Hunting Stages?

[RockAndSage]

The nature of all of these stages is what brings you satisfaction - the better and more successful you get at each stage, the more likely you are to move on to the next one in order to get the same satisfaction you used to get at an earlier stage. It's part of what happens as skills and success progress. It's also why people may be at different stages if we're talking different game animals.

You take a first time hunter and give them a ML or bow, and tell them they're only allowed to shoot at a genuine trophy - or tell them they've got to give first shot to some neighbor's kid, or take a photo instead of a shot - and it'll plummet their interest. But it wouldn't have that same impact of that same person had been successfully hunting for 10 years.

I also think that for a lot of people, it may also mirror their general stages of life. A hyper-competitive young guy in his 20s who is still establishing himself as a person in his own identity and in his career may feel a genuine loss or sense of threat at the idea of letting some neighbor's kid have that first shot at a big buck, while it might simply bring a giant smile to a well-established grandfather of some kind.

 

[jayhawk]

You forgot one

“Rokslide expert”

 

[5MilesBack]

I'm a little bit of all those, but it depends on what I'm hunting and the situation. I'm a bowhunter, but will also use a rifle on late season meat shoots. I'm all about the elk rut, and am a trophy hunter within that. Unless I'm hunting an area that just doesn't have a lot of trophy animals, then I'll take the first legal bull. I help people out every year, whether online or in the field. This year I may not even have an elk tag because I plan on helping a buddy all season.......or until we're done with his hunt.

But if I could have it my way, I'd be trophy hunting big bulls during September with a bow every year until I just can't do it anymore. Which is why I have no problem helping folks out in great units, because I get to do what I love doing......even without a tag.

 

[AZ8]

At 55 years old, I would put myself in the Sportsman stage. The camaraderie of hunting with others, sharing a camp and helping youngsters gives me great satisfaction. Enjoying the moment, looking out at the great outdoors with no pressure to tag out.

I still enjoy the hunt, but my favorite hunts have been with people that have since passed away. If I go home without punching the tag, I’m ok with that. It was still a great time!

 

[chasewild]

These categories have soft or overlapping boundaries, more like a Venn diagram.

I will not hunt with a rifle. No beef if you do, god I love going rifle hunting with my wife or a buddy because you get that Christmas Morning feeling EVERY. SINGLE. HUNT. When I'm bowhunting, especially now in AK, it feels more like a suiting up for every game knowing you'll probably lose.

I hope, desperately, to kill an animal and I search for trophies. Like older animals, bigger animals, etc. I do that because its harder (statistically to find those animals) and if you're limiting yourself, other animals are persisting on the landscape. But, if it "feels" right (freezer is empty? Would my old man appreciate the story? Am I on day 1 or day 10? Am I on year 1 or year 6?) then I might go after an immature animal.

But I'm not blowing up the gram (don't have it) or posting a thread (#packoutinthedark) or sharing with you if aren't in my garage.

I volunteer on the side. It's good and it comes with the privilege of getting to hunt.

If I encounter you on the mountain, of course I'll be courteous. Just don't steal my shit.

 

[Elkangle]

Method hunting and trophy hunting are one of the same

 

[D_Dubya]

I have a 14 & 17 yo, and a wife that have been really into hunting the last 7 or 8 years, so I have become pretty much just their guide and outfitter for dang near a decade. I haven’t seriously hunted for myself in 4 or 5 years but between my family and friends I have facilitated the harvesting of 40-50 big game animals the last few years. 10 or so of those have been first harvests for kids (mostly my kids friends). But, once these kids grow up I plan on getting in some trigger work again.

 

[ColoradoV]

I fall into none of the categories and all of them at the same time..

Quit hunting w a longbow in 2007 after finally killing a big buck w one. Used the longbow for over a decade in there. Deer were hard w it elk not so much.

Chase saw my show as he was in town when I got a real big buck. Smallest house on the block filled w kidos and a giant mulie . Chop off the skull cap n screw them to the wall in the garage..

Hunted/scouted 40 days this year for a buck and even won a totally useless rock paper scissors for a long nap one day as = its a good story.. All for one chance one day at a monster - I was alone on a Friday. I absolutely will not hunt a subpar buck. Helped a buddy get just a great 31” wide buck..

Best hunt of the year was when my 81 year old pops again got it done on a cow elk w the kidos.. Or rabbits w the kidos.

So yea all of em and none of them at the same time…

 

[bradmacmt]

I went through Hunters Ed in 1973, and never heard of these particular "5 stages" until this thread. I have seen something similar in years past, which may have been a paraphrase of this five. The "5 stages" have nowhere near enough nuance for my taste. I did google it, and it's everywhere including the B&C Club's official website. Doing my google-foo I did run onto this gem which I'll never take the time to read:

https://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Developmental-Stages-Ethics/dp/1931832897

 

[Pony Soldier]

Opportunities are not endless in most my areas. My goal is freezer meat. Over the years I have killed a few nice mature bulls but I don't pass up what is offered. Some beats the hell out of none. Cows fill the freezer just fine.

Deer are a little diiferant. We have transitioned from hundreds per day to seeing a couple per year. I haven't seen a buck in nearly ten years. (Mt fwp really has the upper hand in promoting extinction. Especially since they give out 50 doe tags and I am not sure there are 50 head left alive.)

I guess I could bring myself to shoot a reasonable buck should one be offered but I might have to consider the location and the day before I pull the trigger. I really don't want to be known for having killed the last one.

 

[buffybr]

Like a few others have said, I consider myself a combination of all of those choices.

I've always liked to shoot, and I look forward to my weekly trips to the range throughout the year. In the last 50 years I don't know how many tens of thousands of pistol cartridges that I've shot but I've only shot 2 black bears with my pistols. I currently shoot about 1,000 rifle cartridges every year and last year the only animal that I shot was 1 moose. I used to compete in registered Trap and Skeet shoots, and I've probably shot 300,000 shotgun shells. I no longer compete, but I still shoot about 5,000 shotshells every year. In the 50 years that I've been shooting shotguns, I might have shot 100 live birds.

In the late '70s through maybe the '90s, I filled my deer, elk, and probably pronghorn antelope tags every year, plus tags that I got for bears, moose, bighorn sheep, and a mountain goat. Filling my freezers was most important, but many of those animals also went to the taxidermist and I enjoy seeing them every day on the walls of my house.

I've also always enjoyed taking my son, friends, and even my ex-wife out and helping them get their animals.

In the past 25 years, I've been fortunate enough to have gone on 12 international hunts. On one of those hunts I think that I shot 14 animals, most of the other hunts, I brought at least 1 animal and sometimes the meat home, but on my Newfoundland moose and caribou hunt we didn't see any caribou, and I turned down shots at 3 bull moose, because their antlers weren't as big as the antlers of the 2 Shiras moose that I have shot.

Most of my big game hunting has been with rifles, but I did buy my first bow, a recurve, when I was in the Army and I chased the whitetail deer around the artillary fields of Ft Sill, OK. I did kill a bull elk in Colorado one year with it, and after I moved to Montana I bought a compound bow and went bow hunting with it every fall, but those trips ended up being just scouting trips for the later rifle seasons.

While I was still living in Colorado, I also took up black powder hunting and I still have 3 BP rifles, but the only animal that I shot with BP happened to also be my best deer, a 30" non-typical mule deer buck.

I've never planted food plots or anything likd that for deer, but one year I did help the Montana FWP live trap bighorn sheep north of Yellowstone NP that they later released in a different area to try to establish a new herd there.

And one Christmas a friend and I were driving to Denver through Wyoming and we spotted a young antelope buck that had tried to jump a barb wire fence but got hung up in it and was hanging upside down from it. I turned around and we walked about 200 yds through almost knee deep snow, and released him.

 

[Tater86]

Which stage do we classify an individual that enjoys hunting and appreciates the original concept of hunting and sportsmanship? And has come to the realization they don't care what others think of how they hunt, what they hunt and when they hunt and wants to ensure we are in this together and not putting each other into a defined stage?

 

[roadrunner]

I've never left the limiting out stage.

Likely never will

 

[Bluegrassvw]

I went from, kill everything, to pass on mostly everything, totally skipped the trophy stage, then to the “I’m happy just to be out there stage…tagged out or not”, now wanting to take kids.

I do like hunts that include a good amount of suffering… makes it more enjoyable on the back end.

I’m 40 for reference

Never understood measuring one’s self by the size or number of kills thing though. Ego ruins most everything.

 

[DustyCogs]

I guess I've regressed, did the whole bow hunting obsession thing for a while. I killed my sheep, couple moose, pile of elk. Then I just kinda moved on from caring whether it was all done with a bow and now just look for big ones.

 

[ozyclint]

Method.

I seem to have been sucked into impossible/low % hunts with a trad bow for 10 years

 

[OKHunter84]

I have never seen it written out like this but have talked about stages with friends and family. When guys are younger typically there's a blood lust and they're ready to kill. As you age you start respecting life more as you start staring your own mortality in the face or burying friends and family.

I will say that some guys never seem to mature or progress, they only care about tagging out. I think it helps if you have children because then teaching becomes a priority and your tag becomes secondary. Same goes if you had a parent or mentor get you into hunting. Helping them continue to go have adventures with you and get one more deer becomes more important then your own tag.

 

[fisherman983]

I'm probably in the trophy ish stage, and will probably stay here. I don't like eating tags so method doesn't bother me, whatever offers the most success. I'm too selfish and young for the other stages just yet. Don't think I'll ever get there anyway.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

 

[Norcalkarl]

This will be my 4th year. Had zero help from anyone and CA is a tough state. Finally feeling like I’m figuring it out and having success

 

[Swamp Fox]

I

Help me out here. Some say that there are stages of hunter development:

1) Shooting Stage · 2) Limiting Out Stage · 3) Trophy Stage · 4) Method Stage · 5) Sportsman Stage · 6) “Give-Back” Stage

I got my first hunters ed card in '78 so I predate this teaching. Haven't heard it before or forgot I ever heard it.

Guess the shooting and limiting are first. Most folks like to make a kill when they hunt, or they wouldn't carry a gun, bow, ML. We never leave these "stages". Without them, we are not hunters.

Trophy hunting is always shown as the pinnacle of hunting - they have restraint/self control, knowledge to get on the biggest critters, able to make the shots, etc. Most trophy hunters I know or have seen on YouTube will do whatever it takes to make the kill, so the Sportsman aspect is sometimes fleeting.

There were/are always guys who preferred the method to the hunt or the kill, but not everyone gets that attached to a method or technique. These are the guys in buckskins with a flintlock ML. In love with the idea of the ML, not the hunt. Possibly the LR guys fall into this? Some archery guys do - you can tell by mentioning x-bow and seeing if they fly into a tizzy.

There are some folks who are sportsmen first and foremost. They'll give ground when they encounter you in the woods, share info, and seem to have it all together. Not threatened by you or threatening to you. This is more or a mindset vs a stage. These guys aren't uber competitive.

There are a lot of guys who are gung-ho to give stuff back on day 1 but the other hunters usually turn on them and choke it out of them. This was true pre-internet and is surely true now. We also have more groups willing to take your money so you feel good about giving.

I'm surprised that this is new to you. It was already bubbling up when you were being ejumucated in hunting by the state and the common narrative.

That said, I don't believe 'stages' was the word they really were looking for because that implies a progression, which is obviously a flawed assumption.

The Five Stages of Hunting

Phil Bourjaily covers the Stages of Hunting

www.fieldandstream.com