silverstreak

I am an older hunter with over 60 years of hunting out of state, many times making 2 trips a year hunting mule and whitetail deer, but prefer mule deer. I have reached a point in my life where I have to be realistic, due to my physical condition I cannot walk any distance any more. On my recent trip to Idaho, while driving home I thought to myself, this is no fun any more, I'm getting too old for this, maybe I should give it up. Then I slapped myself in the head and asked myself, do you really want to quit? The answer was absolutely not, I'm not going to quit, after all, I'm only 80. I hunt a large private ranch here in California for blacktail. I have a newer Honda Pioneer side by side that I hunt out of, we call it road hunting. I thought about it and decided to post on this forum to see if that was a possibility. I have all the equipment such as spotting scope, binoculars, range finder, weapons, Honda side by side, etc. There is a good chance there might be 2 of us. We are not picky about food or accomodations, and would even consider staying in a motel and eating in local restaurants. Would not want to live in a tent and would want to hunt 5-7days. Now the important part: I am and always have been a trophy hunter and have killed many trophies, of which 5 are over 30", and 2 whitetail over 150. In mule deer I would consider a trophy to be a heavy horned, 26+ rack that would b&c score at 170+. In whitetail it would have to be 150+ heavy horned animal. We are not interested in killing a small buck just for the meat, if we didn't see one that was to our liking, well, it wouldn't be the first time we came home empty handed, but we want an area that produces quality bucks. Whoever we hook up with will have to gut and retrieve, and skin the animal. The second hunter would be younger and physically fit. Interested in North or South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, Nevada, etc. If anyone out there is interested in talking about this you can email me at [email protected], or call at 408-722-0125

Zembesafaris

Hats off to you sir to be still hunting at your age, but I fully understand. Once hunting is in your blood we never give up. I hope you find a partner to assist. Have you ever been on a hunting safari in South Africa?

Regards
Mickey
Zembe Safaris

silverstreak

No, I have never been on a safari but have several friends that have thru the years and claim it was their best hunting experience ever. They have always tried to talk me into going but I would rather hunt here in our country. I've had several opportunities to go on mule deer hunts in Mexico and hunt their giant mule deer, but would rather hunt in our country. Thanks for your response.

mthusker

My question is, what are you looking for? Tips for outfitters and guides? Or seeing if anyone wants to share their hunting with you? I know I lease property in Montana where I live for hunting. Not only are you not bothered by other hunters, usually the terrain is more manageable and access to game easier in my experiences.

silverstreak

Hi mthusker, thanks for the response,
I'm not really looking for a guided hunt, but maybe access to areas that would give me an opportunity to hunt quality bucks without having to do a lot of walking. We have hunted Montana a lot in the past, on the north side of the Missouri River, we would come in from Chinook, Montana. This is blm land and would stay in a vacant cabin and is very rugged country, I was a lot younger and cannot hunt that way any more. I guess if I could describe an ideal situation it would be like this: Hunt on a large private ranch, or smaller ranch with adjacent blm land that has a lot of roads, a chance to see a lot of game, I'm realistic and know there's not going to be a 30" mulie behind every tree. Stay in a motel, or cabin on the ranch, eat at local restaurants, or supply our own food, or have it included in your fee, we're very flexible. The main thing for me is when we get there to be shown around for a day, and in some cases if an animal is killed in an area that's hard to get to, being able to contact someone to retrieve, gut and skin it. We don't really need our hands held, we're all experienced hunters. If you as a rancher has property to lease but are also farming and have a limited time to do other things, this would probably work, we don't need someone attending to us all day long. I'm also in a position that allows me to come up to your property with a friend of mine to look it over in the off season, that way it gives us an opportunity to talk face to face. It's been several years since I've hunted Montana, probably 2001 was the last year, so I don't know what the draw for tags is like, back in those days it was pretty easy but it's probably different now. Of course landowners tags would be helpful if there's such a thing in Montana. Every year for the past 6 years I and a group of friends have fished for salmon and halibut in Alaska. The way we do that is we fly to Ketchikan, get picked up at the airport, driven to a home that we stay in, with the boat dock a short distance away, we have our own boat assigned to us with all the gear, the first time we went out a guide went with us the first day to show us the areas and how to set up, after that for the next 4 days we fished on our own. When we got in that evening they would take our fish and process them, we would either eat at home or drive the boat over to a restaurant. I'm telling you this because it's similar to what i'd like to do on a hunting trip, except we have our own equipment and wouldn't necessarily fly in. Our game would not have to be processed either.

mthusker

PM sent.....