Can I choose both? I love the personal accomplishment aspect of bow hunting and the time spent with friends and family at camp or just sitting on the tailgate after a hunt.
Gotta love shotgun season in ohio! Deer drives and beer....hopefully in that order. From a land management side it's terrible, but way to much fun to not do it.
I love the solitude of hunting alone, I haven't been in a deer "camp" since 2005ish...so basically I've been solo except a couple of hunts with my son, and a few with my uncle in rifle season every year. By solo I mean even a trip to Ohio by myself on a 4 day mainly public land hunt last year. With all of that being said, I miss the companionship of hunting with a group or even another person. My main hunting partner through high school and college has acquired new land and hunts solo or with his brother or father. This past weekend I took a friend of mine to our farm to hunt we had a blast, 2 hunts 0 deer killed but it was good for me to have someone there. Hell I even took my muzzle loader to make it even more interesting. I do wish I had that one person to BOW hunt with, share land, stands, tactics, stories etc.....I think that part is pretty sweet.
I pick #2 any day of the week. My original " hunt camp" group doesnt hunt together anymore. My dad passed, my uncle quit hunting and my friends are too busy with work/families. Even if I could kill a wall hanger every yeary for the rest of my days, it still wouldnt compare to the fun and memories of hunting with the old gang.
As a person that didn't grow up hunting, I didn't really get that whole family tradition. I have experience that family hunting with the in-laws family, which is where I was first introduced. At first it was really enjoyable to spend time together as a whole group, but as time moved on some of the uncles lost their prime leases and reverted back to hunting family land. All of the sudden, they were setting the rules and pretty well made it a miserable situation where they got to pick where they were hunting and then would tell me where I could hunt, even though it's not their land. In fact my wife's grandparents favor me pretty well and I have full permission to hunt anytime and anywhere I want to. But, when the uncles around they pretty well take over. I've moved on and almost never hunt there anymore. So I hunt alone for the most part and killing isn't what gets my motor running, but the chase and chance of that huge buck keeps me going. I'm not saying I'm not going to kill a buck unless it's P&Y, cause that's not the case, I'm just not out there slinging arrows at the first thing that walks by.
The midwest has never really had a "camp" style of hunting. If we did, I would fall into both ends of this one. I love going on hunting trips that have a camp style atmosphere. They have been some of the best times of my life. But, I really enjoy owning properties that I "manage" for wildlife. I am not able to do it on the scale that most of the TV personalities do, but I still have a lot of fun.
When I was younger and only gun hunted, it was just a good time with my dad and my neighbor, or my best friend and his dad. Some of the best times spent in the woods were on those hunts. Now that my dad is older and doesnt care for hunting like he used to because his body just can't handle it, I have picked up bowhunting, and at first it was just about the hunt, not about the size of the deer. But now I am getting into leasing my own land and really looking for that big buck and putting the time into the land. I still shotgun hunt every year with a buddy, we just go out on public land and blast what ever walks by, and enjoy every minute of it. I wish my dad was still able to hunt, I have been trying to talk him into buying a crossbow so we can bow hunt together, he retires in Jan, we will see what happens after that.
I have alot of memories of option 2. With my dad always bringing me along from the 3rd grade to sophore high school. We used to go up to ashland,wisc. Im 36 now and wish i had those days back just once more. Option 2 is american tradition and millions of memories were made by that and it cant be looked at in a negetive light. If i had to guess the guys who have been deer hunting for at least 30 years started that way.
Number two is what life is all about. It doesn't matter if hunting, fishing, golf or whatever. Family and friends and meeting new people that share a common interest and making memories is what life is all about. Number one is big money and big business perverting the thing we love!
As I become a more serious hunter I would have to lean towards #1. I enjoy the challenge of targeting mature deer even if some aren't giants. It is very rewarding to manage the the land that I get to hunt and improve the habitat at the same time. But option #2 will always appeal to me. Rifle season for my family,friends, and I is a national holiday. I still go into every rifle season with the excitement I had as a 12 year old. It gives me a chance to remember the family members who are no longer with me on the hunt. My high school friends and I get together the night before and give cheers while drinking the adult beverage choice of our lost hunters. While hunting I can't help feel that they are sending deer my way when I am seeing some or laughing away when I get skunked.
I always enjoyed packing in on horses and sitting up elk camp when I lived in Wyoming. Now I have my own land to hunt on here in the Midwest I'm going to try for #1.
I'd say its great to hunt with friends and hang out around a camp fire but in the morning hunt your own hunt.
My time with the family is the best and with the week I have had, #1 would have been passed on. Come on you smirked a little on that one.
I agree with everyone really. And that's because everyone is entitled to love hunting for their own reasons. I love options 1 and 2. Option 1 I do while bowhunting my own land. Option 2 I practice with the boys on moose and bear hunts. There both awesome. As covey said he doesn't have a group so he's #1. Then some guys don't have private land etc and they only group hunt #2. I love both worlds and will always continue both. When I go public land when it's a meat hunt with the group ill shoot any buck. As does everyone in the group. Then we all go home to our private farms and focus on getting a big buck.
I do both. I go up to my Grandpas cabin for shotgun season with a good portion of my extended family. We drink and bulsh*t all night long and then go out in the morning and try to dump atleast 20 baldies through out the weekend and we let all of the young bucks go and usually we will score a couple nice bucks. The youngsters are allowed to shoot whatever they would like for there first and 2nd bucks and the older kids and adults buck hunt for that "monster" but in the process still getting a lot of action by shooting does and seeing the bucks. We have all the good times while managing for big bucks!
I got into deer hunting for the sport of it, and no one else in my family hunts. I hunt on my parents small hobby farm, and as much as I would love to have a hunting camp experience, for me it is a solo adventure. As a solo adventure I like the challenge and so I do my best to get the biggest deer that is on my property. In my area that's usually 2.5 year old deer that get to 8-10 points at most. If I have a big buck on camera, that is the one I am going to go after and it becomes a battle between myself and that deer. I don't know where that leaves me on the scale of things, but I figure if it is a deer that gets your blood pumping then go for it. I think if you have a group that still does that kind of hunt then absolutely go for it. I know I would if I had the opportunity.
I do both.. For me, early season is where I hold off on shooting anything but my target bucks, but after I get a tag on the buck I am after, or later in the season I shift into the mindset of tagging out. All in all, my only goal throughout the season is to have fun.
I only gun hunt with my brother and my dad, and sometimes my dad's friend and his son, but I would take that any day over managing and shooting a world record. I still vividly remember going on hunts with my dad. We used to have so much fun. Now my dad is getting older, and his friend and his son basically stopped hunting, so we don't have the decent sized group we once had. I miss it a lot. I personally think this will go away though. Everyone seems to be getting selfish. When I was a kid, a lot of my friends used to hunt with uncles and friends on their grandparents land, or something similar to that. Now it seems like whoever inherits that land, closes it up, and hunts it themselves. I think everyone has gotten into the giant deer hype, and got away from the tradition of hunting. I love the tradition, so I will always open my land up for friends or family that are responsible, and respectful.
