What got you interested in long range hunting?

[DJ Fergus]

For me: I grew up on a farm and no one in my family hunted or done much shooting. I hunted with a Winchester 1300 & slugs from age 13 to 18 by myself and didn't know anything. Never hardly saw deer and never killed anything. @ 18 years old I bought myself a 35 rem marlin 336 that I saw no reason why I couldn't hit the moon with it, seriously, lol. Had a lot older fellow help me sight it @ 100yds. Finally got a shot at a deer about 300 yards away with the old 35 propped up on a hay bail. Made three shots and the deer still just standing there. I didn' even know to try & hold over, I thought the old 35 rem was a Lazer I guess. Lol, funny I was that green. I was so disgusted. If I would have killed that deer I would have never had the determination that I needed to learn what I should know about shooting at longer distances. It took my failure to motivate me to learn more. Now I'm glad that deer was 300yds away and I missed it. Wouldn't have learned much if it would have been 50yds away and I would have hit it.

 

[Rick Richard]

Hunting out west and quickly learning shots may be MUCH longer than accustomed to on the east side of the Mississippi River.

 

[Coyote_Hunter]

The fact that sometimes it is impossible to get closer.

Last year we spotted elk on mountainside at 1100yards and change (lasered). We were trying to get Daughter #1 to her comfort range of 400 yards. Trees and brush gve us good cover and we slowly closed the distance, stopping every 100 yards or so to laser the range and check on where the elk were. They were slowly grazing to the east, toward thick pine cover. At 4877 yards there were only a couple of elk left and I would have taken a shot in a heartbeat. Daughter wanted to get closer and at 400 they were no elk left. We thought about waiting for dusk (it was still early morning), thinking they would come back out. Problem was that Daughter was 7 months pregnant and we didn't want her walking out in the dark - my hunting buddy did that a few years back (same place) and tangled his foot in some sage. Horrible sprain, doc said he wuld have been better off just to break it. We decided to get Daughter off in the daylight and hunt elsewhere. On the way to the next place the Throttle Position Sensor went out and pretty much ended our hunt. (Replacements from two different auto parts stores wouldn't even let the engine start, had to wait over the weekend for a genuine Ford port to be shipped in.)

Another time (many years ago), we spotted elk on a knoll in open sage. They bedded down and there was no way to approach them. Ranges was well past anything we were prepared for. Starting about 11:30 we hunkered down in the sage through sunshine, rain, sleet, snow and more sun. At dusk the elk grazed off the knoll. We were able to use a slight ridge to get closer, walking bent over at the waist. Then it was knee walking, then crawling on all fours. Finally had to push myself the last 100 yards on my back,, head first, through about 4" of fresh snow. Got a shot at 350 yards (Google Earth measurement) and dropped a nice bull right at end of legal shooting hours.

These days "long range" (aka "max range") for me is 600 yards but only if conditions are perfect. I also shoot "cleanup" many times - either using my tag to help put down a wounded animal (had to take down an antelope doe at ~500 a couple years ago after SIL shot) or filling my tag after other shooters have filled theirs and the game is on the move (and hopefully stops).

 

[Plinker147]

Coues deer. Spend all day glassing to find the little buggers move a hundred yards to get a better shot and never see the dang thing again. Learned real quick that I had to shoot right from where we spotted them if it was 600 or 800 or what ever.I wanted to be able to get them.

Growing up and hunting in the west we always shot 300-500 yards. But beyond 500 was not even thought of. I started with hold over marks, then a buddy of mine went to sniper school for a Police department and learned how to dial and passed it on to me.

I don't consider my self a long range hunter. Im a hunter first, don't care how far or close the shot is, but I have extended my effective range a bunch. Find myself hunting steal more than anything, sure like the sound of ringing gongs at 1k

 

[Canhunter35]

Missed game initially then I got bit by the bug that I just want to shoot it a little farther

 

[Jmatt]

I'm not a long range hunter yet, but I'm gonna be. I hunted with a rifle last year for the very first time after hunting with a recurve bow on the ground for 25 years. All the local deer got wiped out by EHD last year a month before the season started so a friend asked me if I wanted to go to upstate PA to hunt during rifle season. I jumped on it and loved it. the exact opposite of what I had been doing and with a rifle in my hands I wanted to be as far away as possible (2 or 300 yards at least), not as close as possible. Currently, the challenge for me is to find a range I can shoot out to 800 or so and an area to hunt that offers long shots in PA. I've been playing catch up for the last year, learning things I should already have known, much of them on this site. Too bad I waited till 57 to get the bug!

 

[MagnumManiac]

Interestingly, even though I had ample opportunity to hunt at long range, I preferred to still hunt and stalk game.
I then bit the bullet, pun intended, and entered F-Class Open with my newly built Rem 700 custom switch barrel in 300WM. As this progressed, I got more and more interested in using those skills I learned and, help from a couple of buddies, to start LR hunting.
Our first endeavours proved difficult as we found managing wind calculation across wide gullies/canyons would be way out from what we thought.
A spotter with a Kestrel was a big help about halfway across and up the other slope, but still proved that doping wind in that environment was very difficult.
Now we only hunt fringe country, where open farmland meets the Bush, much easier to see and dope for wind there, if there is any, as most early mornings here are very still.

Cheers.

 

[YZ-80]

To me, the interst in LRH is like a 5-year old's interest in dinosaurs or sharks. Natural.

I cut my teeth rifle hunting in the mountains of west/central PA. As the years went on, I gained access to a 300 yard range and started reloading shortly thereafter. Then, I got the opportunity to "reach out" when a good friend of mine gave me crop damage duty on his 150 acre farm. From that point on, I went down the rabbit hole and I'm still down there. Alice says "Hi".

 

[Coyote_Hunter]

Never started out to be a "long range" hunter and don[t consider myself to be one. Longest game shot ever was about 500, (antelope) second longest 487 (elk). Then 411 (elk), a couple at 400 (elk) and the rest (the vast majority) 350 (elk) or under.

Still, I prefer to get as close as I can. I have a vertical turret on my .257 Roberts but the rest just have BDC reticles.

 

[KyCarl]

Mathematics! All the answers are in the numbers. Everything is part of some formula.
I keep a Scientific Calculator in my bag? I've read 3 of B.L.'s books a couple of times
and it makes a lot of sense.

 

[Buster Hemlock]

Initially when I was young and in Pennsylvania it was seeing how far I could connect with a groundhog. Then I moved to Montana where me and a couple buddies watched the Muley of a couple lifetimes walk up a distant hill around 800 yards and crest it never to be seen again even with our best efforts to close the distance and head him off. Today that bad boy would be meat in the freezer and a beautiful shoulder mount on the wall.

 

[del2les]

As a 15 y/o, seeing deer across bean fields, crossing large clear cut utility ROW's, and other, I just had to have something with better reach then the 30-30 M94. Then reading numerous outdoor/hunting magazines with Western hunts stimulating my curiosity, I was bit.

The next year I saved my summer work money and bought a 30-06 bolt gun and 3-9x scope, had a Sierra 165GK load at 2,800fps shooting 1/2 MOA, and I was zeroing for 250yds to take anything from wood's range to those up-to 1/4 mile bean field deer I could only look at prior. My first kill beyond 300 hooked me on distance shooting, and it only went up from there. Soon crows, coyotes, soda bottles and other critters were falling to my man's rifle.

THEN, military service put me on the path of precision shooting, and once I discovered NRA National Match, BR and other LR comp shooting, I was joining a local shooting club and learning from some real bullseye masters. A fire was lit, and I had no idea it would consume me for the next 40 years or so. The more I learned to shoot at longer and longer ranges at smaller and smaller targets/varmints, I found something I had a real talent for. Even though most people at the time advised against it, hunting game at those same ranges was just a simple transition, but I found I was fairly alone in my new sport and often criticized for taking such shots. So, I had few friends I would talk to about LRH, varmints or game.

Once I moved back West, was stationed here in the 70's during the Air Force, I found a different group with a similar mindset about real LRH. Even then, only a few, but now the numbers are growing, and I don't feel so out-of-place discussing LRH/ELRS

 

[COBrad]

It started as a kid with a BB gun. I shot enough to get pretty good at holding over. Sparrows at 30 yards were no longer safe. The first pellet gun and .22 were huge steps in extending my range. It's been a passion since I was a little kid.

 

[DJ Fergus]

I'm not a long range hunter yet, but I'm gonna be. I hunted with a rifle last year for the very first time after hunting with a recurve bow on the ground for 25 years. All the local deer got wiped out by EHD last year a month before the season started so a friend asked me if I wanted to go to upstate PA to hunt during rifle season. I jumped on it and loved it. the exact opposite of what I had been doing and with a rifle in my hands I wanted to be as far away as possible (2 or 300 yards at least), not as close as possible. Currently, the challenge for me is to find a range I can shoot out to 800 or so and an area to hunt that offers long shots in PA. I've been playing catch up for the last year, learning things I should already have known, much of them on this site. Too bad I waited till 57 to get the bug!

My hat's off to you. There's alot of good folks on here who will be happy to offer up good info to you. No worries about starting @ 57 yo. It will be great adventure for you.