Yotes...they are wiley!

Gotta be Bigfoot..........Have yet to see one or capture on camera.

Physically & Mentaly ..IMO...North American wild sheep and mountain goat.

Mountain Reedbuck. South Africa's version of a mountain goat. Elevation will kick your butt and they'll bust you on a stalk from a mile away. Had one shot at 450yds across a windy canyon and missed. Only animal I targeted in Africa and came up empty on.

I have hunted a variety of animals from Old Mexico to the Yukon. If difficulty is judged by how hard it is to get a particular animal on the ground, the hardest animal I have ever hunted is a mature east Texas whitetail buck with a bow.

It's bad enough to miss one when you're hunting just a short ATV ride from your camp. But I bet the frustration that comes after a missed opportunity that follows hours, or even days of fighting severe terrain and the elements is tremendous.

Still, they can be rare opportunities that most never get.

Aoudad in New Mexico on public land is a butt kicker. Toughest hunt I have ever done, still have not connected with a mature ram. Maybe this year.

HF axis are a booger to hunt, they get really smart. The big males get more bold and can be a little easier.

Would I be correct in assuming the challenge in hunting any animal in such an open and expansive setting is getting close enough for a shot?

If so, I would think the shortest shot at one would be beyond the longest shot most Texas deer hunters might ever attempt to make. Things like ballastic performance that seldom if ever come into question when hunting many areas of Texas, would seem critical in success or failure when shooting from one hillside to the next.

You obviously have not traveled around Texas much if you think you shots are limited. Terrain and cover vary within each county in each region much less the rest of the state.

Agreed.

Still, it might be safe to say the average shot at a Texas white tail is far below what a hunter would be expected to make at some of the more challenging game animals mentioned here. Not being able to hunt and shoot from an old office chair might have something to do with many of more challenging hunts as well.

Average shot is average shot based off what the hunter feels comfortable taking not what area of the state he is hunting. You still have not traveled in Texas if you make a statement like that. I can shoot almost 1/2 of mile on my place down a powerline if I wanted to. From another blind I could shoot 550-600 yards if I wanted to. One feeder is 190 yards and the other is 90 yards. I have been on ranches where I could have shot a mile or more in South Texas if I wanted to. In the Panhandle I hunted on a ranch where the shots were not usually very close due to terrain, lack of blinds and feeders. In the Trans Pecos we have no blinds or feeders. Drive, glass, spot and stalk. My average shot is 165-175 yards. Any of the deer I have shot I could have shot at a greater distance if I did not have the terrain that allowed my to get closer. Others have had shots of 300+ yards due to terrain not allowing them to get any closer. You can get just as about any terrain in Texas you want to hunt if you want to travel.

The old saw that ultra long shots are the norm for game that inhabits open and/or mountainous terrain is one of the biggest myths in hunting. There are almost no places in North America where the terrain cannot be used to get within a reasonable distance of the animal sought the vast majority of the time.

As stx alluded to, I have hunted mountain game and pronghorn in wide open country, but some of the longest shots that have presented themselves to me have been at my east TX farm.

One major reason for this is that you can generally spot and stalk closer to pronghorn, mountain sheep, mountain goat, etc. - but that generally ain't happening with a whitetail....

In the context of my original comment, "average shot" would be the mathematical average distance between Texas hunters and the animal they are attempting to harvest. Nothing more, nothing less.

Free range Rats with a gamo at night

Ha! Maybe so.

Getting back to the earlier discussion on animals that are most difficult to hunt, most would agree that the average shot at a white tail is less than 100 yards. Obviously, there are hunters who take longer shots when the situation requires it.

As for the difficulty in hunting Aoudad in open country, the following comments might provide some insight...

"Long range shooting bow or rifle: Aoudads are doable with a bow, but the stars have to align and you’ll likely need multiple opportunities. Practice long range and extreme down hill angles as that is likely what your shot opportunity will be. As far as rifles, I like the 300 Win or something close. They are tough. The shots can be long and there is a lot of wind that will push lighter calibers around. You should be proficient out to 300 minimum and the longer the better."

Link

I feel quite safe commenting that the average Texas deer hunter, or average deer hunter in any other state for that matter, would not consider themselves as being "proficient" in making 300 yard shots.

I think I'll leave the Aoudads to others.

A mature trophy White Tail Buck on our lease

Anything that lives here If you can find it. Then if you see it hope it didn't see you first. Then after a 3-5 mile hike Hope its still there. Then be amazed once you get over there how it looks nothing like it looked like on the other side. Then hope the wind is right. Hope you don't slide down the rocks and scare it away. Or a snow storm or cloud bank rolls in and cuts your visibility to zero. Then they moved and you start all other the next day and the next day and the next day. .... But man it's worth every minute successful or not. You did ask our personal opinion. HUNT ON....

ALASKA
BRITISH COLUMBIA

The sheer reminder that such hunting still exists is awesome in itself.

Thanks for sharing.

Public land Elk hunting can be very tough. After the shooting starts they will normally find the nastiest most out of the way hard to reach pocket they can find to bury up in....... then go nocturnal.

That's true, they get REALLY spooky on public land because so many people see them and just start lobbing bullets at them hoping to hit something. I busted some one time at 600 yards and they were still running 3 hills away "well over a mile". In order to be consistently successful on Aoudad on public land in New Mexico you need to be prepared to shoot at least 500 or even 600 yards.

I realize terrain and conditions vary greatly in a state as large as Texas, but of the 5 animals I have harvested in Texas my furthest shot was 200 yards. So "my" experience is much shorter distances.

Heck, at my age, I doubt I can see through a scope well enough to take down an animal at such distances.

Good discussion and thanks for all the replies. We may have stepped on a few toes or nudged a few egos along the way, but it reminded many of us of the greater challenges that still exist within our sport.

Mountain Lion.

We hunted 7 consecutive days in Arizona. Tracked, called, scouted, tracked some more, called some more. On and on for 7 long days. All we got for the ordeal was sore legs, a skinned kneecap, lots of exercise, and found a kill that the cat had made a couple of days earlier. Never saw it though.

I'd love to do it again but my health won't allow it.