Why you dont hunt with some people anymore

[VernAK]

I no longer hunt with several good friends because they are all dead.

 

[AKDoc]

I no longer hunt with several good friends because they are all dead.

That's sad to hear Vern...I know it's a natural part of life and all, but still sad to hear. I'm extremely selective with whom I choose to share a hunting trip, and I have a hunch you are as well. I'm sure they were all good guys and memorable times.

 

[sasquatch]

I don’t hunt with a lot of people anymore, because I finally wised up and realized those people only wanted my spots!

When you live for hunting and spend tons of time finding a few good spots and start killing, you get a lot of friends who then wanna hunt with you. Then after they see where you go, they start going with other people.

You show up to your spots and see you’ve been beat by supposedly your own damn friends


It took me about 3X to learn my lesson, I’m an idiot

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Mule3006Elk]

I'm pretty tolerant but I hunt Big Game in particular elk and deer. Terrain is not easy.
Conditioning for me is huge. I put in a lot of time training for the hunt. I can't stand waiting around for the unconditioned to catch up. Gets old real quick.

If one is mentally weak and wants to call it quits within a few days.

 

[Moserkr]

I would hate to know people like that. So far i have not had anyone I introduced to a honey hole stab me in the back by hunting it without my knowledge or with someone unknown. Im also very selective on whom i trust. But i also make it clear that my quarry can change if a “friend” does something like that. Probably why i only have a few close friends.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

I don’t hunt with a lot of people anymore, because I finally wised up and realized those people only wanted my spots!

When you live for hunting and spend tons of time finding a few good spots and start killing, you get a lot of friends who then wanna hunt with you. Then after they see where you go, they start going with other people.

You show up to your spots and see you’ve been beat by supposedly your own damn friends


It took me about 3X to learn my lesson, I’m an idiot

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Reminds me of the song title Sad But True by Metallica.

 

[swampthing]

I have been lucky to have 4 or 5 great hunting partners. My favourite being my son. One thing I do is I always plan my trips solo and then invite my buddies. If someone cant make it it never effects me or the hunt I have planned. All my partners always contribute to the camp and the hunt but in different ways. I am a senior now and most of my partners are younger. They generally do more of the "heavy lifting" around camp and I will take on different chores such as cooking and dishes to make up for that. All my partners are upbeat and fun to be around! We never talk about sharing costs or fuel but we all try to outdo each other in providing! We all try to make sure the "other" guy gets onto game. And on that note, its all about being hunting and never about taking an animal.
If everybody had hunting partners like I do this thread wouldnt exist!

 

[eaglemountainman]

I may be selfish, but since my dad and grandpa have passed, I much prefer to hunt alone. It allows me the freedom and enjoyment to do my own thing without being concerned/pressured whether or not the hunt is unfolding per others' expectations.

I relented and did a mule deer hunt with a friend last year. He obviously thought I was the cruise directer/complaint department, present only to cater to his good time and to bitch when things weren't to his satisfaction. When he did tag a pretty decent buck, instead of being happy and grateful, the first words out of his pitiful mouth were, "yeah, but it's not as big as yours." From now on, my boots will be the only tracks in my camp.

 

[406life]

To protect the guilty, I'll say the two reasons that I've dropped partners:
1. Safety: A shotgun going off over my head equals no callback. No duck is worth that.

2. Don't pull their weight. Weather that means I do all the planning, or they won't help out, or are basically just bums.

Conversely, the guys I do continue to hunt with share the same level of passion I do for hunting, take initiative on all fronts, and then they add a little something extra to the group. One guy is gourmet and shares everything. Another always says "yes" even when he knows it will hurt. It's taken a lot for me to build my team, but man they are great guys.

 

[RHD86]

Anybody that refuses to hunt with a safety mindset. If you cant mind your muzzle, or want to drink a six pack before handling a firearm. We wont be hunting together.

 

[FairWindz06]

Good hunting partners are hard to find, and reading posts like this makes me grateful for the ones I have.

Absolutely. For me the key is hunting with guys with similar expectations. Especially in difficult backcountry conditions.

 

[matchbook454]

I’ve had a fair amount of hunting buddies come and go over the years. All for various reasons. I have a couple though that are just great and we always have a great time no matter if we’re successful or not, have bad weather, etc.. I had one buddy though that just was not safe to hunt with. First time out we were Dove hunting with several other buddies. He was monkeying around with his shotgun and it went off. Thankfully into the dirt and no one was injured. I wasn’t next to him so o didn’t see what happened, only heard he had an accident. A couple hunts later while Goose hunting he laid his shotgun across his lap while loaded pointing right at me. That was the end of him. I had another buddy that always seemed to forget cash, gear, etc.. He never prepared for a hunt and I got tired of loaning him money and my gear. I’ve got another buddy that I’m pretty much done with. Every time we hunt he forgets shells or shows up with #7 steel target loads to hunt ducks and geese. Then there’s the group that likes to drink while in the blond. They know not to do it on my blind as I have no problem tossing their $2500 shotguns on the marsh but still can’t stomach the ignorance or want to be around WHEN something bad happens. For now I’m fine with the few hunting buddies I have and really don’t need any more.

 

[Z71&Gun]

Everything pisses me off. Slamming doors, open mouth chewing, flaking, lateness, improper gear, loud talking, getting wasted, smoking on deer hunts, never scouting waterfowl, girl problems becoming my problems. Problems with their license, lack of basic knowledge that’s found in the regs, not paying for OnX then constantly asking questions which OnX could answer.

I realize I’m the grumpy silent guy on hunts.
I’m also lucky that I have time to scout, can afford gear and my wife is awesome. These little things aren’t deal breakers.

Deal breakers are flagrant lapses in gun safety, poaching, and being a badass who pusses out but plays mental gymnastics to remain a badass in their own head. Each of these has happened once or twice. My buddy was fiddling with his safety on a pheasant hunt and his gun went off. Way too close. I just walked to the truck. We drove home in silence and haven’t talked about it since. I still think about it all the time. Then there was the army strong buddy who did all the stuff from the first list, missed a grouse at 10 feet, was really scared of the mountain roads, quit hiking in because his ankle hurt. Like, after a lot of whining he finally just said “we’re gonna have to make camp here” after like 2 hours easy hiking. And somehow he was still the baddest mofo alive when we got back to the truck after the hunt. I didn’t have the heart to tell him. It was his first time hunting. He doesn’t know we’re not going again, but we’re definitely not.

 

[Millertime30]

The majority of the time I hunt and fish alone except for a weekend pheasant hunt once a year. When I was first starting out deer hunting I hunted with some friends who did drives during shotgun season. It was run by my shooting sports instructor so all in all it was well done and safe except for one instance. I was riding in a guys jeep and we were trying to figure out where in the section the deer ended up and all of a sudden he slams on the brakes. He yells we can’t let them cross the road. Mind you we are on one of the busiest highways in my area. He then throws it in reverse and floors it going backwards down the highway trying to cut them off. Luckily there weren’t any cars behind us but I would like the know what the people in the opposite lane were thinking. That Christmas I got a muzzleloader and have been on my own since.

This didn’t happen to me but a friend was goose hunting and had someone shoot down the line and blow the forearm and barrel off another persons gun. He went home with at minimum a black eye after that.

 

[Loggerdude]

I found the more people the worse it gets, nice for packing. Got llamas took care of that problem. I can always count on three people to get it done me myself and I. I do hunt with my nephew who is like minded.

 

[wilkINkc]

Mine is more about fishing than hunting, since I am still really new to hunting and have only gone solo so far.

When I was around 23 or 24 I had a friend that loved fishing as much as I did. We went all the time together. I ended up buying a used boat so we started meeting at my house early and going to a bigger lake 1 hour away, usually always on Saturday or Sunday. Well, he liked to go to the bar on Fridays. This caused him to usually either be late or show up drunk. A few times of this happening and I just started going alone. It was annoying both ways, either waiting on him because he's late or listening to him blab because he was still drunk and just stayed up all night.

 

[TradArcher]

For bird hunting, shotguns flagging me as we walk in together...and then again later after I alert them to their gun handling "skills" = we are not hunting together again...ever.

New person that felt the need to shuck a shell into the chamber while still in the cabin = nope.

Preferring a tradbow some folks are just way too noisy and also move way too much when game are around.

So safety and noise have been concerns for me in the past.

 

[long hunter]

My father was my main hunting buddy, but has moved on miss him dearly, I have a solid hunting partner same mind set and a all around good partner when it is hunting time, A few years ago we were on a quail preserve hunt, four hunters too a group he ask about bringing one of his work partners along, well about a hour into the hunt this bozo has been warned twice about shooting low fliers over the dogs, no muzzel discipline and in general a very un-safe gunner, Too top it all off he is a first line supervisor in federal law enforcement, I stopped the hunt and told my regular buddy I hunt with too move this idiot too the outside and you go with him if he crosses me one more time or shoots across of me or the dog handler chews his ass one more time I am going too take his gun and beat the hell out of him with it. As this a annual hunt and all are either retired or active law officers you would think gun handeling and safety would be top priority, I also told my friend either leave him home or forget me, So this idiot now has his own group and goes the opposite direction from us. Choose your hunting partner like you would a wife, but also be careful with that too.

 

[BFR]

Excluding my grandkids and wife I have exactly 1 hunting buddy. We go back many years, all the way back to when we were 8 yrs old and had Red Ryders. At 12 it was rabbits, squirrels, birds deer, whatever was open. Lost track of each other when we graduated and didn’t reconnect for close to 20 years when I ran into his brother at the store. At the time I was heavy into archery and he was fed up with the lack of deer and ready to quit. I talked him and his wife into going bow hunting with me for a week, same areas we grew up hunting, it was like there hadn’t been any break, we were in sync. He got hooked, even getting together for some out of state hunts. Got back into rifle for some Utah elk and archery for deer. Now that I’m in Montana he’s been coming up here for some deer hunting I go down to Cali for pigs. Except for the gap we’ve hunted together for over 65 yrs, we’re slower and we don’t go as far but we still hunt the same way, the same way his granddad taught us as kids.

 

[AKSandman]

There was one guy who came on a horseback sheep hunt. He showed up with 5x as much gear as everybody else, turned my riding horse into a packhorse to carry all his extra gear, insisted on using an English saddle for a backcountry hunt and proceeded to fall off his horse 4x the first day! (To his credit he never complained about this) the final straw was when he got bucked off his horse and hit the ground really hard and complained about his knee bothering him. He said it was “clicking” but to not worry too much, his artificial knee “did that sometimes” all he needed was for me to retrieve his hurry-cane from his packsaddle! He also brought a rifle that “fired two bullets every time he pulled the trigger”!!!

We never spoke again after this hunt.