• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

What is the least amount you think you could spend to kill a deer. Legally.

Non resident hunting license is 180.96 and non resident tag is 76.96. Can't use management permits in SE Ohio. Residents are paying 50.20 for adult license and one deer pemit
 
Okay. Reset.
It's November 10. You have two days to Kill a mature Buck. Your in the middle of Wayne National Forest in SE Ohio. The rut is full on. You have no previous knowledge of the place. The weather for the next two days is low 20s at night. High 30s in the afternoon. Winds 5-10 mph. Everything you have on, and what your hunting with had to be purchased new. Even your undies. (Should you chosen to buy some). You have to kill him with a Bow and Arrow. No crossbow or Hickory Creek. No license needed. You have to hunt half hour before sunrise, to half hour after sunset. Can't call it quits if your cold. Your on foot. Sleeping in a free tent. You have to gut the animal and return him to camp. Food and toilet paper is provided. Add up what you are wearing, what your shooting, and what ever else you think you need to get it done. Saddle, or ladder stand, grunt call, back pack. What is the least amount you think you could spend to get it done?
 
Last edited:
Big misconception with the thought about hunting clothes or the need to be elevated! many RTH archery and firearm packages can be had for 400 bucks or much less, a bucket and tags
 
Weapon, clothes, and minimal amount of stuff you would need. Would you say 600$ and you can hunt comfortable for 2 days? And be in the game? Could you do it for 500?
 
My take on this is to get out there with stuff that is very cost effective but will last and last and work over and over again:

1. Single shot 12 or 20 and three boxes of slugs: $200
2. Surplus USGI mid level base layers tops and bottoms: $45
3. Surplus USGI Mickey Mouse Boots: $65
4. Surplus USGI field socks and wool socks $25
5. Surplus USGI watch cap $8
6. Surplus USGI wool gloves, glove liners $6
7. Surplus USGI M65 Field Jacket $65
8. Surplus USGI Field Trousers $45
9. Hoody sweatshirt $25
10. USAF Survival knife $35
10. Bucket: $6

$525
 
Used compound - 70$ (cheapest on CL, came with release & quiver)
License- 20+16+6.97( pa res pricing, not Ohio, for annual license, archery stamp & doe tag)
Arrows- 3.75 x 6 (cheapest full sized arrow @ local WM)
Broadheads- 5.75 ( cheapest Allen bh at WM)
Quality 300 lumen min. head lamp- 39 (amazon)

Now, assuming i already have some kind of clothing, any kind of clothing, I'll pick the darkest stuff I have, closet to earth tones in the drawers. Old shoes, old boots what ever, they'll work. I won't spend money on a knife, I'll snag one from the kitchen and leave it in the truck. It's not needed to kill a deer.
With that said, with some effort spent on scouting, I believe that you do not need anything else to put "a" deer on the ground. All the other aspects require experience, and a little luck.
Again this is assuming that the OP literally means the cheapest you could kill a(any) deer. You don't need fancy camo, a saddle/stand, a fancy hunting knife, fancy boots, scent control, and all the other we addicts acquire...... now cheapest you can comfortably kill a deer is a totally different question.......
 
I bought a $69 single shot 20ga from a Pawn shop a couple years ago.
So 2 or 3 boxes of slugs to practice with. Go sit on the ground, or a camp chair if your fancy.

Easily under $100


$104 if you can't handle being naked in the woods with the mosquitoes
 
Yall are also forgetting to pay for security guard for your truck/camp if you think you're gonna hunt my neck of the woods..seems to be a spate of theft during the rut on public ground that time of year.
 
MattMan81 said:
Okay. Reset.
It's November 10. You have two days to Kill a mature Buck. Your in the middle of Wayne National Forest in SE Ohio. The rut is full on. You have no previous knowledge of the place. The weather for the next two days is low 20s at night. High 30s in the afternoon. Winds 5-10 mph. Everything you have on, and what your hunting with had to be purchased new. Even your undies. (Should you chosen to buy some). You have to kill him with a Bow and Arrow. No crossbow or Hickory Creek. No license needed. You have to hunt half hour before sunrise, to half hour after sunset. Can't call it quits if your cold. Your on foot. Sleeping in a free tent. You have to gut the animal and return him to camp. Food and toilet paper is provided. Add up what you are wearing, what your shooting, and what ever else you think you need to get it done. Saddle, or ladder stand, grunt call, back pack. What is the least amount you think you could spend to get it done?
Click to expand...
Can you be more specific? Lol
 
MattMan81 said:
Don't want to hijack @bigmike23 thread. So I will start a similar one here. Some guys have bashed the bucket challenge. But let's be honest. If you woke up in just your underwear, and had to go hunt S.E. Ohio during the rut in archery season. No crossbow. How much do you think you would have to spend to get it done? Everything you have to buy is NEW. You can order it online or in store. No DIY, can't use stuff around the house. New bow, arrows, boots and so on. Edit: *How cheaply do you think you could get it done. You have to be able to hunt all day.
Click to expand...
Is this while saddle hunting only? Or hunting in general? I ask because you can technically buy a bucket and a $200 bow, with 3 cheap arrows and a pack of broadheads.
 
I can kill a deer with 100.00 worth of stuff. My odds are low. I can increase the odds of killing a deer by spending more time and money. And I can make the process of finding, waiting, and then after killing, cleaning up and removing the deer much more convenient and enjoyable by spending more money. It's a sliding scale. People view these things as black and white too much.

How much time, money and effort you spend, largely depends on your innate skill set, experience, budget, and the influence of your hunting tribe.

I agree with the intuition you have here that people focus on gear and strategy to a degree that exceed the diminishing return threshold. Basically, people are wasting time.

Which begs an even more important question: Why do you hunt? If the sole or main purpose is to kill deer, you'd maximize all advantages, and optimize, and improve efficiency. Most people don't. Why not? My guess is 90% of people hunting, gain 90% of value from talking about hunting, not actually succeeding at it. And the success for those 90/90 folks is not actually the valuable part. It's being able to talk about it.

Which then begs an even deeper question: Why do we want to talk about it so much? Social apes. Anything we can do to show our team we're on their team. Anything we can do to prove we're valuable.


I want you to WANT to wash the dishes...
 
philsanchez76 said:
  1. Bow- $200
  2. Boots- $50
  3. Sticks- $150
  4. Saddle- $165
  5. ROS- $70
  6. Pack- $50
  7. License- $150
  8. Total- $835
Click to expand...
Following suit, I’ve seen RTH bow set ups for around 200-240…. Cheap rubber boots from Walmart for $29.99. An 18’ extendable paint roller stick for $39.99. 4.99 for 50’ of paracord. $90 (shipping included) for 80’ of climbing rope. $65 for a ROS. $159.99 for a trophyline saddle that comes with 2 dump pouches… $12 for a 3 pack of presewn prusiks from Amazon. $16.99 for a 3 pack of climbing rated carabiners from Amazon. $35 for a cheap mesh 3D leaf suit from D!ck’s sporting goods. $39.99 for broadheads. $28 for a 3 pack of gold tip hunters cut to length. $19.99 for a release. I’d simply use the paracord to pull my rope up for DRT climbing. The use my tag end to pull my bow up, tie it off and use it as my bow holder. Would this system be insanely comfortable or efficient? Absolutely not. But I could absolutely use it to hunt
 
My thought for the conversation was friend of mine son has some interest in Hunting. He has been a few times with his grand father. But sounds like they haven't really hunted. So I was trying to get a price on what it really takes to have a legitimate set up. Don't need the best of everything. Just a normal set up to get it done.
 
MattMan81 said:
My thought for the conversation was friend of mine son has some interest in Hunting. He has been a few times with his grand father. But sounds like they haven't really hunted. So I was trying to get a price on what it really takes to have a legitimate set up. Don't need the best of everything. Just a normal set up to get it done.
Click to expand...


On that note - if you have 2-3k cash that you can tie up for a season at a time, you can hunt for about 0-200.00.

Why do I say that? Well, you can buy everything used in the classifieds here and archery talk and pawn shops and facebook. If you're smart about it, and time up when you resell it, you usually can get what you paid less shipping. Often times, just the timing between buying in april and selling in september will net you more money than you spent.

You could essentially buy and sell gear every season, and hunt for free. Or you could hunt for 3-5 years, sell everything for a few hundred dollar loss, and repeat.
 
I thought the constraints were you woke up in your skivies and you had to get all new stuff????? If that is not the case and I could get used stuff I think most of us could do it for half of my estimate of having to get new gear.
 
Pawn shop bow. 100
3 arrow and broadhead package 45
Pawn shop release 20
hunting license. 30
Under $200
My nephew did it and so could we if we had to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top