Breaking Rules, Tack, and Everything Else: My DIY Horseback Hunting Chronicle

[pbroski]

The thing about horses is that once you start something, you have to finish it, or like you say they will purposely be balky in order to avoid doing things they don't want to do. It is correct that when the horse refused to cross the river, you tried to do what you could to make him. It was unfortunate that you eventually give up however and lead him across.

You probably already know this, but with a horse you have to make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard. Getting off, and leading him across made the wrong thing easy for him. Once you started to ride him across, the right thing would have been to not stop until you got across by riding. However, pushing him too hard at one time could potentially cause him to get so pissed off that he would buck you off without warning, so definitely be cautious of that.

The river crossing situation would have been a good time to lunge him. Make him go around and around, change direction, stop, start, around and around, etc. Make refusing to cross the river the hard thing to do, and show him that you're the boss. After lunging for a while get back on and try crossing, if he refuses, lunge him again. If there enough room drive him into the water, stop him, get on in the water and get him across. Do it enough times, and you will get him across.

Another and maybe easier solution might be to use your riding horse for packing, and your pack horse for riding. It seems like the older horse is more eager to do what you want. That way also, the horse you're riding will be the slower of the two, so the pack horse would have no problem keeping up, so you wouldn't have to be dragging it along. Keep at it, I think you'll get it eventually.

 

[pbroski]

For mounting, I would start by have the pack horse's face on the left side of the rump of the riding horse. Stand on the left side of the riding horse, have the lead rope on the left side of your body and in your left hand along with the reins of the riding horse. With the lead line and reins in your left hand, grab either the riding horse's mane, or the saddle horn, left foot in stirrup, lift up and swing your right leg over the cantle of the saddle.

 

[rayporter]

that will work but i would put the packer on the off side. left hand holds reins on the riders neck while the right hand holds saddle horn and lead. both ways will allow you to swing your leg over without pinning the lead with your leg.

as you and see we can do this several ways.

and as stated dont ever tie hard and fast to saddle. a dally that you can turn loose is fine.. i will loop one turn on the horn and tuck the tail under my leg to free my right hand.

i took an old mule man to the high country once and he had awful animals. he was always tying the pack mule to his saddle. he got unhappy with me for telling him not to do this.

a year later he was heading out to the high country and the pack mule pulled his saddle over a mile from the truck. the two ran back to the truck and he had to walk back. his rifle was still on the saddle [underneath] as the two ran past me headed way past the truck.

 

[missjordan]

Ok I’m going to offer my 2 cents and hope it helps. I’m trying to do this on my phone not on the computer so it’s not going to be as pretty as I’d like it to be. Bear with me:



“Go about 500m and stop. *Visible Confusion* “How the heck do I mount while holding a pony rope in my hand?” Still have no clue. Try a new idea.”


~ Use your best judgement here and don’t over complicate things. I like putting the pony horse on the opposite side of where your mounting from but in front of the horses shoulder. If that’s not an option, you just put the lead rope hand in the same hand as your rein hand (left) and mount with your right hand.





“We go around a corner. Old dried up river bank. Boulders and rocks. Gelding goes “WTF” and starts to back up. Just like Dewey Cox: He don’t want none of that s***.

“Same issue as my last trip with the river, only today's issue is a boulder field. I thump on him with my hiking boots (Again, no spurs, because I forgot them). I slap with the glove. It gets some forward movement, but still can't get him to start doing one foot in front of the other.”

~ your reinforcing a MAJOR hurdle with your horse now that if he dances, intimidates you, that your going to get off. He wins. This is BAD. And will get your hurt. You will get pitched one of these days because you’re reenforcing bad behavior. What will happen is the nonsense and jigging is going to get worse and next thing you know he’ll be bucking to get you not to make him do this. This is a respect issue and a little bit of fear from the horse and you absolutely need to do more training at home for your own confidence and education before you tackle this on the trail again.

Suggestions on how to do this: work on some groundwork on teaching your horse to isolate the hips/ shoulder/ ribcage. I also like teaching them to back serpentines and circles as well. All of this translates under saddle. For you, start learning the art of the release. Teach both you and your horse a one rein stop. On the ground first, then under saddle. Then apply on the trail. Teach yourself how to use your legs/seat and steer around cones. Know how when you move your leg slightly forward it moves the shoulders independently , middle is ribs, slightly back is haunches. Learn to trot around said cones. And eventually canter large and smaller circles too while keeping the same tempo. This is harder than it sounds. You’ve mentioned spurs quite a few times and how you keep forgetting them. Spurs don’t matter at this point because you don’t know how to use them correctly anyways. And what i mean by that is your using them as a tool to “discipline” without having any thought beyond that. When you should be using the spur as a cue. There’s a time and a place for that.

When YOU get better confidence in the arena, then you’ll be way better off knowing how to work horses through these tantrums. How to apply leg, and when to stop. The jist of working a horse through a tantrum is making the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy. And what riders do is usually put them to work. Get him turning on the haunches, leg yielding, side passing. Trot those tight serpentines. Stop roll him back the other way, then approach the boulder field again and if the horse takes 3 more quiet steps farther than last time, you reward and let him rest.

it’s also the same tactic you use when they won’t load on the trailer too.




“Gelding knows we are heading home. He starts stepping out like crazy. Normally this makes me happy, but my mare can’t go that fast (Or won’t.) So my right arm is taking a beating holding on to this rope with a mare dragging butt at the end of it.

I don’t know if this is normal or not, but I try to get the gelding to slow a bit. It helps, but I keep having to bump the bit. “Easy, Easy”. He slows, then 5 steps later starts giving ‘er again.”


Remember the one rein stop you need to put on your horse at home??? Here you go. Teach him the that. Then next spring take him on some wet saddle blanket rides and one rein stop the shiz out of him on the way back to the trailer. He speeds up you stop. Every. Single. Time. Until you’re sick of spinning. (Don’t take the mare though) which also may lead you to seeing how herd bound either one of them is. Another fix for another time.

Far as the mare getting her face ripped off because she’s not walking too fast. This could be an issue also that needs correcting on her end. Maybe. Fix the gelding first before this bridge gets crossed.


If I’m being all honest, you really shouldn’t be hunting this year on the horses. Definitely not by yourself. Highly recommend investing in a helmet too. Head injuries happen all the time even to well educated horsemen. I’d strongly suggest you get with a local person and take weekly lessons at the minimum to get up to speed. It’s easy to get hurt and it will bite you in the ass soon. Take 2 multi day clinics a year from well renowned horsemen that travel the country. You will learn so much each time. Best investment ever you can make into your equine career. Hope this helps. Reach out with any more questions


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[450]

Thanks for all the information that was given to my question. I do plan to start out using my truck/trailer as a base camp until I get comfortable. I know it’s not the most ideal thing but you have to start somewhere plus killing something is just a bonus to me. Hopefully I can meet other people with the same interest and make new hunting partners(not real sure on that last part since we are moving to MS) but thinking positive.

As someone mentioned about multiple animals being expensive, needing bigger trailer and truck. I already have the truck and trailer for it plus where we are moving I will have plenty of pasture for them to graze year round. I bought the trailer to use on our move from AK to MS. I figured since I was going to need a horse trailer I would buy it instead of a enclosed trailer for our move.

 

[wyosteve]

I do what Ray mentioned about taking the lead rope for a 1/2 turn on the saddle horn and then tucking it under my right leg. Still keeps enough tension if the pack animal pulls back, but if things did go south, a simple lift of your leg will loosen it. I'll often then use my right hand behind me holding the lead rope to 'sense' what's going on behind me and keep the rope from getting under the tail of the riding animal.

 

[pacoalcracker]

missjordan, great advice. the 1 hr/wk for me and 1 hr/wk for my horse with a trainer has taught the both of us so much in the past 1.5-2 years and we are the better for it. time and money well spent. this was partially on the advice from the vet as far too many horses are ruined by uneducated/untrained horse owners. 95% of the time the problem isn't with the horse. the horse only knows what it was taught or experienced, good or bad.

 

[missjordan]

missjordan, great advice. the 1 hr/wk for me and 1 hr/wk for my horse with a trainer has taught the both of us so much in the past 1.5-2 years and we are the better for it. time and money well spent. this was partially on the advice from the vet as far too many horses are ruined by uneducated/untrained horse owners. 95% of the time the problem isn't with the horse. the horse only knows what it was taught or experienced, good or bad.

100% agree. When i was back into horses from after a 12 year break i took lessons up to 3x a week. But i was also getting back into showing too and was wanting to work on more technical things that a recreational rider doesn’t need. But it helped so much. The biggest blessing was it helped maintain a stricter standard on myself as a rider more consistently. Like working out with a personal trainer. I really loved the accountability


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[Kr0nah0lic]

To cut right to it: I’ve had a heck of time finding info on “How” to hunt off a horse. It seems that the majority out there learn this stuff either by being born into a ranch family, or working as a guide and learning that way.

I’m neither. So that sucks. And it’s bloody hard to find decent info on the actual “How the heck do I do this?” part of things.

So this thread will (1) Document all the dumb things I’ve done trying to figure this game out, and (2) Hopefully provide some helpful How-To for the people out there who want to give this a shot. I

Full disclosure: I’ve had a ton of help by reading posts and reaching out to roksliders like @Pony Soldier, @missjordan, @Travis Hobbs, @wymtnpounder edit: Can't believe I forgot @rayporter. There’s some really squared away people on this forum (I’m not one of them) and it’s worth asking them for help. @Chase0109 thread https://rokslide.com/forums/threads/how-to-hunt-with-horses.158633/#post-1503634 was a great resource too.

About Me:

I’m a late 30’s self-employed office weenie. I live in the suburbs, have young kids, a mortgage, a budget, and have time commitments that take me away from hunting. I juggle as much as I can. I’ve always wanted to horseback hunt the backcountry, and over the last 2 years started working towards that goal. I’m no expert – far from it. I don’t really have any friends who horseback hunt either.

Due to personal failings, my focus is always the 80/20 Rule: Give me something functional, that works 80% of the time, and be happy with that. Obsessing over the 20% is bad, and to be avoided at all costs.

My approach to horseback hunting follows this: Keep it functional, and make sure whatever you’re doing mostly works most of the time. No doubt there’s a bunch of fancier ways of doing things out there, but I’m limited in time/competence/money, or often a combination of all three.

Anyway, hopefully by posting all the dumb things I've done and continue to do here, it might help some people in the future who want to try their hand at this horseback hunting thing.

Thanks for sharing!