehow un American.

I am not being totally negative here, but this is one big reason that I go to Africa. I know when I am going and don't have to worry about whether or not I can hunt the animals I want when I get there. Two years ago I put in for an antelope tag with Orville and Stephen and one of their friends on a private ranch in Wyoming. Of the four of us, Stephen was the only one to draw a tag. Bottom line was the hunt fell through and Stephen was the only one to hunt on what turned out to be a glorified camping trip for Orville and the other fellow. I didn't feel like driving a thousand miles one way to camp out, and stayed home. This after tying up several hundred bucks for my license application for about six months and leaving a block of time committed to the hunt that fall when I turned down another good hunt elsewhere in that time frame.

Actually, for an out of stater, I can hunt Africa for plains game for a week and take five good animals including kudu for what it costs me to take a guided elk hunt for a week out west--and MAYBE get a crack at one animal. It's bad enough being a non resident out west, but being a resident and STILL not being able to hunt where you want in season would, to me, suck big time. Rant over. Shoot straight, rdnck.
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Don McDowell
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Don McDowell »

Bill whether or not you can hunt on your own land without drawing a tag depends on the species, and the area. I don't have to draw for a deer license , just buy one over the counter and it's good for the majority of the state. This elk area is limited quota, we can get 2 licenses, and the landowners that apply for the licenses get theirs first and what ever is left over goes to the rest of the people applying, and it's the same way with antelope.
I put in for the type 6 here which is a reduced cost cow/calf license. That still allows for the option of buying a general license that is good over alot of the state, or applying for a type 1 or 2 permit in another area. So if I wanted that many I can take 2 elk.
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Stephen Borud
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Stephen Borud »

Bill I don't mind waiting a couple years to draw a tag in the area I hunt, it usually takes 3 years to draw a Type 1 antelope tag in unit 75, which is any antelope, I can get a type 2 (doe,fawn) or a type 6 (reduced price) just about every year I apply for it. The reason I like the way the Wyoming Game and Fish operate is they actually manage the game here in Wyoming, you always see lots of deer and antelope, elk no matter what depends on the weather and if there's any water around, I'm talking about where I hunt in the Copper Mountains, especially the water issue there, it's very dry and not a lot of tree's. I have drawn a type 1 elk tag in unit 47 3 years running, prior to that they had very little elk tags available, and you know what, there wasn't very many elk to hunt, I had type 2 tags for cow,calf the years I did not have a type 1, we did not see many elk at all. The last three years that I have had type 1 tags in unit 47 we have seen lots of elk, so that tells me the game and fish department did there job right, by allowing more tags to be issued and cutting back the tags when need be. This year I might get a tag, don't know it's the luck of the draw, but I can tell you I will be elk hunting regardless of a tag or not, we will hunt hard for elk and I hope my bro gets one. I can remember moving down here 12 years ago from North Dakota, up there the regulations are not as strict as they are here in Wyoming. I thought geez you really have to do your homework on the hunt area's, when you can hunt, there's late seasons, reduced tags, bow area's, area's where you can hunt any whitetail but only harvest a mule deer buck in the same area. Now that I have lived here, and hunted here, for several season I would have it any other way.

Stephen Borud
Marathonman
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Marathonman »

I hunt WY more than CO now days. Great management of the herds there. CO has done a great job too. I grew up in CO and never saw an elk until I was in high school. Now you have a truly good chance of connecting with one. Hats off to modern big game mangement bar none.
I had gotten possession of a big "50" gun early in the fight, and was making considerable noise with it.

~Billy Dixon~

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rdnck
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by rdnck »

Don and Stephen--You can get used to anything, I guess. I have lived all my life in the South; Louisiana, Florida, and Texas to be exact. I have bought out of state licenses in Arkansas, Misisisippi and Alabama and hunted there as well. Whenever I buy a resident big game license in Texas, I can hunt ANY legal game in any county of the state on public land, or private property with permission. It has been the same in the other states I have lived.

When you buy a non-resident license in any of the above states-- over the counter at Wal-Mart, often as not-- you can simply go hunting. No draw, no three to five hundred deposit six months in advance, no hunting trip down the toilet because you didn't draw. Granted, we don't have elk, but we do have a LOT of deer, exotics, bison, and hogs we can hunt 24/7/365. The fact that we can plan a hunt in advance with friends and not get shut down because we didn't draw a tag makes our system a lot more attractive to me. Shoot straight, rdnck.
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Don McDowell »

It's no big deal to hunt with friends from around the world here with little to no advance planning. All one has to do is watch the avialable license's and everybody can get a license for the same area. Most of the elk will be for antlerless (never have found out how to get a nonresident elk license in MS) or the nonresident coming to hunt may not get to hunt the more "notable" trophy mule deer areas ( can you get a muledeer in Alabama?) antelope is the same deal, all it takes is a bit of know how where to go and what licenses to look for..
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Stephen Borud
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Stephen Borud »

I understand your point Bill, when I grew up in North Dakota, I hunted north of Williston on the Montana/Canadian Border, I always went to Fairview Montana and bought a whitetail doe tag for 40 bucks so I could legally cross into Montana and not get in trouble. The border of Montana and North Dakota was a prairie trail, the border with Cananda was nothing but a barbed wire fence. You had to know where you were at up there. My thoughts are that you can't truely manage big game animals, free roaming animals that are not managed by a specific ranch without having some way of controlling the tags that are given out. From what I see in Texas, on the hunting shows and what I have heard from the guys I talk to in Midland and in Odessa, in order to hunt you have to have a lease of some sort. It's not that way here at all, if you have a map and plan your hunt there is usually a lot of land that is public that one can hunt. In North Dakota I could get a bow tag for deer over the counter that was good for the whole state, I could put in for a rifle deer tag, a muzzleloader deer tag and still buy additionals over the counter if all the doe tags were not sold in the first and second drawings. Bill we can agree to disagree on this subject.

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Marathonman
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by Marathonman »

Bill is likely right about getting too used to things where we live. I would like to get used to hunting more outside my comfort zone and even perhaps outside my own country let alone my own state. I want to go critter gettin with rdnck on the dark continent one of these days! :mrgreen:

C-mon Bill let's go hunt buffalo together that can hunt right back atcha!

:D
I had gotten possession of a big "50" gun early in the fight, and was making considerable noise with it.

~Billy Dixon~

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rdnck
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by rdnck »

Marathonman--I'm good to go on the Cape Buffalo as soon as I get the rest of the money set aside. It looks like some time in 2012. Are you going to shoot a Sharps? Shoot straight, rdnck.
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pete
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Re: Warm fuzzy feeling

Post by pete »

Stephen;
I drew a doe deer tag, not sure about antelope yet and I now have 17 preference points for elk. I'm not a real serious elk hunter so I've just put in for points maybe one of these years. I'm looking for a new deer area or 2 and hunting for does helps scout out areas for when I want to hunt bucks....besides they're deer too. Good luck in your endeavors.

Bill;
I have to comment on your remarks. I don't know about the other western states but here in Colorado there are so many new people moving here and the common theme is "Back in Texas, California, Ohio, Georgia etc. we do things like; _________________ and you should too" and it gets old. When it comes to hunting one reason that licenses are harder to come by is all those extra people and the resulting shrinking habitat. I used to be able to get good licenses every year but those days are gone... to many people. Unlike the southeast the whole state of Colorado isn't suitable for huge populations of wildlife. The eastern part is dry with little in the way of cover. The mountains are not suitable for year round habitation what with the snow at high elevations. The deer and elk have to come down in the winter and when they do those valleys are getting filled up with subdevelopements, highways, ski resorts etc. Whitetails in Texas and the southeast breed like flies... muledeer and antelope don't.
I've also seen and heard how Texas does things and I can aggressively say no thanks!! Having to pay for a lease is more un American than how we do it here I think. It's nice that here for the most part we still have to hunt and not shoot shoot over bait too.
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