How much do you trust a hunting spot on the internet?

[Bugger]

Now that tags are coming out and folks are reviving old accounts to ask for a spot to burn, I’m curious to see what other people think.

 

[ORJoe]

Check it out on google maps and probably go there at some point.
When I go there depends on a few things.
If it's like a 5 day elk hunt and I was going to make three weekend scouting trips over the summer, I'll change one of them to there. But during the season there wouldn't be any sort of "One day left, let's check out that spot somebody on the internet told everyone about two months ago."
Two month bear season and I'm going out on four weekends? I'll probably change one weekend to "Let's check out that place where they said the bears ate all the elk."

 

[Jimmy]

In a public post? Nope. A private message? Worth looking into.

I'd rather know how busy different access points are. Stinks to scout and think it's not that busy and then have 20 trucks on the opener. I'd have gone to another spot if I knew that.

 

[Hnthrdr]

It’s funny I generally don’t respond on open forum, I’ll PM help people occasionally. Had a dude here a couple years ago that I told him exactly where to go to get into elk in an otc unit, I followed up with him and he never checked the spot out haha

 

[Dos Perros]

Even my own honey holes are suspect. Sometimes they've been fire, but then go back and dead.

 

[Jimmy]

Over the years I've told probably 7-8 people some decent spots where I have been successful in the past. Like, really decent spots. They acted very thankful.

I asked them to let me know how their hunt went. How many people do you think got back to me? None.

 

[rclouse79]

If you ask me for my spot, good luck finding Notellum Creek or Nunyabusiness Mountain on onX.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

The only time someone actually PM'd a spot to check out, I manaed to fill my tag before I ever made it to their hell hole. I absolutely checked it on Onx though.

 

[Mish-pop]

Just a quick glance but not gonna get any hopes up for it

 

[10ringer]

I have reached out to people through DM’s if I feel they are asking the right questions. I give honest answers every time. Actually have developed hunting partners and friendships this way over the years. So yes, sometimes you can trust what people are telling you. Best tips you can scour online are areas to avoid.


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[TaperPin]

Many mediocre hunting areas have a single season and limited geographic range. I’ve looked at many trophy shots with the wife grinning from ear to ear holding the ears of a buster buck while proud as buttons hubby looks on like a stud. . . and there’s a recognizable hill in the background. Geolocation based on vegetation in the photo gives elevation, sun angle gives orientation of the drainage. In a good area animals can be all over, but it’s reassuring to see you’re in the ballpark.

A nephew went deer hunting in a new location and a good scan of trophy pics from the area turned up a number of big deer in pinion-juniper areas. That wouldn’t normally be helpful, except PJ was pretty limited so I suggested he start looking there. They were below the PJ in sage draws when a decent buck walked across the jeep trail in front of them. If the trophy pics we saw online didn’t help, they sure didn’t hurt if he picked up a good deer the first two hours of the season in a crappy area.

FB is full of knuckle heads that love to brag about their big buck. Normally not the best source of information, but it’s half dumb people and half braggarts that don’t care about giving out too much information. A nephew even asked a passive aggressive question about a kill photo that seemed innocent except it made the guy feel like the nephew was in the club and knew the area well. Just the guys response helped with geolocation.

Other times falsely claiming a trophy is from a place it obviously wasn’t taken at is a clue. There’s a part of a Wyoming mountain I know well and a guy talked about the area in a knowledgeable way and showed an elk he claimed was taken up on a high plateau, but vegetation gave it away he was at least a thousand feet lower, most likely in a 10 square mile area. It’s still not a great spot unless you don’t have anything better, then it would be good information.

The average hunter doesn’t realize how well firefighters in an area know the history of old burns and can often determine which fire a kill shot was at based on limited photos. Things grow back at a pretty well known rate.

Online info should never be trusted, but if I had a crappy license in an unknown spot and couldn’t find a local who knew where to hunt, I’d google the heck out of trophy pics, search the kill pics of any outfitters that cover the area, and join any FB hunting groups for that area.

 

[Swamp Fox]

https://tenor.com/assets/img/icons/link.svg

 

[Dos Perros]

Over the years I've told probably 7-8 people some decent spots where I have been successful in the past. Like, really decent spots. They acted very thankful.

I asked them to let me know how their hunt went. How many people do you think got back to me? None.

I honestly bet it is because some or most of the time they went in there and it sucked.

 

[Jimmy]

I honestly bet it is because some or most of the time they went in there and it sucked.

Could be... Sometimes here in CA I wonder if they even got out of their truck...

 

[Rich M]

I was given a great spot pm and have shared a similarly great spot pm. Otherwise, eh.

There is an old saying “ask me no questions i tell you no lies.”

 

[HairyScandinavian]

Doesn't matter how good the spot is if it's been shared with a bunch of other people. Even if somebody DMs the spot it's likely they've also DMd others if they're willing to share. Might be worth a look but I'd probably reserve it for when primary plans don't produce.

 

[TxLite]

If I give out an elk hunting spot then you better believe you won’t see a single animal there, because neither did I (I am not good at hunting elk)

 

[Dave_]

I'll google names of specific areas that I'm interested in scouting or hunting (lakes, drainages, peaks, trailheads, etc). If a bunch of old hits come up I know it's a good place to avoid...

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[bstovall]

None

 

[5MilesBack]

I've shared this spot many times, and I have extremely high confidence in it.