The two ideas I’m juggling are a fall Georgia black bear hunt or a pronghorn hunt out west.
Looking for terrain that is bowhunter friendly. I hunt with a recurve and while I have experience stalking and still hunting whitetails, I personally don’t find my skills as superb. That’s part of the reason for going out: work with different species, see new country, shake things up, then focus on the rut back in the midwest.
Just picking people’s brains on here who have more experience than I. Eventually I would like to get a super 10 and hand pick other species I desire to hunt along the way. I am open to any ideas you got.
An easy choice is OTC elk in Colorado. Awesome country, scenery and hundreds of thousands of public acres to hunt. Easily under your budget but very addictive. You can buy a tag when you get here.
pronghorn country is not what i would call 'bowhunter friendly' but it can be a lot fun if spot and stalk are your thing, or you hunt during the rut. you'll likely see a fair share of pronghorn and deer.
the two hunts you mentioned are very different. if bears are plentiful in georgia, i would suspect the terrain is more bowhunter friendly which seems to be a priority.
if you're open to another option, consider hog and javelina as suggested above.
Glunt, fantastic information! I’ll look into it for upcoming years. See if i can get a time agreement with one of my hunting partners.
Rocky: never heard much on WV. I’ll look into it. I was informed about Georgia from a traditional outdoors podcast. The guest they had on said the exact thing, food sources. Corm fields early then find the oaks they’re feeding on later. WV would definitely be more attractive to me. I did some work in the Ohio foothills for my last year of vet school about 6 months ago. Fantastic land, I’m sure it just gets better