What animal do you consider the most difficult to hunt

[salmonchaser]

Dang. I just feel good when I come home with something.

Guy

Same here! My hardest animals seem to be the ones I’m hunting that particular day!

Yep, eaten a lot of tag soup.


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[Europe]

Gil, thank you for taking the time to share that information with us.

I remember Cheyenne saying that she traps wolverines and lynx ( and other animals ). Do you also run a trap line Gil.? Do you Earle and Hodgeman ?

Has anyone else here attempted to hunt the Coues deer ?

 

[Blkram]

While my family has a trapline, it is an uncle that traps it each year.life ust doesn't provide the time or means to do everything....still would be fun to learn! Did snare snowshoe hares on the farm as a kid every winter.

Have not had the opportunity to hunt Coues deer; but watching them being bowhunted during the rut, using rattling looked to be an effective method! The biggest challenge appears to be spotting those little ghosts...would be fun!

 

[longrangehunter]

Has anyone else here attempted to hunt the Coues deer ?

I have, we had a saying... "Coues you're never going to see them", We did though when you're glassing in the right area. That and not understanding the size, how small, these deer have for antlers. I was expecting to see larger antlers until years later seeing enough of them to know better!

 

[Thankful Otter]

Gil, good recap of hunting different animals and you are right the Wolverine is not an easy hunt.

Wolves can be hard to hunt, but I will have to stay with the brown and white bear as being a difficult hunt, especially when you add the fact that they can turn the tables on the hunter pretty quickly. I know some say the wolf is also dangerous but many times we have confronted a wolf or a wolf pack and I have never felt threatened.

Earle, we still use aircraft to locate, research, and herd animals away from villages, but are not allowed to use them to "hunt"the animal, so to speak or to drive the animal to the hunter. Some hunts still require that the final stalk only be done via dog sled and/or snow shoes. Love your stories from yesteryear Earle. You have "been there" and "done that" and then some

 

[longrangehunter]

I probably would say Grizzly, Grolar and Polar Bear ( although according to April I am not allowed to say Polar Bear, but Cole said Bongo, so he cheated first )

:lol: :lol: :lol: I'll admit it, I was being lazy and didn't read the post first and wrote that. Only to read it, and then edit it and add my comment about Mountain Lions.

But that being said I did get you to follow me off the same cliff....... Not that you would, but on paper you kinda did! lol :grin:

 

[Anonymous]

I remember Cheyenne saying that she traps wolverines and lynx ( and other animals ). Do you also run a trap line Gil.? Do you Earle and Hodgeman ?

I don't actively trap... I help a buddy periodically, mostly beaver trapping but we've caught a number of critters on dry land sets as well. Never a wolverine.

I would agree that wolverine have perhaps the lowest population density of about any N. American animal and very tough hunting due to that fact. I've been in rifle range of one and he wasn't the least bit skittish of me, quite the opposite! Lucky for him season was closed! I've never heard of anyone taking one with a rifle, only trapped.

I like hunting lynx via calling, they're not terribly difficult. The biggest thing is hunting them in frigid conditions.

 

[DrMike]

Interesting that you mention wolverine. In the whole of my time prowling the forests and mountains of BC, I have seen five wolverines. Three of those were a family group. They were not particularly distressed by my presence.

 

[5shot]

Based on my lack of success as a kid...Snipe.

 

[AK7AN]

ELK!!!!

 

[mcseal2]

I think taking a mature public land muley during the early October Wyoming rifle season is the most challenging I've personally done. Young bucks are pretty easy, but the ones that have been around 5 seasons or more are not. I live 11-14 hours from the low point units I've hunted and I can usually only get up there once a summer to scout for 3-4 days. If I don't find a few good ones to plan around then it really gets tough. The challenge is what makes it fun though, I'm hooked on them.

 

[IdahoCTD]

Wolves are tough and I've gone quite a few years without seeing one lately but I also don't hunt where I use to see most of them anymore. I've shot one howling it in with my mouth. Where we use to see a lot of wolves is also the only place in ID where there are wolverines. I've never seen one here. I did see one in AK I could of shot but I would of had to burn my caribou tag to shoot it and it was fun enough to watch do it's thing for awhile. I've been on mountain lion hunts with dogs but I've seen very few in the wild just hunting. Most were late season as the elk were migrating down.

So just in frequency that I've seen I would go wolverine, mountain lion (spot and stalk), and wolf in the order of difficulty. Elk are pretty easy to kill if you understand them and their habits. Honestly big muledeer are probably one of the hardest of the deer family to kill regularly. There aren't a lot of big ones anymore and unless you draw there aren't any hunts in the rut around here except with a bow.

 

[salmonchaser]

Yep big mulies are really tough. Amazing how much that has changed. In high school, early 70s, give me five days and I would find a buck pushing 30 inches. Hell we all would. Pretty rare nowadays.


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[Elkman]

I would have never even thought about hunting a Wolverine, I guess they are probably legal to trap or shoot in some areas of the world, but not in mine. I saw one in Idaho near Cape Horn Guard Station one fall when I was preseason scouting for elk. I also have seen elk, wolves and lions in that same area.

 

[Europe]

Yep big mulies are really tough. Amazing how much that has changed. In high school, early 70s, give me five days and I would find a buck pushing 30 inches. Hell we all would. Pretty rare nowadays.


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can you imagine how many mulies were around and how big they were when I was in high school--in the early 50's lol

But seriously you make a good point. Possibly my most difficult animal to hunt would change today if I was just looking for a good sized mulie. Staying just in North America, I would still have to say that for me our Goat hunts and mountain lion hunts were definitely the most strenuous.

5shot, good one. I somehow never got suckered into snipe hunting.

Earle, I have shot a couple of wolves, but have never gone on a dedicated wolf hunt.

Gil, same with wolverines. We actually toyed with going to Alaska years ago on what was billed by a guide at that time as a predator guided hunt, but we didn't make it and I dont remember what he was offering in his hunts, probably wolf for sure.

Cole, without a doubt, they are ghosts and small, but so are Turkeys and Chukar and they have made me swear when hunting them in the past

 

[salmonchaser]

Wild chukar, come to think of it. I've seen shootable rams, Billy's, Mt Lion and Bob cat, 80 inch antelope, 200 inch Mule deer and 350 inch bulls in a single weekend. All the while stripped down to a long John top as I climbed and sweated in 15 degree weather trying to keep up with the birds and the dogs. Damn Chukar.


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[IdahoCTD]

I use to see 30" mule deer every year. I bet since the winter of '93-'94 I haven't seen 3 during hunting season. Granted I've been putting more effort into killing elk recently rather than deer but the numbers are way down and the amount of big bucks is probably less than 5-10% of what it was 25 years ago. We use to go out on the winter range and see hundreds of deer and some huge bucks. Now it's hard to find a decent buck and overall deer numbers are way low. I sure wish they would suspend some of the doe tags around here to try and improve deer numbers.

 

[ShadeTree]

Wild chukar, come to think of it. I've seen shootable rams, Billy's, Mt Lion and Bob cat, 80 inch antelope, 200 inch Mule deer and 350 inch bulls in a single weekend. All the while stripped down to a long John top as I climbed and sweated in 15 degree weather trying to keep up with the birds and the dogs. Damn Chukar.


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Salmonchaser you kinda beat me to it. I was going to say ruffed grouse in the typical tight thick cover they inhabit, but I figured I'd get laughed at compared to some of the rough animals to hunt. Might not be the most difficult thing to hunt, but when it comes to killing they rank right up there for me. It's almost not fair.......half the time you only hear the thundering beat of wings and never even catch a glimpse, other times they appear briefly where you're not expecting. If they can they wait until you have a short pine or hemlock you can't see through between you and them, then take off behind you. Every grouse I ever rolled was a special treat and I always spent minutes admiring them and thinking how many miles I had covered since the last one, and wondered how long it would be until I connected again.

 

[Elkman]

For me a shotgun is similar to a club, I am effective with one at arms reach, much beyond that however, I am useless. Now back to the subject, I didn't think about Chukars, when I answered this post. When I lived in Boise the Chukar season started a couple of weeks prior to the beginning of elk season. Sooooo every year under the guise of "hunting" I would go forth to the Snake River Canyon to test my fitness level and to see if my shooting skills had magically improved since the previous season. At that time I was averaging 1/2 box of shells per Chukar. After many years of this facade I decided that I could test my fitness level much closer to town, and would not be required to carry a shotgun, so I gave up Chukar "hunting".

 

[salmonchaser]

Always knew you were wiser than me. You probably saw deer and elk during your expeditions that would have fallen easily to your 300 while you were at it.


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