My Year-Round Hunting Plan

[mia-elk-chaser]

Hey y'all - I'm really trying to increase my days in the hunting field and outdoorsman experience this year. I set a goal to hunt every quarter and do some outdoorsman activity every month. I live in Miami and grew up in the midwest which is still where my family lives.

Here's what my calendar is looking like.

• January - Archery Range 3x
• February - Bonefishing in the Carribean
• March - Osceola Turkey at J.W. Corbett WMA (Public Land)
• April - Eastern Turkeys in Ocala (Public Land)
• May - Tennessee Turkeys in Knoxville (Private Land)
• June -?? Fishing South Florida
• July - ?? Fishing South Florida
• August - ?? Fishing South Florida, maybe FL public land deer if I can fight the mosquitos
• September - Chasing bugles in Colorado, archery elk (Public Land), potentially getting a black bear tag
• October - Rifle Elk Colorado (Public Land) + hopefully midwest ducks (Private Land)
• November - Archery whitetail + shotgun whitetail in Southern IL (Private Land)
• December - ? maybe archery whitetail ?

I'm curious how your year of hunting lines up. Let me know what I'm missing!

 

[Loper]

For December and January add duck hunting in the STAs.

 

[mia-elk-chaser]

For December and January add duck hunting in the STAs.

Great find! I had no idea about this. As I understand it, you apply standby online the week prior and then if no one else is there you get a tag to hunt that weekend? Have you had success on the standby?

 

[roadrunner]

Depends on the draw results. I no longer hunt public OTC.

 

[nphunter]

Here's mine,

Jan. - Duck Hunting, watching animals on the winter range.
Feb. - Shed hunting for deer antlers, Coyote Hunting.
Mar. - Shed hunting for straggling deer horns and watching elk, Coyote Hunting.
April - Elk sheds and Turkey Hunting, Sometimes spring bear.
May - Packing salt into trail cam spots.
June - Scouting for elk and Deer and checking cams.
July - Same as June only now concentrating on smaller areas.
Aug. - Antelope Hunting for 2 weeks, early deer if I draw.
Sept. - Take an entire month off for archery deer and elk, in two - 3 states.
Oct. - Rifle deer and rifle elk, sometimes Muzzleloader deer.
Nov. - Late Archery Deer, Late Cow elk hunting.
Dec. - Duck and Goose Hunting.

Sometimes I fish a little also but nothing serious. I currently have 94 days between Aug. 1st and Nov. 31st scheduled for hunting somewhere.

 

[WCB]

Sept-December: Elk, Mule Deer, Whitetails, Ducks, Geese, Upland, Fly Fishing
Jan-little upland, Coyote /fox
Feb-Coyote/Fox, ice fish
March-Coyote/fox, Snow Geese, ice fish
April-Snow Geese, ice fish
May-little fishing, very little Turkey, Black Bear
June-Praire Dogs and fishing
July- Fishing
August-Fly Fishing and regular fishing

This is spread out between MN where I live, MT, ND, SD, NE, WY

 

[wildwilderness]

Sonora Coues deer in January, Black or Brown bears in May/June, CA blacktail s in July, Sheep, caribou, or Sitka Blacktail in August, then Hawaii or Texas exotics any other time you have free.

That will fill in some of your holes

 

[Nickofthewoods]

• September - Chasing bugles in Colorado, archery elk (Public Land), potentially getting a black bear tag
• October - Rifle Elk Colorado (Public Land)

If you haven't already, I would recommend looking at the regs in regards to getting two elk tags in the same year. List A vs List B.

 

[Loper]

Great find! I had no idea about this. As I understand it, you apply standby online the week prior and then if no one else is there you get a tag to hunt that weekend? Have you had success on the standby?

You don’t have to do the stand by option. You can apply several months ahead of time and get a permit for a specific day and time. The stand by option is to fill the vacancies for the people who get the permit for the specific day/time but don’t show up. I haven’t done the stand by option because it is a long drive for me and isn’t guaranteed you’ll get to hunt.

 

[jcojocaru]

Glad I saw this. I'm new to hunting, have only hunted once in my life when visiting family in Missouri. Done plenty salmon fishing. But wanted ideas on what to hunt throughout the year and quickly gain experience.

 

[rasfetch]

Here's mine,

Jan. - Duck Hunting, watching animals on the winter range.
Feb. - Shed hunting for deer antlers, Coyote Hunting.
Mar. - Shed hunting for straggling deer horns and watching elk, Coyote Hunting.
April - Elk sheds and Turkey Hunting, Sometimes spring bear.
May - Packing salt into trail cam spots.
June - Scouting for elk and Deer and checking cams.
July - Same as June only now concentrating on smaller areas.
Aug. - Antelope Hunting for 2 weeks, early deer if I draw.
Sept. - Take an entire month off for archery deer and elk, in two - 3 states.
Oct. - Rifle deer and rifle elk, sometimes Muzzleloader deer.
Nov. - Late Archery Deer, Late Cow elk hunting.
Dec. - Duck and Goose Hunting.

Sometimes I fish a little also but nothing serious. I currently have 94 days between Aug. 1st and Nov. 31st scheduled for hunting somewhere.

This is a nice list. I'm trying to get out more in the late winter and spring for some of the things you mentioned

 

[mia-elk-chaser]

Hey y'all just wanted to provide an update here for fun on my year of hunting. Feel free to share yours too! The goal of the year was to improve my outdoorsman craft every month and hunt once a quarter.

Focusing on hunting & outdoorsmanship as a hobby instead of a "trip" once or twice a year has totally changed my mindset and been incredible. Thanks for all the support here and sharing some new hunts.

• February - Bonefishing in the Carribean
  • amazing, landed a nice bonefish
• March - Osceola Turkey at J.W. Corbett WMA (Public Land)
  
  • This was a great experience first time in the South FL public land turkey hunting.
  • Safe to say I'm hooked on Turkey hunt!
  • Got the tacoma stuck in the swamp and had to get pulled out by a local in a swamp buggy who charged my $500 to rescue us but hey, that's the idiot tax i guess.
• April - Eastern Turkeys in Ocala (Public Land)
  
  • We got into about 12 turkeys out on public land and had some great hunts. Ocala is a great wilderness area.
  • We found a few groups of turkeys just driving the roads slowly during the mornings and evenings.
  • We hunted the burn by the bomb zone and no luck but cool country.
  • We saw a few FL black bears too which was a nice surprise.
• May - Tennessee Turkeys in Knoxville (Private Land)
  
  • Man this turned out to be an epic turkey hunt! Got permission to hunt my mom's neighbor's 500 acre farm that had plenty of turkey on it.
  • Had a great morning hunt with a gobbling tom and chased him all around the property for about 2 hours and then at about 40 yards he ran off into another property. Even more hooked on turkey hunting now.
• June -?? Fishing South Florida
  • Ended up going peacock bass fishing on some South Florida Lakes which was a blast.
• July - ?? Fishing South Florida
• August - ?? Fishing South Florida, maybe FL public land deer if I can fight the mosquitos
  • Got busy so no swap deer hunting for me this year.
• September - Chasing bugles in Colorado, archery elk (Public Land), potentially getting a black bear tag
  
  • Headed to Steamboat for OTC archery. I'm the mule this year and not getting a tag so I'm excited to be supporting cast for this one. If you're headed out to Steamboat area HMU!
  • We have a great plan based on last year's elk encounters. Thinking more about the hunting pressure and where that's going to push them now.
  • Decided not to do the bear tag, we need to get our first elk first before complicating things
• October - Rifle Elk Colorado (Public Land)
  
  • Got lucky and pulled a 1st season limited draw rifle tag for Southwest Colorado (GMU 71)
  • taking my dad and brother-in-law for their first hunt
  • Spent all my cash on a nice spotting scope and new binos to be able to glass effectively.
  • Got a Savage 110 .308 and have been hitting the Palm Beach range dialing in at 300 yards.
• November - Archery whitetail + shotgun whitetail in Southern IL (Private Land)
  • TBD
• December - ? maybe archery whitetail ?
  • TBD

 

[Rich M]

I do ducks and quota hunt deer in FL. All i got time for.

 

[Fitzwho]

I have been trying to get in more fishing in the last few years. Other than a few small lakes, its a couple-3 hour drive to anywhere to fish here. I had a full calendar year a few years ago that I realized that I had not caught a single fish. Definitely not letting that happen again.

All my hunting will be done over a 3-week period this year. Will start 9/14 and most likely/hopefully will have all 5 of my tags filled by October 10th. Two trips, 3 states, 5 tags. Not how I try to setup my hunts year to year, but that is just how the chips fell this year. Should leave me some time for chasing quail and hogs here in Texas and public in New Mexico.

Next year should be interesting. Finally be taking my trip to Christmas Island in March for Bonefish, Giant Trevally, and whatever else. Hoping to push past 100 species of fish caught during this trip. I'm at 87 currently. This will take up most of my vacation for the year, so I'll be attempting to stay closer to home for most of my hunts. Leaning heavy on New Mexico, maybe pick up a low to mid-tier AZ mulie tag, and probably calling in some connections in Oklahoma to smoke out a few whitetails. Probably not doing anything more than a couple 3-4 day hunts over weekends, including drive time.

 

[fox5412]

Thats a straight up fantastic plan.

 

[Goatpacker]

Hey y'all - I'm really trying to increase my days in the hunting field and outdoorsman experience this year. I set a goal to hunt every quarter and do some outdoorsman activity every month. I live in Miami and grew up in the midwest which is still where my family lives.

Here's what my calendar is looking like.

• January - Archery Range 3x
• February - Bonefishing in the Carribean
• March - Osceola Turkey at J.W. Corbett WMA (Public Land)
• April - Eastern Turkeys in Ocala (Public Land)
• May - Tennessee Turkeys in Knoxville (Private Land)
• June -?? Fishing South Florida
• July - ?? Fishing South Florida
• August - ?? Fishing South Florida, maybe FL public land deer if I can fight the mosquitos
• September - Chasing bugles in Colorado, archery elk (Public Land), potentially getting a black bear tag
• October - Rifle Elk Colorado (Public Land) + hopefully midwest ducks (Private Land)
• November - Archery whitetail + shotgun whitetail in Southern IL (Private Land)
• December - ? maybe archery whitetail ?

I'm curious how your year of hunting lines up. Let me know what I'm missing!

Here’s mine:
Jan. - Mountain Lion Hunting, NM
Feb. - Mountain Lion Hubting, NM Coyote Hunting.
Mar. - Taxidermy Work on Harvested game; going to gym recovering from Hunting.
April - Elk sheds and Turkey Hunting.
May - Training for hunting season
June - Scouting for Elk, Deer getting in shape fishing in Alpine lakes packing in with my goats.
July - Same as June packing with my goats.
Aug. - Same as June; packing with my goats getting in shape.
Sept. - Take an entire month off for archery Deer and Elk.
Oct. - Rifle Bear Hunt in New Mexico with Hounds and my pack goats.
Nov. - Chukar Hunting; upland Bird and waterfowl hunting.
Dec. - Duck and Goose Hunting.
Eat and enjoy my Harvest…repeat all over again

 

[mia-elk-chaser]

For December and January add duck hunting in the STAs.

This was an awesome suggestion. We went out to STA 1 West and had a great time. Got a few teals and ring-necks. Thanks for the tip.