I want to hunt for meat.

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If you truly want deer meat to eat and don't want to spend the time/money to get it on your own, give the local LEO's a call. Many agencies will give you auto struck deer. They generally make a call out list and call up the next guy on the list when one comes available.
 
I guess we're pretty lucky, but since I own my own land, my only real expense is ammo and vacuum seal bags
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Do you pay taxes on that land? The taxes I pay amount to about what a decent lease would have cost in Texas 20 years ago. Now, ain't a drop in the bucket compared to lease prices IF you can find one. I saw this coming a long time ago, why I bought land in the first place. It was cheap when I got it, ag exempt, 10 bucks a year. I lost the tax exemption, went up to 40, then 80, then.....now at 500 a year.

You think I'm gonna GIVE hunting rights away on that? And, you can bet that if I caught someone in my stand that wasn't supposed to be there and they survived, it'd be a lot more costly for THEM. Hard to butcher if you're a paraplegic. :rolleyes: In this state, trespass is a serious thing. If I have to pay 500 bucks a year to the government just for the right to own my land, I'm going to be real protective of it, put it that way. Out of staters don't seem to understand this ethos, think they should have hunting rights to MY land for nothing. It don't work that way.

Sorry for the rant. Every time I think of taxes, it tends to light my fuse. :D
 
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Dang, and you all have a state income tax, too! Always could be worse, i guess.

What I hate about the tax thing down here is it's stacked against you. Sure, you can go protest it, but you might as well just beat your head against the wall for all the good it does. :banghead: Reason and logic are NOT applicable in a tax protest. Perhaps if I were rich, the one thing that might work is a large contribution to a county judge's re-election campaign, but hell, that's for the rich.

And, THEN, you got some loafer that thinks he ought to be able to hunt your land for FREE...occasionally on these boards, not the present situation, just sayin'. These guys are usually from the NW where they have all kinds of public hunting and no sense of private ownership reality. :D the attitude that "I'm not going to PAY to hunt...." just sort of hit that nerve on this thread. But, the OP is new and has an excuse for his lack of knowledge of how the real world works. :D
 
6 tags or more with one license on the east coast? What state is that because I don't know any that allow that many.
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NC for sure. For $40 I get six deer tags, two boar tags, one bear tag, and two turkey tags. If I kill the six deer I can buy some more tags. Not sure what they cost, I haven't sen a need to kill more than six.
 
MCgunner said:
Do you pay taxes on that land?
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I certainly do pay property taxes, but like the cost of my rifles, I really don't think that directly factors into the price of the meat. Just like the rifles, I would own this farm no matter what, it's been in my family a long time, and we do "enough" farming on it to qualify for ag use on our taxes. There are plenty of landowners around here that don't take advantage of harvesting the tasty venison, all the while griping about how the deer tear up fences, eat their crops, etc.

I do share your short fuse when it comes to taxes, MCgunner....
 
NC for sure. For $40 I get six deer tags, two boar tags, one bear tag, and two turkey tags. If I kill the six deer I can buy some more tags. Not sure what they cost, I haven't sen a need to kill more than six.
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We get 5 deer, 2 bucks, 3 antlerless, in my home county, but we can kill all the hogs we want and trap 'em and run 'em down with dogs, and now, we can run 'em down with helicopters. I was reading about some new law they passed for that. Hogs are NOT game in Texas, they're pests, right up there with Starlings and such. Take what you wanna eat and leave the rest to rot. :D
I certainly do pay property taxes, but like the cost of my rifles, I really don't think that directly factors into the price of the meat. Just like the rifles, I would own this farm no matter what, it's been in my family a long time, and we do "enough" farming on it to qualify for ag use on our taxes. There are plenty of landowners around here that don't take advantage of harvesting the tasty venison, all the while griping about how the deer tear up fences, eat their crops, etc.
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Yeah, depends on the reason for the property. Farmers earn a living off it. Me, I bought mine specifically so I would have a place to hunt. So, the tax is in lieu of a lease for me. Down side is I have the same old stand every season, up side is I always have a place to hunt and leases are stupid expensive now days.

Another way to look at the land, though, is as an investment. It's on the market now, and I'll probably have to take a bit less, but for 4 times what I paid for it and the tax evaluation is 5 times what I paid for it. Now, I don't even wanna remember what happened to my stock investments over the same period, like in Y2K and 2008. :rolleyes: I look at it as an investment I can actually enjoy. When Merrill Lynch sends me those investment reports every month, they just go in the trash. I can't even fondle the stocks as they're in mutual funds. :rolleyes: Now, LAND, OTOH, I have fun with....:D

I ain't completely bitter about the taxes, just that I cannot stand the thought that the government thinks I owe 'em something for the privileged of owning it. :rolleyes: I paid the stuff off and yet I have to keep paying the gubment for it. Sucks. But, for me, it IS a direct cost of hunting. If I didn't care so much about hunting, I'd have bought land I might wanna build on or something. No one in his right mind would build down there, have to live off the grid unless you wanted to pay to have electricity run over a mile and have an all weather road built to match that distance. It's a friggin' swamp when it rains (if it ever does, again) and the skeeters and rattlers and bobcats, and hogs, and, well, it's better for hunting than living on, put it that way.

Now, if you inherit land, that's a different story, but for the OP, well, he wants to hunt and I assume he has no land or he wouldn't be beggin' to go with someone. Perhaps I should re-read the OP. If he's offering ME to hunt HIS land just to teach him how, and his land is good, well, now, that's a horse of a different color!!!! :D
 
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I'm not sure what the bear and boar tags are good for in my case. I've never seen either. Of course, if I take a notion to go to another part of the state I'm covered.
 
Ha, well, you're lucky. I've been thinkin' of gettin' a AR15 and night optics, even though I don't care for tacticool rifles, just for destroying as many pigs as i can hit in one sittin'. Might even take a mag change some nights just lookin' at the game camera photos. LOL What really peeved me off last year was when the beggars knocked down and destroyed my feeder. But, the new one I got is a lot better, so I guess they might have done me a favor. LOL!

Bear would be neat to hunt. I could see driving across the state for that. :D
 
I think it would be fun to hunt hogs sometime, but I sure don't want to bad enough to wish for them around here........I've seen what they can do to your land down there in TX when I've visited. No thanks! You can keep 'em!:neener:
 
Is it really very practical to hunt for meat? How much meat do you typically get off of a deer or elk?
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If you have to pay very much at all to hunt, the meat gets expensive. Here in Texas, it's fairly easy to "buy" deer meat. Check out your local game processors for game that hunters didn't pick up. Pay the processing fee, and viola', you have meat. I've done this many times when I didn't get enough venison for the family or we ran out. Works out pretty good in that you typically get 40-50 lbs. of processed meat for under $100 (bare-bones processing). That's a couple o' bucks per pound.

35W
 
Not only is it practical, but it is tasty and overall awesome. To realize the meat cost savings, you must process your own- which is not difficult. I prefer to butcher my own because a) I don't have any money, and b) I am more particular about my cuts than the processor is. I raise a hog every year to mix with a couple of deer, it works great. The only meat I buy from the grocery store is the occasional porterhouse or NY strip when it's on sale, and hamburger when I feel like. There is nothing like the satisfaction of putting something on the table that you took every step in getting it there. Especially when paired with vegetables from your own garden. It is worth every penny of guns, ammo, camo, bows, arrows, broadheads, licenses, treestands, blinds, etc., etc.

I definitely advise you to try hunting for some meat. Turkey, rabbit, and deer are delightful. Good luck and happy hunting!
 
Hunting to supplement your diet is an excellent way to get excercise, lowfat natural foods and vast ammounts of good experiances.
Besides the investment into the tools and transpo, walking on the land dont cost too much.....

Just to encourage you , you sould know that You CAN make a living, as a subsistance hunter.

From what I see and with the way lands use and hunting is being commercialized down in the lower 49, Im thinking you gotta get to the Ends of The World and work.......and I am in the Arctic.
What you need is alotta land you can can follow the aniumals as they roam, generouse seasons and L o w Human populations.Humans taking over habitate is killing the world.

Fences Roads and Humans we have not, here in Northwest Alaska, but 375,000 in the Western Arctic Caribou Herd (WACH) alone , Moose, 3 kinds of Bears, Wolves, Otter, Beaver, Muskox, ect....That we have plenty of.........a Game Unit larger than the State of Indiana, 200 miles of roads TOTAL inthe region, no fences.

Boats, dogteams planes or snowmachines get you from here to there.

gas is 8.89$ a gallon,stove oil the same, so we hunt trees and heat with blood sweat and wood...... so you still gotta work hard for every penny, but the experiance is worth it, every day.

Go to it.....one day a year, every day of the year,either way, you will be a Hunter, a Man among Men and its quite natural, healthy and Human, so go and have fun!!
 
the attitude that "I'm not going to PAY to hunt...." just sort of hit that nerve on this thread. But, the OP is new and has an excuse for his lack of knowledge of how the real world works.
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Your over crowded state is not representative of the "real world" as a whole so don't go looking down your nose at someone who just happens to be from a different walk of life. Most every body taking game in this part of the country does so without paying for it. One can hardly be considered insane for refusing to contribute to the trend of hunting becoming a rich man's sport. I sure won't have a hand in it.
 
There is a lot of federal land around here that is about a 10-20 mile drive, maybe more. I guess if I learn to process in the field I can even fit my score in my hatch-back that gets 20 mpg. So for one spot in particular I know of, it would be about $8 in gas.

I could get my Deer/Elk/Cougar/Bear tag for $93, Deer/Elk for $80 or just Deer and Elk individual for $40 and Bear and Cougar individual for $20. I can also get my Small Game license for $22 with any Big Game license, or for $40 without. Any centerfire rifle over .24 caliber is legal.

Turkey is only legal to hunt with No. 4 or smaller, bear/cougar 10-20 and anything else 10-12. Turkey requires a small game license but also $17 for tags.

So to be able to hunt everything would be about $115 for license, and around $40-$60 to get my small game license and just one of the other licenses.

I could get a good shotgun for $100-200, and a good mil-surp or used hunting rifle for $300-$400.

So maybe that will make my situation more clear.


Also, noticed that coyote was legal year round year. They get pretty big around here... Is coyote meat any good?
 
Cost of hunting is like a high end sports. Not if you live local and own your own property but still it cost money . I could just drive to my HEB meat market a mile and half down the road every day and get a freshly cut prime steak for $12 a pound and back in the house quick. Fired up the grill and be enjoying the uicy steak in less that two hrs of my time.

One of the reason s i go for high fence hunting is the cost. I want meat to bring home and counting on gas and other stuff the cost of getting game is not cheap. Either way you have to spend money from license , gas , food, game access , etc.
 
Your over crowded state is not representative of the "real world" as a whole so don't go looking down your nose at someone who just happens to be from a different walk of life. Most every body taking game in this part of the country does so without paying for it. One can hardly be considered insane for refusing to contribute to the trend of hunting becoming a rich man's sport. I sure won't have a hand in it.
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If I lived where you do and hunted the way you do, I could still buy beef cheaper. :rolleyes: Justify your hunting how ya want, but I figure Caribou is one of the few on this board that hunts economically for subsistence and part of THAT is that he ain't got a grocery store down the street with chicken for 50 cents a lb.

My main point is that I hunt for OTHER reasons than subsistence. Sure, I like the meat, had some mighty fine sausage last night I stuffed the day before. But, if I add the cost up, and I hunt my OWN LAND, don't need no stinkin' public land where a hunter is shot twice a week by "accident" and everyone wears orange, I still spend more for meat than I can get beef or chicken at the store. I don't mind that. I don't like going to the store. I love hunting. It's not JUST about the meat. To justify the cost, it CAN'T be just about the meat.

Hell, where do YOU hunt, granola cruncher country? (left coast, for those in Rio Linda) How far is it from home? How much gas you burn? How about your licenses? How about gear? How about ice? I could make a spread sheet, but you should understand what I'm saying. I bet YOU hunt for the same reasons I do. The meat is just a bonus treat. :D I'm just guessing about that, but every one on this board hunts for more than just the meat, I'm betting, even Caribou. :D

So long as you're not suggesting that you have a right to hunt MY land for free, I don't think we have a problem. That was the crux of my "real world" rant. There are folks that think that, some probably marching on Wall Street at the moment. :rolleyes:
 
"every one on this board hunts for more than just the meat, I'm betting, even Caribou. "

Yep!!
Fur and skins, bones, antlers and Ivory can all be had from the "meats" and made into something and used personally and to make $$/trade to get more bullets and gas, and other things.
Gotta keep the ball rolling!!!
Man cannot live on Meat alone :D

Besides, weather you make meat or not, theres the 'experiance', riflemanship, the exercise, th eadventure, and all the other things that go into hunting.

Hunting is a wide encompassing labor that is very rewarding, despite the costs, and NOTHING good is free.
Have at it!
 
I think my intentions were confused somewhere along the line... I'm just interested in it as a way to supplement my current food budget, not replace it or try to make any kind of living doing it. I don't think "subsistence" hunting is really what I'm after here.

If I could spend $200 for each trip ( let's say that includes the licenses, processing fees, and gas, so maybe that's even a little over ) for 50 lbs of meat... That's still $4 a pound, or only a little over half the current cost of ground beef.

Then as has been said if I do my own processing it could work out even cheaper.

To me it seems like it could get me a lot of extra food and for a lower cost than what I would be getting it at the grocery store at, and it will get me into an activity I've always been interested in so even if I didn't get any meat, it wouldn't really be money wasted.
 
Subsistence hunting is hard, especially if you are trying to do it cheap. There's a lot of reasons to hunt, and everyone has their own, but you can't buy meat in the store that is as good as what's wild for any amount of money.
First thing that you don't want to be without for subsistence hunting is a .22lr. Ammo is cheap, they are easy to shoot, marlin 60 or ruger 10/22 can be found cheap used, and it is one of the most useful all around calibers ever made. For the most economical way to hunt big game, at least here in east, is with a 12 gauge slug gun. You can find used mossberg or remmy pump, even a single shot 12 gauge, reasonably priced fairly easy. With the initial investment of a .22 and shotgun, that covers most everything in the lower 48. A shotgun can hunt anything from squirrel to deer or black bear with the right ammo selection.
Also decide if your goal is to get enough meat to live off the land in general, or do so only hunting. Hunting is a big part, but do not overlook trapping to consistently put meat on the table. The cheapest way would be to practice snaring or building figure four dead falls if legal in your state. You could probably find used steel traps if you did not want to try to make your own fairly reasonably priced I'm sure if you looked around.
In most places small game has much longer hunting or trapping seasons than big game does, which means more opportunity before and after deer season. Squirrel, rabbit, ground hog, raccoon, and pheasant are all delicious and fairly abundant in a large portion of the country.
Do not be afraid to think outside the box either. If you live in an area which gets fairly cold in the winter and deer are abundant, some good meat can be had from deer/car collisions. I know in some areas, the local sheriff will call individuals who wish to be contacted in the event there is a deer hit by a car and the victim of the accident does not want the meat. It's not hunting, but it is making use of good meat all the same.
I hope some of the things I wrote here will be useful. The best way to learn and get proficient is spend more time out in the woods. You'd be surprised what you will see sometimes just sitting still for 20 or 30 minutes. Sometimes it may be frustrating, but not getting discouraged will pay off in the long haul. Before long, you will start to identify what "good areas" look like. The more effort put into it, the more proficient you will become. Good Luck.
 
It depends on where you live and what are you willing to eat.
Get a recent book on hunting regulations that you should be getting with your license anyway and make sure how much you can hunt and talk to folks to see how much is the cost. Most states will not let you hunt dear with a 22 rimfire. It can be done but not recommended and definitively not legal.
 
If you hunt 21st century Outdoor Channel style, then yeah, it costs a fortune. That is rich man's hunting. Lodges, four wheelers, Gucci camo, whatever. They look like clowns to me, when they say they've killed 150 deer this season, I think "Why?" You know, the permits and licenses should be based on quanitites --the first two deer should be free. Each one after that is just a sport and should be taxed as such. One family can't eat 150 deer in a season, but feeding your family shouldn't be a government hassle. Most hungry families can't hunt anyway, it is a lost art and they think food comes from stores, so the numbers won't change much.

I learned to hunt with a single shot 12ga., blue jeans died in Rit, and a surplus army shirt. I did pretty well. I was taught to stalk game like my family taught for generations before white men showed up and changed the game. I've hunted for food and my family hunted for food as normal up until the 70's or 80's. I've gone years eating only meat killed in the wild by me or someone I knew.

As for the paperwork? That depends. I'll fill it out and play by the rules on good days, and those were certainly good days compared to these, but you play politics with our wealth and wreck my nation's economy and starve out its children, then I'll kill, skin, and eat MY game, and I'll use THEIR paper to wipe with afterwards. And when I get drug into court to explain, I'll simply point up to their "One nation under God" and remind them the true meaning of Moseic law, perhaps they can explain it to me. Then I'll go eat my free taxpayer provided meal in peace and catch up on my reading.

Then I'll walk out and go right back and do it again. If you need food, call the Wildlife Management, they usually do good things. You can get it free from them. If they give you a hard time or blow you off, do what you got to do to feed your family. They come first, when everyone else blows you off, your family won't.

Poaching is bad, some forms worse than others, but killing an animal to feed your family isn't poaching to me, just like wrecking our economy and cooking the books wasn't stealing for the banks.
 
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