H'alllllllll righty! So it has been several months since this thread's start, and I've talked to a few people about going out to do a walk along on a hunt, but no solid stuff. Anyone hunting on Vancouver Island this fall, weekends, who wants a young guy to pull animals out?
Considering Hunting
- Thread starter H Wally
- Start date
I prefer to phrase it in the following manner:
Gr. Argh! Meat! KILL! Bring meat home! Wave meat at wuh-mun! Fire! Meat cook! Eat meat with wuh-mun. BEER! Wuh-MUN!
Being that i am intimately familiar with the area "2 hours north of whistler" if you find the right spot, which can take many seasons... you will have no problem harvesting the 2 deer bag limit for blacktail/mule deer or for black bear. The tastiest deer by far come from that area in my opinion. I live in delta/surrey area and in my vehicle it's a 1 tank of gas round trip to my hunting grounds up there. add that 75.00 tank to the cost of liscences and tags... each deer i harvest there costs me roughly 75.00 based on filling both my tags in one trip (add 35.00 to each deer if it takes 2 trips).... not including food/smokes ect which i would buy anyways even if i wasn't hunting.... so for approx 150.00 to 225.00 I am putting roughly 160 to 180 lbs of meat in the freezer if i only count those 2 deer.
a typical seasons expenses for me run like this :
hunting liscence and tags... 3 deer, 1 moose, 1 black bear (and sometimes elk)
2 tanks of fuel for blacktail hunting ( 2 deer bag limit region 2)
2 tanks fuel for my yearly mulie hunt (3-30 and area)
6 tanks of fuel for my moose hunt (Ft St james or houston areas)
I always get my 3 deer for the season..... I don't always get my moose
so that's 10 tanks of fuel at 75.00 each
45.00 for deer tags
25.00 for moose
20.00 for bear
35.00 for seasons liscence
that adds up to 875.00 of bare bones cost... then add bullets, and any other misc items that are needed in your hunting gear list. And add the cost of packaging material if you butcher your own meat... which is a huge cost saver from having it cut and wrapped at a butcher. I generally go through 1500 to 2000 evey year in prep for and for the hunting season. The most meat i ever harvested, wrapped and frozen, worked out to 325lbs of deer, 547 lbs of moose, 120lbs of blackbear and half a elk (249lbs for me... was my buddies elk, i helped him drag out)
so that year i spent the above amount on tags and gas and harvested 1241lbs of packaged meat. I would say i spent the 2000.00 budget that year with ease as well. At the cost of 'ORGANIC" meat these days..... Looking at my figures..... i saved a bundle... well at least 600 to 1000 versus buying organic meat at the butcher. You can't compare run of the mill meat at the store to the cost of wild game, in fairness you can only compare wild game to the price of organic raised meat.
I'm a meat hunter...... and i can't honestly say i've come out ahead in the pocket book by hunting my meat over buying it. There are years where this has been the case though and due to incredible successes those years and my fishing skills/successes, the only meat we bought those years was chicken once a week.
I do however take great pride in the fact that most of the meat in my diet is natural, organic, wild game meat and fish harvested by me..... and the benefits to my belly far outweigh the impact on my pocket book
a typical seasons expenses for me run like this :
hunting liscence and tags... 3 deer, 1 moose, 1 black bear (and sometimes elk)
2 tanks of fuel for blacktail hunting ( 2 deer bag limit region 2)
2 tanks fuel for my yearly mulie hunt (3-30 and area)
6 tanks of fuel for my moose hunt (Ft St james or houston areas)
I always get my 3 deer for the season..... I don't always get my moose
so that's 10 tanks of fuel at 75.00 each
45.00 for deer tags
25.00 for moose
20.00 for bear
35.00 for seasons liscence
that adds up to 875.00 of bare bones cost... then add bullets, and any other misc items that are needed in your hunting gear list. And add the cost of packaging material if you butcher your own meat... which is a huge cost saver from having it cut and wrapped at a butcher. I generally go through 1500 to 2000 evey year in prep for and for the hunting season. The most meat i ever harvested, wrapped and frozen, worked out to 325lbs of deer, 547 lbs of moose, 120lbs of blackbear and half a elk (249lbs for me... was my buddies elk, i helped him drag out)
so that year i spent the above amount on tags and gas and harvested 1241lbs of packaged meat. I would say i spent the 2000.00 budget that year with ease as well. At the cost of 'ORGANIC" meat these days..... Looking at my figures..... i saved a bundle... well at least 600 to 1000 versus buying organic meat at the butcher. You can't compare run of the mill meat at the store to the cost of wild game, in fairness you can only compare wild game to the price of organic raised meat.
I'm a meat hunter...... and i can't honestly say i've come out ahead in the pocket book by hunting my meat over buying it. There are years where this has been the case though and due to incredible successes those years and my fishing skills/successes, the only meat we bought those years was chicken once a week.
I do however take great pride in the fact that most of the meat in my diet is natural, organic, wild game meat and fish harvested by me..... and the benefits to my belly far outweigh the impact on my pocket book
I usually hitch rides to where I'd be hunting. I don't have a vehicle right now. Once up there I'd be running on either a pickup or an atv with a trailer. I figure I can work it down to liscences, ammo, meat packaging material and some basic transport costs. This is of course theoretical, because as is I'm going to be on a pretty steep learning curve the first time I head out, probably next year.
