Hunting in the 1980s and 90s

[MallardSX2]

The 90's were the best years for bowhunting.

Crossbows were not allowed in 95% of archery seasons and most people had the attitude that if you were using a crossbow that you were a handicap.

Now, bow season is a freaking free-for-all.

 

[Poser]

There's an aspen tree I see somewhat regularly in one of my deep elk hunting camps. A guy carved his name + "mtn Goat Hunter '83". Everytime I see it, I think how much more difficult and goat hunting must have been way back in 1983 with little to no available information out there about how and where to hunt goats, how much more cumbersome and heavy gear was, navigation skill... If you didn't have any previous experience hunting goats and you weren't using a guide, you were flying blind and it must have been wild as hell in terms of being an adventure based experience. We really have tamed quite a few of the unknowns of the mountain hunting experuience since 1983.

 

[go_deep]

I remember neighbors encouraging me to hunt their land to try and kill a buck that was living mainly on their property.

 

[5MilesBack]

Ah yes, the 80's.......when big mule deer were very plentiful, buck tags were OTC, and we used our elk preference points on cow tags. We used to cut and split a bunch of firewood and stack it in camp. We'd come back the next year and it was still there. We'd see the same NR guys camping near us every year, and we'd all hang out around the camp fire every night.

We would generally see more elk back then, but I've seen more big bulls in the last 15 years than we ever did back then. Mule deer have taken a few really hard hits from winters since the 80's. To the point where I just don't really enjoy deer hunting much anymore.

 

[MuleyFever]

I grew up in WI and I remember in the late 80's and early 90's going around asking permission to hunt and getting access for a few days of work on the farm. My first Western hunt was on 2000, I think, and for a while there was good mule deer hunting in a lot of places and tags were easy to get, in general, it started to go downhill shortly after that.

 

[TaperPin]

My main memories of the 1990’s are the beginning of the internet and range finder use. A 1500 yard rangefinder was lucky to range 500 yards unless a big tree or rock happened to be next to your deer. As for the internet, well, here we are after 3 decades of showing guys A-Z what to do with little more effort than a mouse click.

I think it was early 90’s Leki came out with three piece trekking poles, the Barnes X bullet became available on shelves, and aluminum tent poles began showing up.

 

[omicron1792]

I’ll give a southeastern perspective.

I started hunting in the late 1980s with my grandfather. Rifles were considered bad. “Too dangerous.” All deer hunting was with a shotgun with a slug or buckshot.

Deer hunts were always deer drives with dogs.

My grandfather did have an early compound bow. It would be considered primitive by modern standards.

There were no deer in my area of the state. We had to drive 2-3 hours to the hunting club to hunt. We were not allowed to kill does. Harvesting a large buck was a rare event.

There are way more deer all over the state now than back then. It may be social media bias, but many more people harvest large bucks than did back then.

 

[mt terry d]

We can thank our professional game managers for so wisely using the millions of dollars we’ve paid them for the wonderful quality of game animals today compared to years prior.

And let’s not forget conservation outfits like RMEF, which started as a small group of hunters with the motto “Dedicated to elk and elk hunting” and was changed in the 90’s to something more politically correct and turned into a multi million dollar business.

I guess we can retire that old saying
“ you get what you pay for”

Flame on kids, I wear asbestos underwear.

 

[Weldor]

Those were killer years, the earlier the better. I remember when they called Utah the "Motherland of Mule deer". The Kaibab was not a tourist attraction. Good times.

 

[Decker9]

In the 80’s, all us kids were hunting small game by 4-5-6 years old, law was 10, but nobody batted an eye, now we have to wait until age 10 because of the way society’s changed (it’s not worth the risk). Really sucks for the families that start young.

12/13 years old I started taking the boat out alone moose hunting (packing a .375 h&h), running the trapline after school, croozin the lakeshore shooting muskrats and beavers. We’d take our rifles to school in duffle bags so to hunt after school, heck, that was mid 90’s. Times changed fast!

Game was defiantly more abundant, less people out (not that we see many anyway).

The biggest change to my local area is due to the pine beetle and deforestation. Pine beetle killed off a lot of forest, companies logged it, left not much cover for game.

 

[LookinforDirt]

I started deer hunting in the 80’s. At least where I lived and hunted in MI we saw a lot of other hunters. Deer populations were low and hunter numbers were high. But it was still a great time. As a kid I knew what I knew. Didn’t know I was supposed to be unhappy about anything. Had a Ben Pearson compound and Fred Bear was the man. No sights, no release for the bow. Rest was a little flimsy glued on arm. Used my knuckles to aim. Tree harness was something that was a good idea but that was about it. Ground hunted most of the time anyway. None of us ever arrowed a deer. That’s what archery hunting was for me, lol.

I went on a caribou and moose hunting trip in AK in the late 90’s. Stopped in an Anchorage Fred Meyers and bought both tags OTC. My Dad and Grandpa bought OTC mule deer and elk tags in MT. Filled all of them. That's the biggest change for the worse in my opinion. Difficulty and cost to get tags. There has been no better time than now to be a whitetail hunter.

 

[Customweld]

Back in my day....

In Idaho when I started hunting, Elk rifle opened on Oct 5th. and closed Oct. 14. It was pretty cool being able to hunt bugling bulls with a rifle. Deer opened Oct 15 and carried through to Nov 10. It was fun hunting muleys in the rut every year as well. Way less pressure after opening day. You could get done with an early football practice and be in the hills in about 10 minutes. Rifles and gear in truck ready to go.
That was when Idaho had Panhandle, Mountain and regular tags. When you bought your tag, the vendor was supposed to check one of those 3 boxes. They sometimes forgot, so you could hunt archery the first couple of weeks in September, then hit the backcountry units (back when there were still elk in the MF Zones) with a rifle the last 2 weeks of September and keep moving around til you were sick of hunting or tagged out.
For deer, you could hunt the regular season for muleys and if you didn't see anything to your fancy, you could hunt the whitetail season up north on the same tag.
I will say that there are more elk now in the areas I used to hunt as compared to back then. Except for the Wilderness zones. Deer, not so much.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

Without a doubt things have changed, and all for the worst. A good number of the areas I use to hunt, in Ca., Az and Wis. are now closed, either the land was bought up, or for one reason or another, the state or fed. govt. restricted access, foot access only, or completely closed areas. A lot of areas are now pay to hunt access only.

 

[cnelk]

I dont remember much of the 80s..... I do remember the music though.
Sex, Drugs and Rock&Roll, and toss in some hunting.

 

[ORJoe]

I hear the "back in my day" and I've actually wondered if in general, we're hunters back then more serious of hunters who actually got out and hunted, or were they like a lot of the hunters now days where they walk a short little road, or drive around and check a few spots and call it a day then complain they saw nothing.

There were less hunters and more animals and the animals didn't care about the hunters
Guy I hunt with talks about driving down the road and all the deer are laying by the side letting the dust from log trucks collect on them to cool them off. You'd get to the end of the road, decide which one you liked most, and drive back and shoot it.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

In the late 90's when I killed my first elk at age 14, my dad and his friend - an outfitter - let me drink several shots of whiskey which ended rather poorly for me. Not sure that style of parenting is still practiced much these days.

 

[Jason Snyder]

There were less hunters and more animals and the animals didn't care about the hunters

Not sure about this as a ubiquitous statement. Some areas have far more elk than they used to. Certainly not so for mule deer, but some areas also have far more whitetail deer than 40 years ago.

We probably are in the glory days of black bear hunting.

 

[squid-freshprints]

Pink sheds..... everywhere! Also, you'd be laughed at for hunting with black rifle.

 

[Customweld]

Not sure about this as a ubiquitous statement. Some areas have far more elk than they used to. Certainly not so for mule deer, but some areas also have far more whitetail deer than 40 years ago.

We probably are in the glory days of black bear hunting.

I'd agree with that black bear assessment. I would also say we are in the glory days of elk hunting in certain parts of Idaho.

 

[RockAndSage]

I think the biggest difference is relative lack of opportunity - as a kid in the 80s and 90s, growing up my dad and I could expect to get drawn at least every other year.

Now, I will be lucky if any of my children land 2 mule deer tags before they turn 18.

We don't do group applications at all anymore because of this - my extended family all applies individually, and because of this at least one of us gets a tag every other year, and we all "hunt" together, even though only one person has the rifle/tag.

I don't want or need the good ol' days of "easy" bucks, or big bucks everywhere you look (if that ever really was the case) - I just want the opportunity to hunt every year.