[JohnPBailey]

1. so much money
2. knowing the right people
3. good health
4. spare time
5. access land to hunt on with game on it
6. training, education and/or mentoring
7. sometimes, a guide or outfitter
8. compliance with game and gun laws
9. patience
10. outdoors toughness
11. luck: you might have trouble finding a slot open on a deer guide's book even if you are rich

 

[ReaPer105]

It does take money. It can be done on the cheap, but even then it's not free.
A valid list you made there. Some more than others, but all true.

 

[BEEF_SUPREME!]

Seven threads, eighteen replies, joined yesterday, what's the m.o.?

I don't have a problem with it, but have you been saving up thread titles? I don't get it.

 

[Will Beararms]

Hard work

 

[Rock_Crawler_Jeep]

Numbers 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11 are not required. In some cases they are not even applicable.

 

[Big Bird]

Hunting requires effort. Many states have gazillions of acres of public hunting land and the BLM has THOUSANDS of square miles of public hunting land. You have to make the effort to find it and uncover the opportunities available.

I duck hunt in Arkansas and there is lots of public land available for duck hunting. But you have to make the effort to find out where and how and when. I hunt with a private group and we lease 10,000 acres of flooded rice fields and have a dozen pits. Costs money...but it provides me access for the entire season. Bought a house down there because I go a lot. Costs money. Could sleep in a tent if I had to. If I was 20 I might have done that...at 60 I've got options...LOL. Have a Polaris Ranger SxS...do I have to? No...I suppose I could walk a half a mile through a flooded rice field in muck with 60 ponds of gun, bags, decoys etc...well maybe not....costs money. I have a duck boat. Nothing fancy...but it gives me access to flooded timber on public land. I guess I could use a canoe...yeah...nope...costs money. Shotgun...costs money. Shells...cost money. Waders and good warm hunting clothes...cost money. You want those things? It requires money...money takes effort.

Most people nowadays have no patience. Hunting required patience. Its not a video game.

 

[fg17]

For me Hunting can be easy or hard, cheap or expensive. At home I pay my $24 license, drive 5 miles to the folks farm, climb into my heated stand and harvest a whitetail. Also drive almost a thousand miles, go to a private ranch out west, spend a couple thousand gas, food, ranch fee, $374 non res license, it’s actually a great deal. Hike and glass hard for a week and maybe take a Mule deer.

 

[Julius Seizure]

Numbers 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11 are not required. In some cases they are not even applicable.

Agreed.


Cheap Walmart waders, cheap pump shotgun, awful duck calls, knocking on doors. Cheap rifle, bad optics and miles and miles of driving and walking. It can be done.
Never hired an elk or deer guide even though now I could afford to, I don’t. To each their own bit you don’t have to be rich or have private land (it doesn’t hurt) .
Got a little better every year, talked to lots of guys, read everything I could get my hands on, and even talked to the dummies at the DOW. Trash bow, garbage arrows, crap gear but an unwavering desire and an innate ability to get to where the animals are putting in for points and going after leftover tags. Slowly upgraded my gear and tactics every year and read and read and methodically planned where to try and draw and what leftover tags to get.

OP, what is it you’re wanting to hunt? Huge differences in every species as well as big game, upland, waterfowl, small game. Your statement is too broad. some of the pics im most proud of and I’m not rich, didn’t have a dad that took me and am not a landowner or in a good old boy club. Now I get to enjoy it with my sons, nothing better

 

[JohnPBailey]

I only have interest in dove and doe. My health, I feel, is not currently good enough for me to go hunting. The last time I hunted, it was to a paid guide in northern California in the mid-1990's. I harvested a 95-pound forked horn and the entire hunt set me back about $1,000 then in 1996 including the deer processor fee. The rancher charged me $500 to take a small buck from his ranch. His two adult sons helped with skinning, gutting and quartering. His wife provided meals. I thought it was a decent deal then. I got to shoot varmints on his ranch as a bonus. I don't see these "package" deer hunts priced this thrifty anymore. I would only want does for meat from now on. I'm not going to pay over $1K for one small deer.

 

[Jim Watson]

My hunting friends have run the gamut from shooting a deer in the back yard - with a bow, so as to not break the ordnance against firing a gun in the city limits - to economical leases of farmland, to guided hunts, to a club owning prime deer and elk land.

 

[jstrange]

Eh, not for me, but knock yourselves out.

 

[MarkCO]

6 and 8 are all that are valid. I killed my 39th Elk in December. Almost all of my hunting is on public land.

 

[Julius Seizure]

I only have interest in dove and doe. My health, I feel, is not currently good enough for me to go hunting. The last time I hunted, it was to a paid guide in northern California in the mid-1990's. I harvested a 95-pound forked horn and the entire hunt set me back about $1,000 then in 1996 including the deer processor fee. The rancher charged me $500 to take a small buck from his ranch. His two adult sons helped with skinning, gutting and quartering. His wife provided meals. I thought it was a decent deal then. I got to shoot varmints on his ranch as a bonus. I don't see these "package" deer hunts priced this thrifty anymore. I would only want does for meat from now on. I'm not going to pay over $1K for one small deer.

Those type of hunts can be had in TX, during off season. You can sit in a box blind all day that’s close to a road. Especially if you just want to shoot a doe.

As for dove, with the eurasians, they’re everywhere and be shot year round. Find the water, find the doves. You can also be near your vehicle and just sit on a stool. You still in NoCal? Find some sunflowers, cantaloupe or melon farms and public land adjacent to them

 

[Rock_Crawler_Jeep]

@Julius Seizure,
That was very well stated. I agree with you completely.
Everything about hunting is a variable depending on where one lives. I live in the Pacific Northwest and and am surrounded by an abundance of wildlife. Hunting is not expensive, difficult, or distant. I understand that this is not a constant for everyone, everywhere.
The statements made in the OP are not facts. They are the opinions of one person. One doesn't need good health to hunt- we've had kids from the Make-A-Wish Foundation on our ranch to hunt elk. One had terminal leukemia, another was an amputee who we strapped on to the back of a 4-wheeler because her wheelchair couldn't traverse the dirt roads on the ranch.
I network with lifelong friends in the several states that I hunt yearly. Some of them have not had such good fortune in life. But every fall they buy their deer and upland game tags, put $60 of fuel in their pickup, and go hunt public land with a Savage 110 or a Mossberg 500 pump gun. They are not wealthy, a couple are disabled, none use guides.
But they all avidly pursue the pleasure of hunting, and doing it the way they are able.
I paid less than $75 for this year's combo hunt/fish license, my deer tag will be around $35, I don't buy elk tags because l harvest them on my property with landowner preference permits, turkey tags are $15-ish each. Upland game is just a matter of driving to a logging road anywhere in the local woods, and then just walking and looking.
Animals are everywhere. You can spend time figuring out how and where to hunt them, or you can spend money on a guide- the choice is yours about the experience you want.

 

[GWG19]

Just like any other hobby / activity, for those that want to it is worth it.
I paid about $5000 to elk hunt in New Mexico a few years ago.
Headed to Africa this year cost for me to hunt plains game, not including airfare, is about $5500. I had free tickets (Delta Sky Miles) till my wife wanted the up grade to Business class which cost an additional $2200.
Cheaper than a Viking River Cruise.
Cheaper than our last trip to France.
About the same price as driving my class A motorhome to Alaska from Alabama.

 

[redrick]

I don’t think that it takes anymore money than any other hobby . Just depends where you live . I can raise a window and shoot where I live . They mainly hunt with hounds in my state , so you don’t need to spend much time scouting . They break their patterns when dogs are chasing . It is more like an organized hunt with people working together and lined up on stands or the side of the road . You don’t need to be in to good of shape , not much walking , just drive up to a stand and get out of your truck . It cost me 3 shells to get my deer this season . He was running .

 

[Bahn]

Looks like a list for the NRA management's political career

 

[dresserisland]

People like to criticize Illinois. But as a resident I have access to primo hunting for free. Yes, I have to apply for lotteries, but I've never not had a place to hunt. We don't have miles of wilderness, and there's no need for a pack mule, but I've always got a good chance at a buck, or a turkey, or some squirrels.

 

[PIC123]

1. so much money
2. knowing the right people
3. good health
4. spare time
5. access land to hunt on with game on it
6. training, education and/or mentoring
7. sometimes, a guide or outfitter
8. compliance with game and gun laws
9. patience
10. outdoors toughness
11. luck: you might have trouble finding a slot open on a deer guide's book even if you are rich

A firearm, Bow n Arrow ,or knife.

 

[ReaPer105]

Julius Seizure spends some time and money on his hunting! Nice!