Is party hunting about taking or giving?

[lakevet]

Is party hunting about giving or taking. In our group it is about freely and willingly giving your tag and opportunity harvest a deer to someone else because you want to. Nobody "takes tags". You value someone experiencing harvesting "your" deer.

Some groups share freely and willingly. This includes the best deer stands. Others, unfortunately, do not.

If party hunting was all about me trying to monopolize the prime stand where I could pile up the deer year after year and demand tags from others, then count me out.

However my family has the opposite approach. We rotate best spots/chances, usually favoring kids and older hunters, and those who have had life threatening illnesses. Being able to gift a tag to them is far more satisfying than shooting a deer myself. We share the venison freely and equally. Standers are always in elevated stands shooting downwards into the ground. Safety is always number one, with a safety record of over 100 years with no accidents.

My wish is that all of you could experience that type of party hunting . For some it will mean leaving the existing group. Some of family did that about 40 years ago to join our bunch. For some it will mean starting a new group. With party hunting I think we have a good thing going and want to continue it. Just this year the 7th generation of kids started deer hunting with us.

lakevet

[g_anoka]

Sounds like you hunt with a good bunch of people, and so do I. Before the season starts we go over how we are doing things that year. Who will share, who won't, and we go from there. I am glad that we can party hunt, it means more venison in the freezer this winter.

[BLACKJACK]

Party hunting is fun when you step into a woods and it 'explodes' with deer running, and pretty soon you hear a shot where the posters are stationed. Or vice versa when you're posted, and you're waiting, waiting, waiting, and then all of a sudden deer come running by. The key is that everybody agrees that they will share tags and that opportunities to be posters and drivers is rotated.

[BobT]

Our party works together and shares the meat. It doesn't matter who gets the shooting opportunity because in real life anyone can find themselves in that position at any time. If we could predict deer travel accurately enough to know where they would be taken, we wouldn't need to spend hours, days, or even whole seasons in the deer stand hoping for that opportunity to arrive or not seeing anything at all. This year, my brother and two of his children happened to be the ones in the right place at the right time to take three 8-pointers. My daughter, my nephew, and I spent the season enjoying spending time in the woods watching chipmunks, birds, mice, and a few does and small bucks with no opportunities. I guess that's why it's called hunting and not shooting.

Driving is not part of our game. The closest thing to driving is when I occasionally take a little walk to meander my way through the woods in the hopes of moving some deer around.

[Getanet]

A great part about hunting is it can be many things to many people. Some prefer the "team" atmosphere of party hunting where everyone works together and contributes to the party's success in their own way. Others prefer it to be an individual pursuit where everything is on them.

There is no right or wrong way. Unfortunately, some people give party hunting a bad name, and others want to ban party hunting because of a few rotten apples or because they've never experienced hunting as a "team" and don't see the benefits/enjoyment of it.