No big secret that I'm from the eastern half of the states and the two western adventures I went on were 30+ hour drives each way. They were 0 pt draws and in areas where we can definitely say "the effect of others was felt".
So, you see these videos and the guys are seemingly all alone in the mountains, plains, foothills, whatever with the herd of elk, antelope or mule deer just standing there doing animal things. It is awe inspiring and beautiful. Sometimes they are hunting/glassing out of their truck on this unused road and no-one comes by. You get this image in your mind... You read these articles and books and further seem to cement that illusion that there is a lot of room and it is easy to hunt without encroaching or being encroached upon.
If you skip the research part and just get a tag somewhere, you can be very impressed when opening day comes and there are 20 vehicles where, the day before there were none. Or there seems to be some kind of cross-country loop race going on with trucks racing around - maybe a scavenger hunt - crazy how they scheduled that to coincide with opening day. Oh well, got to deal with this now.
If you do any research and look for areas with decent hunter access, a decent harvest rate or "potential for a trophy" unit/area that can be drawn with a lower number of quota points, you likely start finding words like "hunter density" and "sea of orange" and "road hunters".
Other statements you see include "difficult access" and "to avoid hunters, walk in or hunt areas with difficult access". Somewhat similar but the meaning is totally different - one means hard to find places to hunt, the other means, go hide from the hunters and the deer/elk/antelope will be there too.
So, what is it?
Do you hunt an area of seclusion - or do you prefer the challenge of hunting in an area with a number of hunters?
So, you see these videos and the guys are seemingly all alone in the mountains, plains, foothills, whatever with the herd of elk, antelope or mule deer just standing there doing animal things. It is awe inspiring and beautiful. Sometimes they are hunting/glassing out of their truck on this unused road and no-one comes by. You get this image in your mind... You read these articles and books and further seem to cement that illusion that there is a lot of room and it is easy to hunt without encroaching or being encroached upon.
If you skip the research part and just get a tag somewhere, you can be very impressed when opening day comes and there are 20 vehicles where, the day before there were none. Or there seems to be some kind of cross-country loop race going on with trucks racing around - maybe a scavenger hunt - crazy how they scheduled that to coincide with opening day. Oh well, got to deal with this now.
If you do any research and look for areas with decent hunter access, a decent harvest rate or "potential for a trophy" unit/area that can be drawn with a lower number of quota points, you likely start finding words like "hunter density" and "sea of orange" and "road hunters".
Other statements you see include "difficult access" and "to avoid hunters, walk in or hunt areas with difficult access". Somewhat similar but the meaning is totally different - one means hard to find places to hunt, the other means, go hide from the hunters and the deer/elk/antelope will be there too.
So, what is it?
Do you hunt an area of seclusion - or do you prefer the challenge of hunting in an area with a number of hunters?