Success Rates

[TurkeyBowMaster]

Does anyone know how success rates are calculated and how do you calculate your own success? I personally multiply the number of animals I kill by 100,.meaning I had 100% success on my latest trip even if I only killed one while hunting 2 states. Had I killed 2, my success for that trip would have been 200%...none would have been 0%.

The 0% in Idaho lowered the success in that area, but that data was sort of skewed because I had an elk already, and didn't put that much effort on a second and didn't hunt many actual hours.

Personally, I would much rather see a man hours per kill rating. I turkey hunted an archery only area in Kentucky that kept up with man hours. It was the pre blind pre decoy era and they were logging up around 400 hours per kill which is actually pretty much the hours one can expect to*spen today with those limitations on those birds.

I believe everyone can pretty much estimate how many hours they hunt and whether or not they killed. I also would think the " could have killed" should be factored in too, assuming we all know only about 20% of could have killed will result in dead animals, higher with a gun, lower with a bow.

Animals seen and heard would also be nice data.

I just think the 10% success rates we so often see is deceiving..it's fairly easy to turn that into 100% if you show up to hunt, hunt all day, hunt smart, and hunt twice as many days as the average hunter.

As far as man hours per kill, you are going to have to work extra hard to shave that down.

 

[JDeanP]

I just like being outside.

 

[JPHuntingAUS]

Jdeanp stole the words out of my mouth. I calculate success by the amount of time I get to spend in the bush and not stuck in an office or in town.

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[TurkeyBowMaster]

That's fine, but if one is serious about taking game and studies up on the subject, accurate data is useful. It is a shame in this day and time to have such little data and such unreliable data that actually does little to depict the reality of an area. There is little doubt that if such data existed it would be used by hunters and management alike.

Alabama is fortunate to have young commissioner and is taking steps in the modern direction. He is a huge upgrade from the missing link between ape and man that once sat in the position.

 

[luke moffat]

Something to track such as this has so many moving parts I can't see it being helpful at all.

If I wanted to improve my "success" one could simply shoot the first legal animal they saw. But we all hunt for so many different reasons and most of us don't view "success" simply in killing an animal. Heck I spend a lot of days each year helping others have "success" but don't actually pull the trigger myself. Do those days count for or again my total hunting days for success? Do I get to count the animals I help other get on as part of my success?

I just don't see how this data would be accurate or useful if it took my 6.34 days in 2016 to find a moose vs. 4.54 days to get one in 2015. But the weather was bad in 2016 and that usually increases hunting time by roughly 40%. I don't see how these kinds of things are of any help. Just get out there and enjoy yourself. If you are holding out for a big critter great, if you shoot the first animal that comes along great. Just get out there and don't overthink it is my view as I see zero value in tracking such things.

 

[5MilesBack]

I hunt, I kill, I come home, and I keep trying to replicate that order of events.

As analytical as I am.......I'm still not interested in calculating out every statistical data point that I could on every trip. And I could care less what everyone else has for statistics and ratios and numbers.

But in its simplest form, success rates would be "the number of kills divided by the number of tags x 100" for a %. Although that would also depend on the number of animals allowed on one tag. Most big game that I know of is one per tag.

 

[TurkeyBowMaster]

In business the want accurate data...as much detail as possible.

I see a hunt where someone busted his tail to get one shot in 2 weeks a lit differently than one where a hunter missed 4 elk in a week. Success rates would point you in one direction, knowing the rest of the story another. I can't possibly see anything wring with it.

Who knows how much faster Idaho would have gotten on top of the wolves with more data. Even on forums like this, we saw the writing on the wall well before studies were done and action was taken. A smarter data gathering system could and should trigger immediate action.

Why wait for states with limited funds to approve the funds to do a study to see the effects of EHD when the hunters data shows the effects at little to no cost to the taxpayer.

 

[mt100gr.]

I don't believe there would be any way to determine a success rate even for a given species. Hunters skill/experience levels are all so different, the pressure on the game is different, and increased daily as the season continues.

a difference of 3 miles between areas, 15 years hunting experience, or opening day vs closing day would all factor in. not to mention species hunted. if you wanted, you could shoot a squirrel every single outing regardless of what tags you held and have 100% success 100% of days hunted.

I see no value in trying to put a number on "success". Maybe a rating for individual days hunted for a given species for a single hunter but no universal way to quantify success.

 

[Jimbob]

I hate Data. I am a teacher and data is the new thing that is suppose to drive my decision making, it's crap. The students in front of me is what drives my decision making. Each one is unique and has different needs, it's personal.

So if I relate that thinking to hunting than I care very little about some arbitrary numbers. If I want real data about a species and area then I need to talk to a person that hunted that area. This makes it personal and makes it relevant.

Like mentioned above success is different for everyone because everyone has their own reasons for hunting. I usually measure success by enjoyment and animals seen/how close I can get to them.

 

[elkguide]

Very hard to calculate what you are after and I don't know what value it would provide.

I passed at least 500 mule deer while in Idaho because, as my wife says, "I fussyed myself into nothing."
I did fill my cow elk tag. When I got back East and started hunting whitetails, I filled a doe tag and then just spent some great time in the woods (read in about 10 days) looking at and passing a bunch of deer because I already had meat in the freezer. One small buck presented a challenging shot and I took him late in the season. When muzzleloader season opened I filled a doe tag with a dry doe that I wanted out of the herd but that was after many days of waiting to get her.

So to answer your question/statement, I think that it will be very hard to quantify the data that you want and even if you could acquire those numbers correctly, I don't know what value they would provide. Last year we had no winter and the herd thrived. This year we have had more snow and colder temperatures than we had all last winter and the deer on my property are already browsing heavily.
Where will you put the "intangibles" into your calculations?

Idaho was very slow to asses the effect of wolves on the ungulates and other animal populations. Wildlife agencies on the whole have never been ones to take the lead in actual management because of the political (read money) pressures. One of the most challenging and horrific issues that those of us as hunters will be facing in the very near future is that studies are showing that 70+% of students entering the field of wildlife biology/management have never hunted nor have any attachment to hunting as a true balancing tool.

If you look historically in this country at diminishing wildlife populations and their historic comebacks, what happened to them?

They became a regulated and hunted species.

 

[tttoadman]

Since we are effectively paying abou $15-$20 /lb for the meat we get from a decent out of state hunt, who gives a rip about putting science into it. If we treated hunting like a business, we would quit and go buy a big ass tasty cow.

Like Luke noted, I passed up 6 or 8 4x4 bucks in ID this year, and ultimately came home with a tag. Dropping my average because I was having a kick ass time trying to find a great buck, which I found and hunted hard for a couple days, would minimize the awesomeness of the hunt.

Welcome to the offseason where we can all get buried in our crazy little spreadsheets for gear and points and...

 

[5MilesBack]

I see a hunt where someone busted his tail to get one shot in 2 weeks a lit differently than one where a hunter missed 4 elk in a week. Success rates would point you in one direction, knowing the rest of the story another.

Success rates don't point me in any direction. If I want to analyze or follow my own success statistics that's one thing. But data about everyone else and everywhere they hunted doesn't interest me at all. And I have no interest in pointing out my statistics and where I hunted to everyone to see either.

 

[tipsntails7]

Something to track such as this has so many moving parts I can't see it being helpful at all.

If I wanted to improve my "success" one could simply shoot the first legal animal they saw. But we all hunt for so many different reasons and most of us don't view "success" simply in killing an animal. Heck I spend a lot of days each year helping others have "success" but don't actually pull the trigger myself. Do those days count for or again my total hunting days for success? Do I get to count the animals I help other get on as part of my success?

I just don't see how this data would be accurate or useful if it took my 6.34 days in 2016 to find a moose vs. 4.54 days to get one in 2015. But the weather was bad in 2016 and that usually increases hunting time by roughly 40%. I don't see how these kinds of things are of any help. Just get out there and enjoy yourself. If you are holding out for a big critter great, if you shoot the first animal that comes along great. Just get out there and don't overthink it is my view as I see zero value in tracking such things.

Great post Luke, there are way to many variables to be able to devise a system like that with a meaningful outcome.


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[mtnwrunner]

Something to track such as this has so many moving parts I can't see it being helpful at all.

If I wanted to improve my "success" one could simply shoot the first legal animal they saw. But we all hunt for so many different reasons and most of us don't view "success" simply in killing an animal. Heck I spend a lot of days each year helping others have "success" but don't actually pull the trigger myself. Do those days count for or again my total hunting days for success? Do I get to count the animals I help other get on as part of my success?

I just don't see how this data would be accurate or useful if it took my 6.34 days in 2016 to find a moose vs. 4.54 days to get one in 2015. But the weather was bad in 2016 and that usually increases hunting time by roughly 40%. I don't see how these kinds of things are of any help. Just get out there and enjoy yourself. If you are holding out for a big critter great, if you shoot the first animal that comes along great. Just get out there and don't overthink it is my view as I see zero value in tracking such things.

bingo.

Randy

 

[Stwrt9]

i get where your going with this whole having more statistical data idea but lets come back down to earth a little bit. having an organization such as fish and wildlife compile and translate data such as this would be a statistical nightmare. let alone be near impossible to come up with an empirical value that would have any real world meaning. there are too many moving factors that would go into this as others said bottom line is people's meaning of success is measured millions of different ways! with that all being said, if you could come up with some statistics who's to say it's accurate or not being translated one way or another as you can do with most all data it's not just cut and dry.
As tttoadman said welcome to the offseason!

 

[Chad E]

It's been touched on above by Luke and others but in my humble opinion if a punched tag is the only driver of success you've got it all wrong. Don't get me wrong I hunt for meat and we as a family eat wild game year round but time spent afield is always a success. Last year I passed a ten yard shot on a small buck opening day of bow season. A lot of guys would have enjoyed the ego boost that goes with an early punched tag. I hunted for the entire rest of the early and late season and ultimately ate my tag. In that time I was able to chase a couple truly big bucks for our area and learn a ton about mule deer behavior through observation. I count it as a very successful season.

 

[rayporter]

this^

there is just more to it for me.

 

[Matt Cashell]

Success in hunting is a personal evaluation.

Lots of types of "data" are useful for hunting. I track kill locations and keep track of migration routes, escape routes, etc. That is useful.

The only reason I can think of for some kind of statistical quantification of days/success and the like would be to use the results to compare to other hunters in some sort of pissing contest. I wouldn't find it useful at all.

 

[Justin Crossley]

I think this sounds like a short cut to success for the hunters who don't want to go learn an area. You would simply look at a spread sheet and join a bunch of other lazy hunters who want to hunt an area where they get to shoot a buck every day they go out in the field. I have zero interest in something like this.

 

[JDeanP]

If it helps you enjoy your own time better, go for it. If youre trying to quantify your success to strangers, maybe evaluate why. Personally, if I could boil down the outdoors to a spreadsheet, Id probably find something else to spend my life doing.