What to do with the meat foreign hunter in Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado. Need meat cutters and places to donate

[Stocky]

He is a freaking deer ninja. He will fill all these tags. He self guided and hiked into the New Zealand backcountry 15 miles and killed half the forest.

Not related to the post and im all for people going to hunt the states as foreigners as t americans hunt everywhere else but im going to be honest, whilst I love taking out foreigners here (NZ) when you don't have to pack out meat killing loads of animals isn't difficult. It's is however a bit disrespectful to the locals unless you targeted females to help population control. I can promise if I showed up to where hes from and slayed up a bunch he wouldn't be happy legal or not. Did he atleast try target decent/mature animals or just kill what he saw because if it's the latter on most trips I could kill dozens of animals.

I'm sure he's a good guy but I think he's maybe missed some general hunting etiquette. I found it was easy to find people that wanted meat when I hunted Montana and Colorado.

 

[Stocky]

Also the aboves just pointing out something people do when they come to NZ that really makes a bunch of kiwi hunter hate foriegners. If you want to come here feel free to reach out and I'll give you a hand in where you can have a trip of a lifetime

 

[RickyAT]

@RickyAT what gun/caliber are you planning for this trip?
Scope manufacturer?


Could maybe complete the meltdown if you could fill us in on those details. And don't forget to drop your gun several times to test it.


Hope you have a good trip, I'm sure you have checked success rates on the tags you got. The back country hunts can be as mentally exhausting as physically, well, close to. So prepare yourself for that as well.

The rifle is pretty standard so chances are it won’t result in a meltdown. It’s a Tikka T3 chambered in 7 mm Rem. Mag. and topped with a Vortex scope.

Thanks! Yes, I am well aware of the success rates. And I am not necessarily expecting to fill every tag. However, I need to prepare for filling every tag.

Having completed a good number of backcountry hunts before, I know the metal and physical challenges. Actually, they are a big part of what makes those hunts so rewarding. In the Colorado high country, the elevation will definitely add to the challenge. I have experienced that kind of elevation in Kyrgyzstan before. And even though I never got altitude sickness, hiking definitely got considerably harder with low oxygen levels.

 

[RickyAT]

Not related to the post and im all for people going to hunt the states as foreigners as t americans hunt everywhere else but im going to be honest, whilst I love taking out foreigners here (NZ) when you don't have to pack out meat killing loads of animals isn't difficult. It's is however a bit disrespectful to the locals unless you targeted females to help population control. I can promise if I showed up to where hes from and slayed up a bunch he wouldn't be happy legal or not. Did he atleast try target decent/mature animals or just kill what he saw because if it's the latter on most trips I could kill dozens of animals.

I'm sure he's a good guy but I think he's maybe missed some general hunting etiquette. I found it was easy to find people that wanted meat when I hunted Montana and Colorado.

I am assuming you are the same Stocky as on NZHS, so you might remember reading my report of my 2020 hunt.

The term “killed half the forest” may give a wrong impression. Mojave probably was referring to my 2024 NZ trip. I did kill 12 animals within a total of 48 days, but that included 3 goats (of which 2 were nannies) and 2 animals wounded by other hunters (both of them had been shot in a leg).

An example: On the 2024 tahr hunt, I looked over a total of approximately 100 tahr within 10 days. I ended up shooting an old one-horned nanny, a young 3-legged bull (which I would not have shot if he had not been wounded) and a decent bull in the evening of day 9 (I had passed on the same mob of bulls on day 1, hoping for a bigger one - on day 9 I realized that I wouldn’t find a bigger one).

So I’d say I hunted pretty selectively. That was my 3rd NZ trip, and I have become more selective over time. Obviously, on one's first tahr hunt it is about getting any tahr at all. Once that is accomplished, you become pickier. That’s probably what most hunters experience.
But even on my 2020 hunt (which was my first NZ hunt) I passed up a nice bull tahr at close range because I had already shot a smaller bull earlier that day. I would not have been happy within shooting another one.

 

[sndmn11]

@Mojave you are unable to be PMd for some reason. @RickyAT I did get a PM to you.

 

[Erict]

@Mojave you are unable to be PMd for some reason.

FYI - it's a profile setting that users can set themselves:

 

[Stocky]

I am assuming you are the same Stocky as on NZHS, so you might remember reading my report of my 2020 hunt.

The term “killed half the forest” may give a wrong impression. Mojave probably was referring to my 2024 NZ trip. I did kill 12 animals within a total of 48 days, but that included 3 goats (of which 2 were nannies) and 2 animals wounded by other hunters (both of them had been shot in a leg).

An example: On the 2024 tahr hunt, I looked over a total of approximately 100 tahr within 10 days. I ended up shooting an old one-horned nanny, a young 3-legged bull (which I would not have shot if he had not been wounded) and a decent bull in the evening of day 9 (I had passed on the same mob of bulls on day 1, hoping for a bigger one - on day 9 I realized that I wouldn’t find a bigger one).

So I’d say I hunted pretty selectively. That was my 3rd NZ trip, and I have become more selective over time. Obviously, on one's first tahr hunt it is about getting any tahr at all. Once that is accomplished, you become pickier. That’s probably what most hunters experience.
But even on my 2020 hunt (which was my first NZ hunt) I passed up a nice bull tahr at close range because I had already shot a smaller bull earlier that day. I would not have been happy within shooting another one.

Yes the wording definitely makes it sound worse.

I remember the first report you shot a young bull then a nice solid mature bull you did however follow up by shooting 2 more young bulls that clearly were sub mature (easy to tell after your older bull) because you picked the biggest one in the group of young animals and shot it. Most mature isn't mature.

Like you say I give a bunch of leewayfor shooting a first but after that the goal really should be mature or a personal best and it sounds like maybe your 2024 trip was more restrained. Seeing lots of animals is different to seeing lots of mature males. I get aging is hard and doing the miles NZ requires is hard and leaving animals after hunting weeks on end in tough terrain. A fun game if your holding out is finding the oldest Nannie to hunt. Can get some ancient girls.

Not trying to be hard on you but just explaining it may ruffle a few feathers with the locals if you dont show some restraint (it's not just foreigners north islanders do the same often as they get excited). It's really nice to do some due diligence in aging no different to a sheep hunt except its not illegal to get it wrong.

Anyway not relevant and with tags your limited in the states so I hope you enjoy the time. I loved my time hunting the states and hope you enjoy it you have some epic tags I'm very jealous of. Enjoy every moment.

 

[Coopsdaddy]

Send it to me!

 

[Scottyboy]

If you need to offload anything in Wyoming, especially the antelope, give me a few hours notice and I will meet you anywhere/anytime!! Best of luck, and hope you do a write up of what appears to be a pretty insane fall that most (myself included) are quite jealous of!

 

[RickyAT]

Yes the wording definitely makes it sound worse.

I remember the first report you shot a young bull then a nice solid mature bull you did however follow up by shooting 2 more young bulls that clearly were sub mature (easy to tell after your older bull) because you picked the biggest one in the group of young animals and shot it. Most mature isn't mature.

Like you say I give a bunch of leewayfor shooting a first but after that the goal really should be mature or a personal best and it sounds like maybe your 2024 trip was more restrained. Seeing lots of animals is different to seeing lots of mature males. I get aging is hard and doing the miles NZ requires is hard and leaving animals after hunting weeks on end in tough terrain. A fun game if your holding out is finding the oldest Nannie to hunt. Can get some ancient girls.

Not trying to be hard on you but just explaining it may ruffle a few feathers with the locals if you dont show some restraint (it's not just foreigners north islanders do the same often as they get excited). It's really nice to do some due diligence in aging no different to a sheep hunt except its not illegal to get it wrong.

Anyway not relevant and with tags your limited in the states so I hope you enjoy the time. I loved my time hunting the states and hope you enjoy it you have some epic tags I'm very jealous of. Enjoy every moment.

You remember correctly. That being my first tahr hunt, I was obviously lacking experience with tahr. After shooting the first tahr, I did pass up on several young bulls. However, I expected both of these 4-year-old bulls I shot to be older than they actually turned out to be. Not ancient, but definitely older than 4. My incorrect thought was that the biggest bull in a big mob just has to be decently mature. Also, they were considerably bigger (body, mane and horns) than the very first bull I got which also was a 4-year-old. Now I know better. In hindsight, I am semi-happy with those two bulls, even though the adventure was amazing. I have no desire to shoot young bulls anymore.

On my 2023 NZ trip I shot a 16-year-old nanny which I was absolutely stoked with. I will admit that I also shot a young nanny for meat, while holding out for a mature bull, which I eventually got on day 11 (7.5 years and 12 1/2 inch). Could have shot heaps of nannies and young bulls if I had wanted to. Even passed up a clearly mature bull because I had spotted a bigger one earlier that day (which I never found again).

My impression is that even amongst the locals you will find very different approaches. Some local hunters are looking for the nearly impossible to find 15-inch bull. Others are way more trigger-happy and will knock over several animals without even walking up to them. One seemingly experienced hunter from Christchurch told me about how they eliminated a whole mob of tahr.

Anyhow, thanks for your kind words! I think, your approach is not too different from mine.

 

[RickyAT]

If you need to offload anything in Wyoming, especially the antelope, give me a few hours notice and I will meet you anywhere/anytime!! Best of luck, and hope you do a write up of what appears to be a pretty insane fall that most (myself included) are quite jealous of!

Awesome, sounds great!
Could you please PM me so that we can exchange contact details? Thank you!

 

[Mojave]

I have been at Legoland in Munich since Wednesday. Forgive me for not responding.

 

[Mojave]

I didn't see that I had turned off PM's. They are back on again.

 

[Mojave]

Not related to the post and im all for people going to hunt the states as foreigners as t americans hunt everywhere else but im going to be honest, whilst I love taking out foreigners here (NZ) when you don't have to pack out meat killing loads of animals isn't difficult. It's is however a bit disrespectful to the locals unless you targeted females to help population control. I can promise if I showed up to where hes from and slayed up a bunch he wouldn't be happy legal or not. Did he atleast try target decent/mature animals or just kill what he saw because if it's the latter on most trips I could kill dozens of animals.

I'm sure he's a good guy but I think he's maybe missed some general hunting etiquette. I found it was easy to find people that wanted meat when I hunted Montana and Colorado.

Sorry for the exaggeration.

As is typical of hunters from Central Europe, the trophy of an old female is as big of a trophy as an old male.

Austrian forest service and land owners charge up to 7000 Euros for a super old Nanny. People have a lot of respect for wildlife.

RickyAT is no different in his respect for wildlife.

 

[Antares]

Canadian aboriginal land grabs have lessened this original area.

They learned from the best.

 

[NorCal Mixed bag]

First of all, thank you to everybody who contributed to this thread constructively. Much appreciated! And a special thanks to Mojave for his assistance!

There is a pretty simple reason why I didn't start the thread myself. I signed up to the forum quite a while ago. But I got banned for spam without ever having posted. This is the message I kept receiving for the past few months: "Oops! We ran into some problems. You have been banned for the following reason: Spam. Please contact the administrator if this was done in error.."
Probably, this issue was related to my location in Europe. I did send 2 messages to rokslide, but that didn't change anything, so I gave up. Recently, I mentioned this to Mojave, and he got me unbanned just a few hours ago.

I won't respond to some hateful messages in detail. I am very grateful for the fact, that the US allow overseas nonresidents to hunt in your beautiful country. So the last thing I want is to fight with the local hunters. However, I do find it questionable that one person wrongly accused me of wanton waste (while I am doing the very opposite by caring for and donating the meat) and even wished me a traffic accident.

Anyhow, I would like to address some misunderstandings or incorrect presumptions and answer a few questions.

Why I am doing this? I have a great passion for DIY backcountry hunts. I am in pursuit of the adventure rather than anything else in hunting. While I do appreciate the trophy, trophy size is of secondary importance on this kind of hunts. It's about the adventure, the physical challenge, getting to know new countries, enjoying new landscapes, experiencing new game species, having a memorable time, and taking home a ton of pictures and a few (often small) trophies to remember these adventures by.
That is why I applied for the bighorn ewe and some tags that can be considered opportunity hunts requiring few points. I drew all Colorado and Wyoming hunts with 2 to 4 points, so I didn't aim for any high quality hunts. The Idaho moose was dumb luck, obviously.
I started planning this hunt in 2018, buying my first points and getting a US hunter ed certificate in 2019 and spending hundreds (probably thousands) of hours on research. So a lot of preparation and work went into this upcoming trip, and I am very grateful for how everything has turned out so far.
I have accomplished a decent number of similar hunts in New Zealand, Australia and Norway in previous years. Even though I got a few nice trophies on these hunts, most animals taken cannot be considered a trophy. Nevertheless, I am prouder of the tiniest nanny tahr or calf reindeer harvested in remote wilderness than I would be of the biggest trophy shot without any effort.
These DIY backcountry hunts on public lands come with an incredible amount of freedom. You might take this for granted, but I hope you consider yourself very lucky to have this opportunity. We have nothing like that in most European countries. This freedom also comes with some responsibilities, that I take very seriously, out of respect for the country and the local hunters. In the US, one of these responsibilities is using the meat, so I put a lot of effort into finding the ideal solution.

Why don't I take the meat back home? There is just no legal/practical way to bring meat into the EU, unfortunately. I will enjoy some meat while in the US, but I hate that I can't take the meat back home.

Why didn't I return any tags? Actually, I did surrender a Colorado bear tag as it would have been too much to handle timewise. I contemplated withdrawing my Wyoming antelope application (also discussed that with Mojave), but finally figured that it should work out. I never planned on taking any meat home (not legally possible), so was planning on donating it from the very beginning. However, I don't want to hold tags if I end up lacking the time to hunt them, while other hunters would definitely enjoy that hunt.

Why didn't I arrange meat donations earlier? I had some arrangements (including food banks and Mojave's family) that finally didn't seem to turn out ideal. I didn't arrange more details since I didn't know which tags I would draw. It doesn't make sense to arrange something in Wyoming and then not draw in Wyoming, for instance. There is plenty of time between the draw and the hunt, so no need to arrange everything before the draw.
I should also mention that food banks didn't seem to accept other meat than deer, elk, pronghorn and moose. And CPW was not allowed to share contact details of food banks, they said. So I was stuck with what I found through google. That was a less-than-ideal solution, so I was very happy when Morave offered help last year.

How much time have I set aside for this trip? A total of 61 days, including travel days and pre-season scouting.

I am happy to post a report after the trip. Have done the same in a New Zealand hunting forum after my first New Zealand trip.

RickyAT - realize I’m reviving a somewhat settled(?!) topic/thread, but assuming you might be on your way “here”, I wanted to wish you the best of luck, a safe journey, and my very fervent hope that you enjoy all this country and its wild places has to offer; I know I speak for others here who have contributed more positively.

I’m sorry that you felt compelled to have to come here to defend yourself, but your initial post tells me everything I think we need to know. Such are the perils of an open forum format. I think because of the aforementioned North American Conservation model, “we” collectively defend “our” animals, sometimes a little too vigorously IMO - as they (theoretically) don’t belong to the Crown/King/Estate, as it were. But if you spend some time here in the States, you’ll find that they often still do…………

For those who haven’t traveled extensively outside the US, it’s a foreign concept that other countries have laws governing the export of wild game, and therefore have a more robust system for utilizing those resources. I for one envy the Europe/UK system of inspection, grading, selling & marketing of game protein - it’s a great utilization of the resource, arguably healthier than other alternatives, etc. Something we should have considered eons ago, but naturally, interferes w/other business “models”! I’ve traveled all over Europe, the U.K., and quite a bit of the Balkan Peninsula, but have never hunted any of it. My best laid plans to do so for my 50th bday have been thwarted by several health issues; but I very much aspire to do exactly what you are, in reverse. I have always been made very welcome in every country I have visited in your part of the world, and I hope you have the same experience here. Again, best of luck!