Kicking yourself?
Contributors to this thread:General Topic
From: Pat Lefemine
18-Jan-21
Reading the thread about Stone Sheep reminded me how I came really close to booking a Canada bighorn hunt in 2000 for 6500.00 and thought it was too expensive.
I also had a polar bear hunt booked for 16k around 2009 but backed out when they became non importable.
And I won’t get into Hunting land that I passed up for $300/acre that Is now $4k/acre!!!
So what missed hunting opportunities are you kicking yourself over in 2021?
From: BC
18-Jan-21
I remember hemming and hawing about an elk hunt in a great area of Colorado that was 3,000. I decided against it.
Of course back then I was working full time and doing side jobs to raise a family so it would’ve been a big expense.
To show how times have changed my first “big trip” was a bear hunt in Canada for a whopping 600 dollars. With incidentals it was still under a grand. Times have changed.
From: t-roy
18-Jan-21
I didn’t pull the trigger on booking a northern BC moose/caribou hunt in the late 90s. I’m thinking it was somewhere in the $4,000 range at the time. Also wish I’d started building points in more states before I actually did. Should have done a mountain goat hunt 10-15 years ago, too.
Same as you on buying land.
From: Slate
18-Jan-21
You’re not kidding I should have booked the stone sheep hunt for $29,000 it’s up over $50,000 now. Also wish I caribou hunted on my moose hunt in NWT in 2016 was $7500 for trophy fee. Going next year $15,000. Oh well it’s only money. Can’t take it with you.
From: Bowboy
18-Jan-21
I've passed up a few good cancellations hunt in the past, but really don't have any regrets. I wish I would have bought some land for whitetails back in the day.
From: Shrewski
18-Jan-21
Wyoming ignore sheep points when they started. I was too young to understand how important points were. This was also at the time I was putting in for AZ elk and not buying the license, thus not gaining any points. Stupid!
Dall sheep hunt including taking my wife to stay in a nice lodge for $5000. Kodiak goat hunts for $2500. Stupid!
Lots of examples of being cheap costing me big time.
From: sticksender
18-Jan-21
More important is what I don't regret, and those are the hunts I'm doing right now. That way, in 20 years, I won't have to look back and say I regret not doing something back in the good ol' days of 2021 when it was so cheap.I do kinda regret not starting to buy points for all species in Colorado when I first started hunting elk/deer there in 1991.
From: LBshooter
18-Jan-21
So, never really keeping track of hunt costs like you all have mentioned over the years, question is, when did these hunts you all talk about get so out of range for so many. Is it the popularity of hunting or Is it the quest for the biggest trophy? Seems to me if everyone just held back a couple of years and don't pay the outrageous prices they would come down.
From: Thornton
18-Jan-21
Not buying Kansas grassland back in early 2000's when it was still $500/acre.
From: g5smoke21
18-Jan-21
Sheep hunt when I did my goat hunt. Could have went for $14,000 and decided it was too much. The goat hunt has only went up $1000 in the 6 years since I booked it and now sheep seams about impossible. With that I have seen what some goat hunts are going for now and very glad I did it then
From: Grey Ghost
18-Jan-21
I only hunt DIY, so I don't regret not booking any outfitted hunts. I do regret losing many hunting opportunities to outfitters over the years, and my own foray in the outfitting business.
I also wish I would have built points in more states.
Matt
From: Zebrakiller
18-Jan-21
I didnt upgrade a Grizzly on my moose and caribou hunt for extra $5000 and saw over 15 bears how stupid was that
From: Lechwe
18-Jan-21
Pat why do you want to bring up these painful memories:) How about a Dall's hunt for $3500. A BC Moose and Goat hunt for $5000 and a Stone's for $9500. What I would give to have do overs on those.
From: nowheels
18-Jan-21
I wish I had started going on DIY elk hunts about 15 years sooner.
I agree, all the multiple sub $500/acre land purchase opportunities still sting to this day!
From: greenmountain
18-Jan-21
This one still haunts me. about 25 years ago my best friend growing up moved to Montana. He invited me to visit and hunt elk with him. I put him off for three years but always said next year. He died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 42. I wish I could have had one more outing with him.
From: Medicinemann
18-Jan-21
Not buying a lifetime hunting license in Pennsylvania, before moving out of the state.
From: altitude sick
18-Jan-21
I was accumulating AZ elk points in the 90s using US outfitters to apply for me. I learned of some of their alleged questionable practices I wasn’t fond of and quit applying instead of doing it myself.
Also not going on MTn Goat hunts 20-30 yrs ago.
From: Dale06
18-Jan-21
Didn’t attend a land auction in Ks cause I thought the land would sell for $900 plus per acre for 640 acres. It sold for $580. I would have bought it in a heart beat for that price.
From: MA-PAdeerslayer
18-Jan-21
I regret backing out of an elk hunt that my grandfather won at a game dinner. He was sick with cancer at the time and I was dead set against going and not being home if something happened. He was adamant I go but I couldn’t.
From: Shiras42
18-Jan-21
First year of the baited brown bear hunts with Jonah...Could have gone for $8k.
From: Jaquomo
18-Jan-21
Not hunting elk in the NW corner of CO regularly, back when it only took a couple points. Not taking more trips to Quebec for caribou before they shut it off.
One I don't have to regret missing is when a friend in Australia invited me to come for a two week DIY backcountry hunt for red stags, fallow deer, hogs and goats. AlI had to do was get there with my bows and clothes. I hemmed and hawed, thinking it sounded like a hassle, and my wife said, "Are you insane! Go! This may not happen again!" So I did and had a blast. Sure enough, the next year my friend and his buddy had job changes, moved, and the opportunity went away.
Taught me a valuable lesson.
From: t-roy
18-Jan-21
^^Agree with Lou’s comment about not going on more Q-L caribou hunts when we were able to. Our 2006 hunt was the most incredible hunt I’ve ever been on.
From: JL
18-Jan-21
One thing that I "only if" every now and then was the chance to buy a bunch of land in Wyoming way back when it was somewhat cheap and when I had the cash to do it.....and I didn't do it. I went out there looking around and didn't pull the trigger. That kinda/sorta has me kicking myself to this day......only if......grrrr!
From: Old School
18-Jan-21
Building elk points in Colorado 15 years ago because that’s all I knew - If only I’d have bought them in Arizona or Wyoming instead... Then as many others have stated - passing up on cheap land years ago.
From: deerhunter72
18-Jan-21
I only hunt WT locally to where I live so I don’t have any big hunt regrets. But, I’ll always regret not buying a piece of ground 15 years ago.
From: goyt
18-Jan-21
My father-in-law was Hugh Hefner's best friend in high school. Hefner tried to talk him into starting a business which became the play boy club. My father-in-law thought that it was a bad idea! I did not find out about this until my father-in-law died in 1985 and my mother-in-law showed us a cartoon Hefner had drawn about my father-in-law going to the army and all of sketches Hefner had made in his high school year book. She said that my father-in-law could have gotten us a trip to the Play Boy Club with a phone call. I regret not finding out about this earlier. My mother-in-law said that if I called Hugh Hefner and used my father-in-laws name she thought that he would take the call. My wife was not keen on me calling Hefner so I didn't try.
From: Screwball
18-Jan-21
My biggest, 880 acres next to our 700 acres. Her Grandfather bought in the 30's. She was asking $1000.00 an acre everyone in NW Wisconsin thought she was crazy. We offered on sealed bids $753.00 per acre and she laughed at us. She wanted to sell real bad after the post 9-11 stock market crash. I come home one night after my girls softball practice and had a message. On the message machine she said, if you still want that land for $700.00 an acre it's yours. I called her back told we would take it, we had all the finance lined up etc. She said sorry I sold it 30 minutes ago for $600.00 an acre to a logger. We figured to spend a million on it but it needed logging. The logger took $700,000.00 off the 80 next to us, on the one 80 acre piece alone! Ouch. All huge oak and hard maple. We knew it was there to. With that said the logger has been a good neighbor.
From: Brian M.
18-Jan-21
I was 22 and bought 4 acres for 25K. Six months later my uncle offers me 60 acres of farmland for 30K. No brainer right? Well, I didn't know how to find an extra 30K, and was already strapped with the 25K. He kept it for another 25 yrs. Obviously, I should have sold the smaller lot. Kicking myself ever since.
From: drycreek
18-Jan-21
A 75 acre place close to me that I could have bought at a reasonable price, but didn’t because I suspected that the next door neighbor was hunting it. I just didn’t want the hassle of keeping him out. Today I drove by that place and it (and about 250/300 adjacent acres) had been cleared and cleaned up. As far as I know the adjacent multiple properties weren’t even for sale. In my mind, if someone bought all that and cleaned it up, (and that’s not cheaply done), then if I had bought that 75 acres I could probably have turned a nice profit on it. If not, I still would have had 75 acres to hunt that I could be on in ten minutes from my house.
From: spike78
18-Jan-21
This is ludicrous the government tells you inflation ain’t bad and I believe them ;)
From: INbowdude
18-Jan-21
1. Not adding additional critters while I was in New Zealand. 2. Not taking more time off work to sheep hunt when I drew in Wyoming. 3. Not taking more time off work to hunt moose when I drew in Wyoming. 4. Passing on land that would have been a great deal. 5. Not paying attention to the points game out West.
From: xtroutx
18-Jan-21
Buying hunting land.. I wanted to buy land in upper Michigan when I graduated H.S. 40 some years ago. Asked my father to go in with me and his exact words were, "Why do you need to buy land to hunt. You can go anywhere you want and just get out and hunt". Well times sure have changed. And so have the prices.
From: WV Mountaineer
18-Jan-21
All of them. Every year I get less hunting time it seems. So, I’ve missed out on a lot of plans. It’s life. At least I’m still here enjoying what I can muster the time, finances, and logistics to do. Maybe one day.....
From: Hank_S
18-Jan-21
Too many to count...trips, hunting lands, opportunities when I was younger!
From: Shiloh
18-Jan-21
Yukon slam adventure at Yukon Stone for $85k. That gets you a stone sheep, moose, caribou, grizzly, wolf and wolverine. I think I might look back on that one and regret it one day. They probably don’t offer it with a bow, but as crazy as it sounds I would consider that one.
From: Tlhbow
18-Jan-21
Not buying a Kansas life time license while working there for more than a year. I never hunted there but wouldn't mi d going now. Drawing a turkey tag in Nebraska on a reservation and not going I could only get off work for one day. Passing up that land @ $380. Per acre.
From: joehunter
18-Jan-21
Even though I had a great time and have great memories! I regret spending so many years and so much time and money hunting whitetails in IL and my home state of MI. I should have focused more adventure hunts out west when I was young! Hell, I can hunt whitetails when I am 90!
From: Screwball
19-Jan-21
In further thought when I was 25 I was going for the grand slam. Then I got married! No more grand slam, so kicking myself: I will never get close to the grand slam. I have my best and favorite hunting partner. It's a tough call! LOL
From: Thisismyhandle
19-Jan-21
Not hunting enough with my father before he died. We never went on the trips we wanted to go on.
From: Z Barebow
19-Jan-21
Not hunting caribou in the late 90's to 2000's. I hunted elk instead. (Not a bad trade off) Someone talked me out of caribou since I was young, healthy, starting a family/broke. Hunt elk instead. Caribou hunting is basically hunting handicap accessible elk! I won't complain, elk hunting has infected me and I am not looking for a cure.
From: Tradman and Huntress
19-Jan-21
Every opportunity to buy land that we passed on became regrettable.
From: Grey Ghost
19-Jan-21
All the missed opportunities on land reminds me of what one of my neighbors said to me. We were discussing a parcel he used to own in Parker, CO, which now has dozens of multi-story residential buildings on it. He said, "I bought it for a few dollars per acre, and sold it for thousands of dollars per acre." LOL! Smart man.
Matt
From: Nick Muche
19-Jan-21
"Caribou hunting is basically hunting handicap accessible elk!"
I'd like to know where I can find some of those caribou, haha!
From: Chief 419
19-Jan-21
I regret not going to Quebec for caribou when that was still an option. I always wanted to make that trip and never committed. Missed opportunity.
From: njbuck
19-Jan-21
Looking back there are a number that of opportunities I wish I had taken advantage of. At the top of the list was not taking more time to hunt when I drew a Colorado bighorn sheep tag. Ate the tag and still haunts me till today. Also had a great opportunity to hunt grizzly in BC but passed on it a couple years. I was going to send a deposit for a tule elk hunt before the prices got out of control but then the ranch was sold. Price doubled the next year. Shoulda woulda coulda, nothing I can do about those missed opportunities.
The question I am asking myself now and trying to figure out is what hunts I should do now so that I will not be kicking myself 10 years from now.
From: APauls
19-Jan-21
Should’ve bought a heated vest sooner.
From: Habitat for Wildlife
19-Jan-21
Leaving the corporate world to teach. Have the money to hunt, but not the time off during seasons.
And like many, being too conservative and waiting to buy land until after prices increased tremendously.
From: Highlife
19-Jan-21
Not going to Africa in 78 was offered a job. To effen young and dumb lol
From: Rob in VT
19-Jan-21
I regret not hunting the Quebec/Labrador Caribou when everyone was going up and killing nice bulls.
I did go to Newfoundland 3 times in the early 2000’s to hunt Woodland Caribou when the hunts were $2,000. Now they are around $8,000.
From: Kurt
19-Jan-21
Very, very few regrets with how things have gone hunting, as I never passed up many opportunities. Only one I can think of is not going on a CCBG caribou hunt to Mackay Lake, NWT with my hunting buddies 20 some years ago. I thought I was too busy at work. Oh well, I’ll keep after them in Nunavut or maybe Greenland since NWT closed hunting for them quite a few years ago.
From: BUCKeye
19-Jan-21
QL caribou...assumed I could just go on a more convenient year....that never came
From: Matt
19-Jan-21
I only want to kick myself when I find myself reading one of GF's posts.
