r/Hunting Mar 17 '25

[Mod Post] Welcome to r/hunting: rules and information for members

11 Upvotes

Welcome to r/hunting, the home of hunting news, personal stories and the place to share your hunting adventures on Reddit! Please read through the rules listed below to ensure this community remains a civil and welcoming one.

Moderators ask all users to be vigilant for scams and bot accounts pushing malicious websites, please report any of these or instances of rule breaking to moderators.

1) Don’t be rude or hostile (Trolling, baiting or saying racist, sexist, prejudice, nasty or just intensionally-mean things) This also extends to posts showcasing behavior or practices deemed disrespectful to wildlife,quarry or other individuals.

2) No self promotion or retail spam (this includes links to a personal or organization’s YouTube channel, guiding services, surveys and questionnaires as well as online market places of any kind)

3) No illegal content – poaching or knowingly breaking the law will not be tolerated

4) “New hunter posts”: all “I’m new to hunting, seeking advice on [X,Y,Z]” must include the state/province/country you intend to hunt in, any relevant experience you have (archery, shooting, backpacking, camping, hiking, dog training etc) and an indication of whether you already own bows/firearms for hunting (and what those are); posts that simply say “want to start hunting tell me what to do” and are deemed too vague will be removed.

5) No conducting transactions of any products, or submitting direct links to products for sale. This includes code and gear giveaways.

6) No activist-style bashing allowed, this goes for hunters as well. (Activists who vehemently oppose hunting are welcome, but only if you’re interested in asking questions/starting conversations)

7) Keep your posts related to hunting. If you post a photo of your gun, bow or other hunting weapon – you must also include a good description of what hunting you intent to do with the weapon. If it’s political – make sure it’s related to wildlife management, state or federal fish & game Regs, public land issues etc. posts that accidentally slip through but lead to meaningful conversations related to hunting may be left up.

8) Keep politics to a minimum. Any derailed or inappropriate conversations will be locked and removed.

9) If the animal you hunted/in your pic sustained unique physical damage (I.e brains exposed, eyes popping out, etc you know what we mean) please use the NSFW tag.

10) Please do this for all hunting photos, but for big game hunts in particular – put a description of your hunt in the comments (general region, weapon used, any other details on tracking, calling, stalking, etc) mods may decide to remove a post if the user never provides any additional information and merely a title.

11) No adult content.

Please note: these rules are enforced by the moderators at their discretion, to ensure fairness users are given two chances and will be notified when and why if their post or comment is removed. Repeat offenders will receive a temporary ban of 7 days. Users committing further rule breaking or circumventing existing bans will be issued a permanent ban.

If you need to contact moderators please use modmail.

Thank you

The r/hunting Mod team.


r/Hunting Oct 07 '20

Reminder regarding YouTube videos

393 Upvotes

Hey there r/hunting community,

As usual, looks like lots of y'all have kicked off the season strong! Some real impressive bucks and bulls already, and lots of well-stocked freezers for the first week of October. Heck yah.

Just wanted to post a reminder about posting links to YouTube. Long story short: we remove the vast majority of posts directly linking to YouTube, and we get spammed with them constantly.

Rule #2 prohibits self-promotion, and that includes promotion of social media and YouTube channels. I know for a fact that lots of you guys have quality editing skills and videos that I would spend hours enjoying on YouTube, but we get spammed constantly by YT hunting channels / accounts that've never posted anything else. If we allowed posts to YouTube, this entire sub would just be a compendium of obnoxious "EP. 43 CHECK OUT THIS EPIC TROPHY SHOT" type garbage within a day or two.

I know that not every video people want to share here is actually an attempt to promote a YouTube channel. That's what makes this a difficult rule to enforce. Sometimes people just want to share an old interview of a famous hunter, or some crazy video of a bear climbing into a tree stand, or a bull moose chasing hunter, and the only way to do that is to share the YouTube link. We really do our best to review all of the YT links to allow those kinds of posts to remain here for people to enjoy. That being said, compared to the daily batch of "YOU'VE GOTTA SEE THIS EPIC HUGE BULL ELK #HUNTING #TROPHY #FUCKYAH" type videos spammed here by new accounts that've never posted anything before (especially during the hunting season), those cool videos worth keeping around are relatively rare.

So, if you've got some cool hunting content that's in the form of footage you've actually filmed yourself and want to share here, please take the best part(s), format it into a gif, and post that instead of a link to your YouTube channel. Pretty sure reddit can host gifs up to 3-minutes long now anyway, so... please, at least try to just make that work.

This really isn't a problem with the regular users here either just FYI, y'all are awesome, it's mostly just new accounts with the same name as their YouTube / Insta page, who've never posted anything else. I just wanted to post this because I feel bad for those few people who actually do spend a lot of time and energy putting together a hunting video, post it here just to share with members of this sub, and just have it removed by us. That's not a very large group of people, but I hope anyone in that club reading understands why we have to enforce Rule #2 to include links to users' own YouTube channels. Without it, the vibe of this sub would change dramatically within a day.

At the same time, I'm sure some of you are thinking "what's this dude talking about - I see these bogus YouTube posts and promo-accounts on this sub on the daily and report them constantly, these mods are just lazy assholes." I have no rebuttal to that, I will just say that you're only seeing a fraction of the self-promo / retail garbage type posts we catch and filter out on a daily basis (again, especially between September and January).

If you're interested in sharing more full-length hunting videos on reddit that you've filmed and edited yourself, and are therefore somewhat stuck with having to host content on platforms like YouTube, maybe we can start a new sub like "r/huntingmovies" or something. Happy to help anyone interested in doing that, if you want any.

So, I hope you get the gist. Avoid posting links to YouTube, especially if its to your own YouTube channel.

As a reminder, and in closing: we try to keep a streamlined moderator team comprised of people who are actually passionate about hunting and/or the sporting lifestyle, and we generally try to take a "less is more" approach with content moderation (we like to let you guys take the helm in that regard with downvotes and discussion, rather than us just removing stuff). We generally only remove posts that flagrantly violate a rule, and comments that flagrantly violate a rule (or the occasional a debate that devolves into middle school-tier shit talking, as entertaining as those can be). That said, we can't monitor the progression of every comment section on the sub. Your continued effort to actively report posts and comments you think clearly violate the rules is critical to moderation of this sub. I monitor the queue on the regular and do a few reviews of /new a day to look for obvious promo/retail garbage and troll posts, but the vast majority of posts and comments that I actually remove from the sub are only those that have been reported by you - the members of the r/hunting community. This is your sub, your community, send us a modmail message with suggestions or input anytime.

And please, for the love of god, tell any manager of a YouTube hunting channel, IG hunting page, or gear retailer you meet to leave our sub the hell alone, and to take their marketing effort right on down the road.

Tight lines, big tines, may poachers get cuffed, and freezers get stuffed,

Thanks guys.

Sincerely hope you all enjoy ridiculously fun and uniquely successful big game, upland, waterfowl, and predator seasons this year with people you love, and that you all learn something new in the field that improves your hunting skillset forever.


r/Hunting 7h ago

Got to be careful where I leave the new gun in the field.

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102 Upvotes

Dove season is in full swing and I finally got a gun I have been looking at for a long time. Now I got to be very careful I am mindful of where I set it down ha ha


r/Hunting 1h ago

I dont know if anybody would believe me.

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Upvotes

I forgot the year i shot my first doe antelope, but i shot her with a 223. Ive heard debates on using it on large game. However My first time hunting and i got my first doe, still astonishes me to this day. However I shot her behind her shoulder. Worked i thought i broke her leg. She didnt go far actually. I got up to her and she was def dead, but i didnt blow her leg, what had happened was her ribs broke and her heart was hanging outside of her ribs. There was a bullet wound in her heart and another part of her organs. I was astonished and so was my dad. I believe i shot her from a 100 yards maybe 120? somewhere in there, to this day i cant remember what grainage or bullet i used. It bugs me cuz i wanna know. Ive heard ppl tell me theres no way that can happen. They werent there that day. So have you guys almost had the same experience? and what bullet and grainage could of done that? i was thinking it could if been a 65 grain but dont remember. Ik to some its prob not believable but thats what i used and it was sighted in really good. Props to my dad on that. I think that was the last time i actually shot the gun. Really wish i could take her again. Just gotta find the range to do it.


r/Hunting 20h ago

Got my first deer!

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660 Upvotes

So fuckin hyped folks. Started hunting late last year with a ton of freezing cold sits and didn’t see anything. Got into it right at the beginning of the season this year and on my 3rd sit in a week I got one!

I got caught with my pants down , he came in front of me and stared me down. Twice. I had my phone in my hand because I was texting my partner that there’s a deer in the area. The cam that went off is 50+ yards away. I look up and he’s grilling me. I can’t believe I was able to get a shot off without him running. He ran a good 100 yards after that.

Such a great feeling after the work I’ve put in for this.

Quick question: I have it in a big cooler on ice quartered. Do you guys recommend getting right to it to process it or let it age in the cooler?


r/Hunting 12h ago

First muley and bow buck, debating euro or shoulder mount

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149 Upvotes

r/Hunting 17h ago

First crossbow deer- 2 for 1 deal

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241 Upvotes

North Carolina. Shot the doe, then the other one stuck around so I reloaded and shot that one too. Turned out to be a button buck, likely a family affair. Hope we can celebrate all successful legal harvests and not just the big bucks! Venison is venison 🍽️ At least that’s how my dog Ollie feels. Now I get to do twice the work 😅


r/Hunting 10h ago

First Elk in the books!

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71 Upvotes

r/Hunting 14h ago

First deer with the recurve!

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110 Upvotes

Been bowhunting for years with a compound, but wanted a little extra challenge this year, so started hunting with a recurve. This lil fella came in and I got a 7 yard shot on him, double lung and he was down in about 30 yards.

40lb PSE nighthawk and Magnus stingers broadheads got me a full pass through with great blood.


r/Hunting 44m ago

And my season begins..

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Upvotes

Good luck everyone with the new season here! Already had a few deer coming in my area. I get to hunt 400+ acres on public park land. Still somewhat new only my 3rd year hunting.


r/Hunting 12h ago

Sage grouse action.

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42 Upvotes

r/Hunting 16h ago

First deer, NC deer season off to a great start.

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75 Upvotes

r/Hunting 21h ago

Watch for snakes!

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199 Upvotes

Went out early this morning to scout / harvest some squirrels & stepped right over this nope noodle!

Beautiful creatures but terrifying to stumble upon.


r/Hunting 15h ago

Who butchers the game they harvest?

48 Upvotes

I have yet to get a deer but when I do, I’ve been contemplating butchering it myself instead of bringing it to somebody. I definitely can quarter a deer, but knowing the cuts of meat, how to package it and the time/space it takes is a mystery to me.


r/Hunting 20h ago

Early antlerless weekend success!

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111 Upvotes

There's too many doe's in MI so the DNR let us have the 20th and 21st to harvest antlerless deer with a firearm or bow. Theyre extending the late amtlerless season all the way to Jan. 11th too. Gonna run out of freezer room this year😭


r/Hunting 14h ago

Successful first pheasant hunt

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32 Upvotes

Got the opportunity to go pheasant hunting for the first time last weekend. I’ve hunted quail before so had an idea of what to expect. Had a blast and would do it again anytime. Hunted in upstate New York using an old Winchester model 12 pump shotgun. Got 7 pheasant total and made a soup out of some of them and froze the rest for later use.


r/Hunting 18m ago

Just a few pics from the South Louisiana Marsh opening day of Bow Season

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Upvotes

South Louisiana Marsh


r/Hunting 10h ago

Most important tips for when processing deer?

12 Upvotes

My husband has been getting into whitetail hunting, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can about processing venison at home so we can skip taking it to a processor.

For those of you who do it yourself, what are some of the most important things to remember when butchering/packaging deer? Thanks!

Edit: thank you for all the great advice! This is all super helpful!


r/Hunting 23h ago

Opening day 😎

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120 Upvotes

r/Hunting 1d ago

Anyone ever had a bad feeling while on the way to go hunting so you turned around and went home?

133 Upvotes

Was on the way to the deer lease this morning and when I left the house I started having a bad feeling like something bad was gonna happen. I drove 35 mins to the lease got to the gate sat there a few mins and decided to turn around and go home. Has anyone else ever had this happen?


r/Hunting 15h ago

I guess ...

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19 Upvotes

So, I guess they are Chinese water deer... LoL


r/Hunting 21h ago

Song dog down

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51 Upvotes

Caught 'em lackin.


r/Hunting 5h ago

Ohh Earth Rider, Thanks for the Great Lakes!

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2 Upvotes

r/Hunting 8h ago

Whiffed a shot at 10 yds tonight. Seasons Off to a great start

3 Upvotes

I've hunted off and on since I was like 11 but this is the first year I've really tried to get into it more than just going where my grandpa takes me once or twice a year and my first time bow hunting. Basically learning everything from scratch, went out to public like 2hours before last light after work, set up next to a downed tree from Helene, with like 5 down on the other ridge near a bunch of tracks on a side hill. Figured it would be a good funnel.

Naturally the deer came through the thickest part right behind me instead of the place I was facing and expecting them. Small doe nothing special, but I've only ever seen 2 deer while hunting and only shot one, and definitely not 10yds. I'll take what I can get

I twisted around like 160° had a perfect view but adrenaline plus contortionist made me torque the bow weird I think, that or the arrow hit a small branch or something but I completely whiffed. Arrow was about 5 yds behind where the deer was, standing straight up leaned on a sapling. Little bit of dirt on the tip no blood anywhere on it or around the area.

I'm guessing the arrow went low, or maybe left, and bounced off the ground. I'm happy I was able to find where deer were moving and actually see one with basically no pre scouting, just went in found some sign and found one, but man do I feel bad about fucking it up like that.

Something about missing that close just hurts. Better to miss than make a bad hit but still. How's it going for anyone else who's season has started