Hunts with a higher percentage to lose your life

My closest call was a Bush Plane in SW AK.
Landing on top of a wet, tundra covered ridge
that was apparently not long enough.
I distinctly remember looking down at those big
tundra tires that were locked up, but we weren't
slowing down.........at all.
 
Hunting is fairly low risk. In all of New York there was one fatal hunting accident in 2019.

Discounting heart failure, I'm guessing falls kill more people than anything else. Getting shot in an area with lots of hunters or self discharge second. Lightning third. Grizzlies unimaginably small percentage. Out of over 10 million people who hunt each year, less than 25 per year died by grizzly. That's 0.0002%. Put another way, 9,999,975 were not killed by grizzly. 😁
 
Now can someone explain to me why I need to wear orange so that someone doesn't line up a perfect heart shot on me before figuring out I'm not a deer?
 
A lot of people die falling from tree stands and drowning/getting shot/etc from duck hunting.
But, I’d be more interested in knowing the fatalities per days in the field for a given hunt.
Millions of people deer and duck hunt, so you would expect the numbers of people dying during those activities would be higher. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are more dangerous.
 
Mountain hunting is inherently dangerous and goats tend to live in steeper, more treacherous terrain. Throw in horses, planes, weather, snow or ice on top of that and it really ups the ante.

As far as a critter fighting back - I’ve been charged and threatened a bunch of times. Several tons of angry hippo or an elephant in full-on rage can convert a committed atheist.
 
Coastal goat hunting for sure. I have a high risk tolerance and still get through spots where I think "well that was a f*cking stupid route to take". I'm sure sheep hunting in Pakistan would be pretty dangerous, but that be a two legged issue.
 
You ever read see:


A little dated, but hundreds of stories of people who pressed the SOS on a Garmin. Hunters, hikers, boaters, etc. Read all of them. My take away, breaking your leg in the backcountry, sinking your boat way out, or your mode of travel breaks (truck, atv, horse, boat, etc) way back and you are screwed.

Be safe, don't go alone if you can, listen to that inner voice that is trying to save your ass..... and buy a Garmin (I have one, highly recommend).
 
After scaling 50' up a cliff to retrieve a dead goat I cam face to face with a very live but wounded one. At that moment I was more scared than I ever have been in my life. I was clinging to the edge praying the billy wouldn't charge. I had zero ability to maneuver or fend off any kind of attack. Thankfully the goat just climbed the cliff.

Craziest moment of my life for sure and probably one of the closest to me losing it.

So, ya goat hunting is a bit risky, especially if you make some mistakes.
 
There's a guide up here that by hunting with, your odds of going home to your loved ones are significantly decreased.
 
Some times the people you are trusting your "well-being" to, can be dangerous, Like the bush pilot on a Caribou hunt i had the pleaure of flying with...With the lit cigarette dangling from his bottom lip while fueling the float plane and missing the fill port and spilling fuel all over the float and into the lake creating a beautiful rainbow on the water....This had me at a fast walk to a distant location :oops:
 
Know a bush pilot, an exceptional pilot, who was trying to see if there was any fuel left in his storage tank. Used his Bic, thankfully there wasn’t much left. Didn’t kill him.
Bush plane adventures should be a separate category.
 
Running into a crazy old timer in the Lolo and agreeing to follow him up a two track in the middle of the night in a blizzard.

He had a moose tag and knew no one would be up there with the recent snow, but didn't want to go alone. We thought "what the heck, we'll check out some new ground and help this crazy old man".

Chained up and away we went. Watched him come dang close to sliding his 90s Silverado over the edge twice. Had to scrape around a huge boulder that had tumbled off the mountain. Had to take one chain off my truck and put on his after he threw one. Plowed snow with the bumpers almost the entire way.

That was a butt-puckering ~50 mile, 12 hour ride across that mountain and we didn't even stop to look at the area we went up to check out.

Probably the most scared I've been for a long time. We were glad to get out of the snow on the other side of the mountain.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
What hunts do you guys think have a higher risk factor? Obviously sheep hunts but I’m talking certain mountain ranges that seem to attract worse weather, or coastal areas that funnel the storms, places where bears seem more aggressive, local population that are more prone to violence towards an outsider hunting there..... places or activities that drive the risk level higher when hunting there.

Mountain goat hunts can go from fun to hairy real quick.
 
None of those round here......biggest excitement is having a squirrel jump on you or an owl dive on ya.

:love:

Remember to wear your safety harness!
 
Any place that you are not used to operating in. If you grew up in the mountains you probably have a much better idea of what's safe there than anyone else. But you may not be the safest Midwest treestand hunter. As a native Midwestern guy, it takes a conscience effort to realize your busting through alders, you can't see anything, your hauling Caribou meat and covered in blood so maybe you should be talking to yourself, in a loud voice, about how fun it would be to see a bear while your gun is lashed to your pack... and maybe just sling the rifle vs attach it on the pack.

But it seems the 4x4, SxS and snow machines kill far more people up here than they should. But once you get talking to people and they say "ya I was bombing down the trail at 45mpg..." Yay, no wonder you crashed and required 15 surgeries. Bottom line, what ever terrain you don't respect is going to be the most deadly.

Not to belabor the point, but there was a kid that just died from falling asleep in a cornfield and getting run over by a combine. If you dont understand the risks of where you are, you can easily get killed, on the ground, in a flat cornfield.
 
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