Hunt Your Back Yard (Trophy Shot Challenge)

[InvisibleFlame9]

Many nights I hear female Elk call in the fields by my house in the Pacific Northwest WA State of the US. All times every day I see female blacktale deer walking through my yard keeping the bottom 4ft of vegitation everywhere nice and trim. In my back yard I have also coyotes. I go to the park and see Canadian Geese, and Ducks. Sometimes I hear mountain lion (puma), also in my back yard, give a blood curdling scream in the middle of the night. Saw a mountain lion years ago standing on my neighbors property years ago. Also, one time I was fishing with family 20 miles from my house and we saw a bobcat sitting on a rocky ledge by the side of the rual highway. On rare ocasions, black bear have been sighted in my area. I haven't personally seen a bear. My nighbors tell me they saw one. I found my garbage can rumaged through and scattered all over yard one time by a black bear though. I've hiked in the hills by my house before and come apon a huge herd of Elk 20 feet away from me. I've also encountered and experienced a whole lot MORE wildlife in my local area that is beyond the scope of this thread.

This got me thinking, what if I hunted all the animals in theHunter Classic that I see in my back yard, as well as animals that I have spotted in the local area that I live? You can join me. Let's do it. Let's 'hunt our back yard'.

I call this thread: Hunt Your Back Yard. If you want to play along, post trophy shots of your best animals that you would find in your back yard or local area where you live. Let's keep the animals such that they are animals that you have personally witnessed in some way that you know to be common in your local area.

*When posting your trophy shots, to avoid confusion, tell us the name of the general area or part of the world you're from above the trophy shot to help us get an idea what animals belong to which part of the world. You can post your trophy animal shots all together, or one post at a time, here and there as you collect these trophies over time.

Preferably, not as a rule, you would post trophy shots that were harvested after reading this thread because isn't it more fun to have motivation to go out and hunt your back yard in theHunter? Also, it is perfectly fine if you want to post trophy shots from past hunts. If you want to make improvements and post better trophies of the same animal that's fine too. Just remember to tell us "where" the general area in the world your back yard is so we know those trophy shots belong to the theme of this thread. Remember, the idea here is were hunting our back yard.

This is not a competition (although it could be fun inspiration for a competition idea if someone wanted to construct some sort of comp like this). This thread is just for fun. This is "Hunt Your Back Yard".

Here is an *Example Post (my first of a series of posts to this thread of animal trophy shots from 'my backyard'):

Here is my animal list (goals) for hunting my back yard (SW WA State, US). I hope to get trophy worthy animals from this list. When I do, I'll post the trophy shots in this thread. Some of these animals I've already got trophy shots + taxidermy. Personally, I want to reset the clock and have to go out and hunt for new trophies besides what I've already got. However, it's fine to post improvements of the same animals so what I'm going to do is go ahead and post what I have, which is not much from this list. I still have lots of new trophies to get.

My 'Bucket List' of animal trophies for SW WA State (My backyard) (*Past Harvest *New Harvest)
-Black Bear *
-Roosevelt Elk *
-Blacktail Deer
-Bobcat *
-Puma
-Coyote
-Canada Goose
-Mallard
-Northern Pintail
-Gadwall
-Pheasant
-Cottontail Rabbit *

Black Bear
23.6382 (Past Harvest) (SW WA State - My Backyard)


Cottontail Rabbit
1876.6504 (Past Harvest Halloween) (SW WA State - My Backyard)


Roosevelt Elk
381.4963 *Past Harvest(SW WA State - My Backyard)


Bobcat
9.1560 *Past Harvest(SW WA State - My Backyard)

*For reference, here is a convenient chart I made showing the 'taxidermy worthy score' of every game animal in theHunter Classic. This information can also be found on the official wiki here: https://thehunter.fandom.com/wiki/Animals
A similar chart by community member Eric Giftzahn:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... id=0#gid=0

[OldMtnMan]

I'm already simulating my real hunts. It's all I have interest in doing. I live at 8000 ft in the Colorado Rockies. I don't hunt all the animals in my backyard. Just these.

Rocky Mountain Elk

Mule Deer.

Black Bear

[InvisibleFlame9]

I live at 8000 ft in the Colorado Rockies. I don't hunt all the animals in my backyard. Just these.

Rocky Mountain Elk

Mule Deer.

Black Bear

I can only begin to imagine that living 8000 ft in the Colorado Rockies must be a gorgeous place to live.

* A little clarity on my descriptions of animals I commonly see where I live. The Mountain Lion was common at my old house in a much more rual country forested area than I am living now. The old house was 80 miles from where I am living now in WA State. Now I am at the edge of a small town. Still close to forests, hills, and country stuff. Wild animals like deer, female elk (calls I hear only), and coyotes are common here at the border of town, where the city residencial neighborhoods meet the wild country side. My back yard literally looks just like Logger's Point, Settler Creeks, and Whitehart Island.

There are a lot of animals if I put together all of them within the general area where I live including two different back yards so-to-speak (Current house + old house), though it's a smaller list of animals if I was only counting my curent literal back yard by my house now. I made the criteria liberal to include the general area so this would be more fun for more people. Some people may live in the city and not see much wildlife where they live, however if you travel not far away you probably have lots of critters that are in this game.

[splainin2do]

Interesting idea!
As far as animals found in Classic, in our back yard we have seen (with some caught on camera) whitetail deer, turkeys, bobcats, coyotes, red fox and black bear. Nearby there have been moose, and it's been rumored that a mountain lion (puma) has been seen. Of course, there are also the ducks, pheasants and Canada geese...

[OldMtnMan]

Yes, a nice area to live. Click on the picture to see full size.

https://www.coloradojosh.com/shop/buena-vista


https://www.coloradoexpression.com/cont ... 139-am.png

[InvisibleFlame9]

Interesting idea!
As far as animals found in Classic, in our back yard we have seen (with some caught on camera) whitetail deer, turkeys, bobcats, coyotes, red fox and black bear. Nearby there have been moose, and it's been rumored that a mountain lion (puma) has been seen. Of course, there are also the ducks, pheasants and Canada geese...

Sounds like an interesting mix of wildlife! Let's have it! Bring it on!

[InvisibleFlame9]

Yes, a nice area to live. Click on the picture to see full size.

https://www.coloradojosh.com/shop/buena-vista


https://www.coloradoexpression.com/cont ... 139-am.png

Wow! Those are spectacular photos. I've been watching a lot of documentaries lately about the giology of the rockies.

As an aside, I've long thought about how similar Whitehart, Logger's, and Settler's look so similar to where I live in SW WA State, and yet so different in that these reserves in the game don't seem to have a lot of fir trees. Remember these reserves were designed to be inspired by WA State in the Pacific NW US. It's acurate if I'm matching the vegitation from sea level up to 100ft, everything in the low lands of SW WA is spot on. It looks like they condenced the general look of the low lands around the Columbia River basin around SW WA into small islands. Even the shores of these islands in the game, look about the same as the banks of the Columbia River; not the ocean though.

Everything here above 100ft quickly turns into mostly fir trees and fir forest, not seen in this game. Most of the land here in WA are hills and mountains of thick fir trees. In the game, what you see is what would be in a relatively smaller area of the state only in the low lands around the Columbia River. If you could see this specific area, it would look very similar in the game. However most other areas of WA don't look like these reserves in the game because most of Western WA as stated is thick fir tree forests. The 3 PNW reserves mentioned here look like a hodge podge of islands consolidating features and vegitation found in a very specific region of SW WA around the Columbia River.

As I was looking up what species of Elk live in my state (WA), it was interesting to learn that both Roosevelt Elk annd Rocky Mt. Elk live in this state. Roosevelt Elk are found in Western WA where I'm at, these would have been the Elk I saw while hiking here in the hills. The Rocky Mt. Elk are east of the Cascade Mts - Eastern WA.

[InvisibleFlame9]

Here is my animal list (goals) for hunting my back yard (SW WA State, US). I hope to get trophy worthy animals from this list. When I do, I'll post the trophy shots in this thread. Some of these animals I've already got trophy shots + taxidermy. Personally, I want to reset the clock and have to go out and hunt for new trophies besides what I've already got. However, it's fine to post improvements of the same animals so what I'm going to do is go ahead and post what I have, which is not much from this list. I still have lots of new trophies to get.

My 'Bucket List' of animal trophies for SW WA State (My backyard) (*Past Harvest *New Harvest)
-Black Bear *
-Roosevelt Elk *
-Blacktail Deer
-Bobcat *
-Puma
-Coyote
-Canada Goose
-Mallard
-Northern Pintail
-Gadwall
-Pheasant
-Cottontail Rabbit

Black Bear
23.6382 (Past Harvest) (SW WA State - My Backyard)


Roosevelt Elk
381.4963 *Past Harvest(SW WA State - My Backyard)


Bobcat
9.1560 *Past Harvest(SW WA State - My Backyard)

[OldMtnMan]

You're turning into Ron McTube, except he uses videos.

[xOEDragonx]

I'm gonna go ahead and guess the bunnies in Washington state don't have skulls for faces and look like they're on fire, so you can't count that one, even if it is your personal best, lol.

The animals I would need to hunt to fulfill this challenge:

White-tailed Deer
Black Bear
Turkey
Coyote
Red Fox
Bobcat
Mallard
Northern Pintail
Gadwall
American Black Duck
Canada Goose
Snow Goose
Pheasant
Cottontail Rabbit

I already have decent specimens of almost all of these animals, so it would probably take me literally years to achieve the implied goal of improving my personal best of each. As a matter of fact, I actually just shot my new PB bobcat, pheasant AND red fox within just the last couple of weeks... I don't expect to see bigger ones of those anytime soon.

There is one animal on the list though that a larger specimen of continues to elude me... one that I completely lack a true trophy of. Ironically, the one I hunt the most in real life. White-tailed Deer. My PB has been stuck at a lowly 187.xxx for many years now. Perhaps I would use this challenge as a reason to actively pursue a new best whitetail. And it would only make sense to chase them in the environment that most resembles my own stomping grounds. I'm not sure what specific environment inspired Settler Creeks, but it's very reminiscent of the Appalachians where I hunt. I don't have elk where I am, but they are north and south of me. I don't have hogs either, but they're not too far south from here. Everything else on the map is a spitting image of where I hunt. I always wanted to do a Maryland Slam competition where I send folks out to hunt the animals I would in real life (big game only though) on Settlers, but I've never gotten around to it. Perhaps in the future.