Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

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ihookem
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby ihookem » Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:59 pm

About 30 yrs ago there were nine guys in our camp. Now it is just my son and me. We didnt even grouse hunt this year.He is out of college and works 50 hrs a week. He only has 1 week a yr. so far. As for me, I just dont understand why there is so little interest in hunting anymore. I live inside of 10 mi. from 7,000 ac. of public land . Ya , it sucks by the time 2nd week of gun season but at least there is a chance to get a deer. A BIL lives very close , wont even go out there.. and .. and public can be very good sometimes. . .. Kids and wives do come first . If they dont there is almost always marriage trouble . Work, comes first , retirement plans put a damper on life. I put in $5,000 in my SEP, I fill $14,000 in wife's and my ROTH. . $4,000 property taxes, car repairs.... It adds up to staying close to home to hunt and the cabin up north sits empty except 5 to 8 times a year.


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Trout
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Trout » Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:44 pm

I have a hard time making hunting/fishing buddies. I have a tendency to overwhelm people in that its all I'm really interested in talking about, and I suck at talking about normal stuff. I've made two friends over the last 15 who can not only handle me, but also dish it right back, and we talk about a lot of non-outdoors stuff, too. Unfortunately, one lives 14 hours away and the other lives 16 hours in the other direction. We have a group chat on Facebook and are giving each other play by plays of our hunts, fishing trips, scouting trips, etc. on a daily basis.
Swedishbowhunter
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Swedishbowhunter » Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:28 pm

It is very hard to find someone who is on the same page as you, I had a "bestie" that was right there with me but that ship sailed. I would love to run into the right person who wants to go kill it "beast style!!"
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Ryan549
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Ryan549 » Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:56 pm

Pudster wrote:It is very hard to find someone who is on the same page as you, I had a "bestie" that was right there with me but that ship sailed. I would love to run into the right person who wants to go kill it "beast style!!"



It is not for everyone, that’s for sure. People are afraid of extra work, even though it might bring success- that goes for everything in life.
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szwampdonkey
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby szwampdonkey » Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:18 am

I have exactly two other friends that hunt and we have never hunted together, not once. My only true "hunting buddy" who I could totally rely on was my Dad so when he hung it up 12 years ago or so ive been lone wolfing it ever since.

My 7 yo has shown mild interest in hunting now so perhaps he will become my next hunting buddy but other than that I hunt alone. Seems to be too many variables, spot decisions, worries about too much scent/intrusion, worrying about what another guy wants to get into or how long he can hunt, etc that I couldn't imagine bowhunting with another person or a group to be honest.

Now pheasant hunting and such, the more the merrier but bowhunting is a solitary pursuit for me.
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The Runt
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby The Runt » Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:04 am

Finding the right hunting partner is really tough work. After 10 days of pushing it in the mountains you can't fake anything and attitudes will show up, I have crossed off hunting pals because of this exact thing.

Luckily, I have a few great hunting buddies. However, we are all lone wolf type people who have many iron's in the fire, so we don't actually hang out a ton. When it works out that we draw a tag together it is always great! Grinders, who are truly excited to put in work and check out that next mountain are worth their weight in gold.
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Rich M » Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:36 pm

ihookem wrote:About 30 yrs ago there were nine guys in our camp. Now it is just my son and me. We didnt even grouse hunt this year.He is out of college and works 50 hrs a week. He only has 1 week a yr. so far. As for me, I just dont understand why there is so little interest in hunting anymore. I live inside of 10 mi. from 7,000 ac. of public land . Ya , it sucks by the time 2nd week of gun season but at least there is a chance to get a deer. A BIL lives very close , wont even go out there.. and .. and public can be very good sometimes. . .. Kids and wives do come first . If they don't there is almost always marriage trouble . Work, comes first , retirement plans put a damper on life. I put in $5,000 in my SEP, I fill $14,000 in wife's and my ROTH. . $4,000 property taxes, car repairs.... It adds up to staying close to home to hunt and the cabin up north sits empty except 5 to 8 times a year.


This sounds familiar. I've experienced the hunting camp society and watched the same thing. Guys dropped off, people died, families split, was like a soap opera at times. End result is few hunting camps left and mostly father-son-grandson teams. My uncle didn't want me to join the hunt camp with the guys when I could finally get a license in ME. So dad stopped going and bought some land and set up a camp there - had a handful of us - I'm the one who ended up moving away and they don't hunt deer anymore. Funny thing is my uncle's son excluded him from the camp for "family time" - he cut his own dad out. Nuts. I go out of my way to make the time to do stuff w my dad, sure everything has to be catered but when he dies I want zero regrets and that's what I'll have. In the meantime, we're having fun.

Live an hour from the public land I choose to hunt but can't hunt it but 3-5 days every couple of years due to the quota system - trying to get a yearly rotation going.

Work and funding retirement is very important. The earlier ya start, the better it is.

Doing the DIY thing a little, just hard to take the time off. Got another trip or two and then that will be done as well. Done antelope and mule deer, whitetail hunting lease. Doing another antelope and maybe elk. It's fun and an adventure but need to focus on other stuff. Taking care of house, parent's house, parents, wife, her parents, and suddenly it's like where is there time to play? Family comes first always.

Amazing how life changes with the seasons. There is that saying "Youth is wasted on the young". But what else would we really do, knowing what we know now?

As for original post - I got a couple long time buddies, they live 20 hours away and we collide every couple of years. Trying to do an antelope hunt with one of them this year. Fingers crossed.
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headgear
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby headgear » Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:31 am

Hard to find a good hunting partner, most of my good ones live far away and the guys I do get out with only get out a handful of times a year. Excited the kid can almost shoot a bow this year, sometimes those bigwoods bedding areas are huge and I could use 3-4 hunters to cover all the angles or gather intel for the next hunt. Kind of like team hunting, heck I will share all my years of intel with them, but people just don' want to get out, it is crazy.
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headgear
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby headgear » Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:36 am

Rich M wrote:
ihookem wrote:About 30 yrs ago there were nine guys in our camp. Now it is just my son and me. We didnt even grouse hunt this year.He is out of college and works 50 hrs a week. He only has 1 week a yr. so far. As for me, I just dont understand why there is so little interest in hunting anymore. I live inside of 10 mi. from 7,000 ac. of public land . Ya , it sucks by the time 2nd week of gun season but at least there is a chance to get a deer. A BIL lives very close , wont even go out there.. and .. and public can be very good sometimes. . .. Kids and wives do come first . If they don't there is almost always marriage trouble . Work, comes first , retirement plans put a damper on life. I put in $5,000 in my SEP, I fill $14,000 in wife's and my ROTH. . $4,000 property taxes, car repairs.... It adds up to staying close to home to hunt and the cabin up north sits empty except 5 to 8 times a year.


This sounds familiar. I've experienced the hunting camp society and watched the same thing. Guys dropped off, people died, families split, was like a soap opera at times. End result is few hunting camps left and mostly father-son-grandson teams. My uncle didn't want me to join the hunt camp with the guys when I could finally get a license in ME. So dad stopped going and bought some land and set up a camp there - had a handful of us - I'm the one who ended up moving away and they don't hunt deer anymore. Funny thing is my uncle's son excluded him from the camp for "family time" - he cut his own dad out. Nuts. I go out of my way to make the time to do stuff w my dad, sure everything has to be catered but when he dies I want zero regrets and that's what I'll have. In the meantime, we're having fun.

Live an hour from the public land I choose to hunt but can't hunt it but 3-5 days every couple of years due to the quota system - trying to get a yearly rotation going.

Work and funding retirement is very important. The earlier ya start, the better it is.

Doing the DIY thing a little, just hard to take the time off. Got another trip or two and then that will be done as well. Done antelope and mule deer, whitetail hunting lease. Doing another antelope and maybe elk. It's fun and an adventure but need to focus on other stuff. Taking care of house, parent's house, parents, wife, her parents, and suddenly it's like where is there time to play? Family comes first always.

Amazing how life changes with the seasons. There is that saying "Youth is wasted on the young". But what else would we really do, knowing what we know now?

As for original post - I got a couple long time buddies, they live 20 hours away and we collide every couple of years. Trying to do an antelope hunt with one of them this year. Fingers crossed.


Similar situation, hunting camp out in the sticks and several other neighboring camps around us. Seem like some of them go in cycles of death and rebirth, our camp is kind of dead, too many guys live too far away and they just show up twice a year on the big weekends. Some other camps are big with tons of young guys but most of them live in the area. Kind of a sad deal, we have plenty of youth in our camp but everybody seems to be busy all fall doing other crap, more land and space for me to roam. Actually dozens of smaller hunting groups have left the area completely because of low deer numbers, kind of have a huge ten square miles to myself, the other groups hunt it but all the good buck bedding areas wide open so its hard to complain. 8-)
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Hawthorne
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Hawthorne » Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:02 am

I have some local friends and family that are pretty hardcore and put down nice bucks every year but for the public land/mobile game none are interested. There is a stigma with public land in this part of the state.I’ve tried giving them the scoop on it but no interest. Couple guys I met on this forum live kinda far have the same interests
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Jimmy wallhanger
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Jimmy wallhanger » Sun Apr 25, 2021 7:13 am

My only hunting buddy is a fat slob and Im starting to hate his guts because he argues everything, while chainsmoking and almost having a heart attack every 200 yards.

He's so lazy now and wont come scouting which I actually like because hes deadweight and think severy missing peice of bark is a rub...... literally every single peice and argues when I say its probably a rabbit as its a darn root.

My cousin has 25 acres but is almost as lazy as my fat buddy, I offered to buy 25 fruit trees to plant to attarct deer as hes lazy as heck and just wants to sit over a bait pile in a ladder stand. He refused saying the actual planting was work he couldnt be bothered to do.

I would like to have someone from this site that had the same thoughts to partner up with but theres no one in Southern Ontario that Im aware of.
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Hawthorne
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Hawthorne » Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:01 am

Jimmy wallhanger wrote:My only hunting buddy is a fat slob and Im starting to hate his guts because he argues everything, while chainsmoking and almost having a heart attack every 200 yards.

He's so lazy now and wont come scouting which I actually like because hes deadweight and think severy missing peice of bark is a rub...... literally every single peice and argues when I say its probably a rabbit as its a darn root.

My cousin has 25 acres but is almost as lazy as my fat buddy, I offered to buy 25 fruit trees to plant to attarct deer as hes lazy as heck and just wants to sit over a bait pile in a ladder stand. He refused saying the actual planting was work he couldnt be bothered to do.

I would like to have someone from this site that had the same thoughts to partner up with but theres no one in Southern Ontario that Im aware of.


:lol:
Chuck B
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Chuck B » Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:11 am

One of my best friends is a hardcore pheasant and duck guy. I love it because I get to ride his coat tails 4-6 days a year while he does all of the hard work. I want to pay him back with some deer hunting time but he only likes things that will fly.

I am a solo bow hunter at heart, but it sure is nice to have the comradarie and fun with hunting birds with 4-5 of us a couple of times a year. Good to mix it up.

As for bow hunting, none of my buddies want to hunt beast style. Oh well.
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KPillinois
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby KPillinois » Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:46 am

I'm 56, small and weak but still in great shape and have a "sort of" hunting buddy who is 26 and he is a stone cold killer (8-10 deer a year, mostly on public), We always talk about wanting to hunt together, and for a couple years (2015 & 2016 my first 2 years) i was new and desperate to learn how to find deer, no kills both years but boy did i work my but off and learn the hard way in river bottoms (only place i hunted at that time, same pre-hung stand all season long, lol). Fast forward to last year (2020-21 season) and i feel i am at or above his level now. I invited him to the public i now mostly hunt (hilly areas, not the river bottoms) and i got there first.... he calls and says his buddy wants to hunt with us too and they were a few minutes down the road. Buddy was totally loud and obnoxious and not somebody i would hunt with.... I showed them some favorite spots and then told them this is the area you wanna hunt this afternoon and put them on 8 deer, all just out of bow range so they didn't kill one. I have put them on other deer spots i found this summer scouting as well at a new public area i intend to hunt 2021-22 season. 2 days ago i get a text message from his "buddy" that my friend got a nice jon boat and trolling motor, so we can all 3 slide in to secret spots together, but i don't think that will work for me, i prefer being alone anyway unless I am learning from somebody. .... which leads me to another bit i am gonna ramble about post up in the deer hunting section as a new post.
I've changed my ways, I'm now looking for big bucks on public land.
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Huntress13
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Re: Having hardcore/serious hunting friends

Unread postby Huntress13 » Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:14 am

I have zero friends who hunt. Not counting hubby and his buddies. They all hunt pre set stands. I used to hunt with my brother and his friends, all on private.
Twigs in my hair, don't care.


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