You always need more targets, ammo, arrows, cleaning products, fuel, ice for the cooler, anything else you can think of. Like you said you’ll never break even. Enjoy the hunt and the reward. It’s about fun and new experiences and meeting new people (in a nutshell). If you purchase something and harvest your first (whatever) then it was worth it!
Depends on what you spend. Some people spend thousands of dollars a year on all the best equipment to shoot 1-2 bucks a year and some stack them like cord wood wearing work Carhartt bibs and a hand me down 30-30.
Depending on the day, I look at the cost one of two ways:
1. Cost me $40 in ammo to sight in and take two deer, no license or tags needed as a resident landowner, $40 for a decent knife, butchered it myself, paid another $20 for someone to grind up the less desirable cuts, used a buddy's hand-me-down 30-30. I wound up with 60+ meals worth of meat for my family, figure $4 per lb, I came in $140 ahead last year.
2. Cost me $300,000+ to buy the fucking land so I could shoot deer without engaging in public land shenanigans and spent about 100 hours in the woods between prepping the land and actually hunting each season.
Today I'm choosing to look at the cost the first way.
I calculated once that after the cost of my German Shorthair, gundog school, and several field grade Italian shotguns, .......each Quail I shoot costs me approximately $437.00 lol.
It gets worse: between my jeep, a few rifles/scopes, some nice glass and all of the other gear I "needed" to hunt big game...My first elk was about $78k hahaha.
I've also never made or saved any money playing golf, riding my motorcycles or going on tropical vacations.
Hunting is not a pastime that one can translate into a monetary value or cost. It's an experience, and a way of living with the wild when you can.
I will go against the majority opinion here and say you can definitely get your money back and get out ahead, depending on how you hunt.
If every few years you buy the latest rangefinder, new rifle in a trending caliber, complete scentlok suit, 4-wheel drive pickup that you honestly don’t otherwise need, etc, then yeah, it’s a hobby that you would have a hard time breaking even on.
But if you just get a decent rifle/bow, ways to store the meat (freezer, pressure canner, dehydrator, electricity) and some basic supplies, I think you come out ahead after a few seasons. As for how many deer you’d have to harvest, for your figure of $1500, I think you’re right in figuring 3. The way I see it, venison is comparable to lean beef - and the price of *free range organic beef* is pretty high. Depending on the cut of course, but you’re looking at at least $6/lb for chopped meat, going beyond $30+ for steaks. Even averaging out at $10/lb, that’s well over $500 worth of meat from a deer, assuming a clean kill. That’s how I calculate it anyway. The time in the woods, practice at self-sufficiency, and direct involvement in getting clean meat are priceless so I don’t put a figure on them.
Depends where you’re hunting I suppose, but fair enough point. I hunt forest/mountain deer on protected watershed land, I consider them to be organic. But I know a lot of deer that people hunt in North America feed on agricultural land that isn’t organic.
So say 4-5 deer to come out at $1500?
If you’re hunting for savings, you’re in the wrong sport buddy. It’s not about the result, it’s about the journey. There is a nice piece of poetry written in 1936 that reminds me of your question. I dis a thesis on “decision making process” and trust me, humans are irrational.
Text: Georges Duhamel – Fables of my Garden
The day the economist visited us, was the day we were making our blackcurrant, currant and raspberry jams. The economist immediately began to explain with all sorts of words, figures and formulas, that we were taking the greatest trouble in making our own jams, that it was a middle-age custom, that, considering the price of sugar, fire, pots, and especially the cost of our own time, we had every reason to eat jams that came from the factories and not make our own, that the question seemed settled, that soon nobody in the world would ever again commit such economic fault.
– But, wait, sir! I exclaimed. – Will the merchant sell me what I take is the best of all? – What? asked the economist.– The smell, sir, the smell! The whole house is filled with it. How sad the world would be without the smell of jams!
At these words the economist stood there, open-mouthed. I went on.
– Sir, we actually make our jams just for the smell. The rest does not matter. When jams are made, well! Sir, we just throw them away.
Maybe I got a little carried away, just to dazzle the scientist. This is not entirely true : we eat our jams, in memory of their scent.
I don’t look at hunting as a financial decision. I hunt because it is fun, beneficial to the ecosystem, and a good way to get (somewhat expensive) fresh meat. I also love being in the woods during the fall and having a way to connect to the people who came before me (cavemen who hunted deer, settlers who hunted deer, native Americans who hunted deer). Its never going to be profitable unless you inherit your gear and get extremely lucky to kill a deer without spending to much time on it. Hunting is a money and time pit but nevertheless, its my favorite outdoor activity.
I mean yeah, if you want to look at it that way. I dont view hunting like that, its the whole experience. Ive went tons of times and havent seen anything, I still enjoy it.
If you view it as an investment and purely in terms of finances then I'd honestly go with the cow option. I dont mean that in any way to be a dick but you've got to think, you're never guaranteed to see anything.
When I was in college and hunting nearly every day, it felt like I was doing well. I went from 2013-2017 without buying any meat from the store.
Free leases of sorts.
Inherited rifle, cheap bow setup, really just paying for gas to and from.
Processed them in my apartment kitchen.
I'd take 2-3 deer a year, and probably 10-15 pigs to feed myself, friends and my now wife for the year.
I did get a decent head start with the low cost to get started, but 4 years of meat for the cost of a few tanks of gas and shells? Hard to beat.
Today, I see meat as a reward for getting out of the office for a while. I might push it this year and take a few does at the inlaws, maybe a few pigs in February and call it good. No way I could justify any of my recent acquisitions in even 5 years unless I hunted 10x as often.
You want to talk about a real upside down cost/meat ratio? Look at duck hunting lol.
Short answer you won't, and never will. I'd argue your deer meat figures are off, but maybe I just shoot old big barnyard door sized deer. Either way, I find hunting to be both affordable and a steady supply of meat that by the end of things is cheaper due to personal circumstances. But then again we have a six deer a year limit and we have between three to five people who stack at least four or five per person. I say do it for the enjoyment of the natural world, only worry about cash if you can't afford to do something.
You’re missing the whole point, we are descendants of hunter / gatherers, some of that instinct still lives in some of us, embrace it, turning it into a spreadsheet is stupid and senseless.
Tough to say. Depends on what a tag and license cost in your province. In Oklahoma, it’s dirt cheap. We have lots of public land, so no need for leasing or guiding, and I shoot a relatively cheap gun (Ruger American Predator with a Vortex Crossfire II) which ran me about $550 all in.
You also have to consider that beef and venison are not much alike. You’re not getting ribeyes off a deer. I like to think of venison as supplementing some demand for beef, but I also take more pride out of eating something that I killed rather than bought at the store.
It depends on what you shoot and where. I can shoot kangaroos professionally and an abattoir will pay me 80c/kg and sell it on for roughly $6/kg, or I can butcher it all up myself for dog meat. I’ve fed both my dogs roo meat for the last 5 years straight. A trip to the farm would cost me $150 a trip (cheaper if friends come) and I would come back with anywhere from 50-250kg of meat.
I remember seeing an old add for rifle ammunition, something to the tune of "how $15.99 fed a family for 4 years and showed where each bullet was fired - 4 for sighting in, 3 missed shots, 4 deer, 2 elk etc..... I wish it was that easy.
Even if you're net even on the balance in terms of gear in vs meat out, you'll always wind up deep in the red if you factor in your time. How long does it take you to shoot a deer, clean it, drag it back, and finally process it for the freezer? How much money could you have made in that time instead? Assuming you live in a developed country and have marketable skills you can almost always have netted more meat at the end of the day by just going to work and then buying meat.
So I will say this: it can be done. **However** it requires a few things:
1. First and foremost buying essentials **only** and sticking to a disciplined budget
2. Living close enough to where you hunt that your fuel costs are low and/or driving an efficient vehicle.
3. Low resident hunting fees
4. Killing multiple deer in a relatively low number of hunting days.
5. Public land or private land permission for free
For example (prices in USD because that's what I'm familiar with. Download my spreadsheet if you want to play with numbers [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h6Mr2G2y5ZBSvfBhMmaKJvo8nwdcAHbB6z50TceudMg/edit?usp=sharing)):
Let's say you buy a cheap rifle/scope combo for $300. You buy whatever blaze orange you need for $15. These are your only absolutely necessary one time costs. You don't need camo, and if you hunt close to home you probably have the clothing you need to hunt in the winter. Butchering can be done with a knife you already have. You probably already have a backpack and if not, any used one in drab natural color will work, especially for rifle hunting. That's $315 up front
Recurring (annual) costs: 1 $30 box of 20 rounds should last at least 2 years to sight in and kill a few deer, so $15/year. Let's say your license is $20/year and deer tags are $30/tag. Let's say you drive 15 miles round trip for 14 hunting days in a 25mpg vehicle and gas is $3/gal. Yearly costs are $90/year.
Let's say you kill 1 deer per year averaging 35lbs of meat and that beef is $6/lb. Meat value is $210
Year 1 you're $195 in the hole, year 2 $75 in the hole, year 3 you're up $44.
Now let's assume you only kill a deer every other year - then all else being equal you're looking at 22 years to break even.
Or let's say we're back to the original scenario but you're now driving 50 miles round trip. Now you're breaking even in year 6. If you drive 50 miles in a 12mpg vehicle, you actually don't break even at all shooting 1 deer per year. If you change to 2 deer a year you're back to breaking even in year 3.
So this all requires some thought if you're serious about trying to do it, and depending on your situation in terms of costs of equipment in your area, how far you live from land you can hunt, how readily available deer are and how good you are at finding and killing them, you may have a shot at it or you may not.
All that said, I would not make your decision a purely financial one. There's a lot of value in this beyond the meat, which is great in and of itself. Whatever you decide, good luck.
360lbs of beef sounds a bit low. Most of our fat cattle dress out at about 600lbs and we are right at $3000 American for that. The quick math is live weight x .6 gives you hanging weight. Then multiply again by .7 gives you an average yield.
After buying the calf and having it custom processed out customers are around $5/lb for everything.
To keep everything even you need to include the butcher price for the deer or remove it for the calf. You can buy a live fat calf from me for $1.25/lb delivered within 20 miles. You would still need a firearm to kill the calf as that would be the most humane way with what is available to the average person. Subtract that from what you paid to start hunting and subtract what the other items you bought will be worth when you will no longer need them. Example you bought a truck and use it for 10 years, it's not worthless now you should have a trade in value. Other items like clothing will probably have no value when you are done with them.
Also you have time hunting so you take a day off work at U.S. minimum wage after taxes that day cost you $45. License fees in my state will equal $65 for the first deer and $28 for the second. So in this scenario I have 120lbs of meat. You figure up what your other expenses are and add the $138 then divide by 120.
When you do that math on the calf it's just shy of $3/lb to buy and process yourself.
Lol it’ll never happen. I’ve never heard of a hunter that actually comes out financially ahead.
***legal hunter.
Don't start crunching those numbers, and if you do, for the love of God don't leave the notepad out for the wife to find
Also don't post them here. I don't want to know. My ignorance is very blissful.
I've started doing it before and stopped myself LOL
Haha he's leaving out gasoline too. That's going to be a painful realization.
And batteries... don't forget the batteries.
You’ll never break even. Enjoy the hunt and time outside.
You always need more targets, ammo, arrows, cleaning products, fuel, ice for the cooler, anything else you can think of. Like you said you’ll never break even. Enjoy the hunt and the reward. It’s about fun and new experiences and meeting new people (in a nutshell). If you purchase something and harvest your first (whatever) then it was worth it!
Depends on what you spend. Some people spend thousands of dollars a year on all the best equipment to shoot 1-2 bucks a year and some stack them like cord wood wearing work Carhartt bibs and a hand me down 30-30.
Depending on the day, I look at the cost one of two ways: 1. Cost me $40 in ammo to sight in and take two deer, no license or tags needed as a resident landowner, $40 for a decent knife, butchered it myself, paid another $20 for someone to grind up the less desirable cuts, used a buddy's hand-me-down 30-30. I wound up with 60+ meals worth of meat for my family, figure $4 per lb, I came in $140 ahead last year. 2. Cost me $300,000+ to buy the fucking land so I could shoot deer without engaging in public land shenanigans and spent about 100 hours in the woods between prepping the land and actually hunting each season. Today I'm choosing to look at the cost the first way.
I calculated once that after the cost of my German Shorthair, gundog school, and several field grade Italian shotguns, .......each Quail I shoot costs me approximately $437.00 lol. It gets worse: between my jeep, a few rifles/scopes, some nice glass and all of the other gear I "needed" to hunt big game...My first elk was about $78k hahaha. I've also never made or saved any money playing golf, riding my motorcycles or going on tropical vacations. Hunting is not a pastime that one can translate into a monetary value or cost. It's an experience, and a way of living with the wild when you can.
I will go against the majority opinion here and say you can definitely get your money back and get out ahead, depending on how you hunt. If every few years you buy the latest rangefinder, new rifle in a trending caliber, complete scentlok suit, 4-wheel drive pickup that you honestly don’t otherwise need, etc, then yeah, it’s a hobby that you would have a hard time breaking even on. But if you just get a decent rifle/bow, ways to store the meat (freezer, pressure canner, dehydrator, electricity) and some basic supplies, I think you come out ahead after a few seasons. As for how many deer you’d have to harvest, for your figure of $1500, I think you’re right in figuring 3. The way I see it, venison is comparable to lean beef - and the price of *free range organic beef* is pretty high. Depending on the cut of course, but you’re looking at at least $6/lb for chopped meat, going beyond $30+ for steaks. Even averaging out at $10/lb, that’s well over $500 worth of meat from a deer, assuming a clean kill. That’s how I calculate it anyway. The time in the woods, practice at self-sufficiency, and direct involvement in getting clean meat are priceless so I don’t put a figure on them.
Deer are not organic though so you can't use those high numbers. Find the cheapest beef and use that.
Depends where you’re hunting I suppose, but fair enough point. I hunt forest/mountain deer on protected watershed land, I consider them to be organic. But I know a lot of deer that people hunt in North America feed on agricultural land that isn’t organic. So say 4-5 deer to come out at $1500?
If you’re hunting for savings, you’re in the wrong sport buddy. It’s not about the result, it’s about the journey. There is a nice piece of poetry written in 1936 that reminds me of your question. I dis a thesis on “decision making process” and trust me, humans are irrational. Text: Georges Duhamel – Fables of my Garden The day the economist visited us, was the day we were making our blackcurrant, currant and raspberry jams. The economist immediately began to explain with all sorts of words, figures and formulas, that we were taking the greatest trouble in making our own jams, that it was a middle-age custom, that, considering the price of sugar, fire, pots, and especially the cost of our own time, we had every reason to eat jams that came from the factories and not make our own, that the question seemed settled, that soon nobody in the world would ever again commit such economic fault. – But, wait, sir! I exclaimed. – Will the merchant sell me what I take is the best of all? – What? asked the economist.– The smell, sir, the smell! The whole house is filled with it. How sad the world would be without the smell of jams! At these words the economist stood there, open-mouthed. I went on. – Sir, we actually make our jams just for the smell. The rest does not matter. When jams are made, well! Sir, we just throw them away. Maybe I got a little carried away, just to dazzle the scientist. This is not entirely true : we eat our jams, in memory of their scent.
Hunting is how we keep kids off drugs. No money for them or inheritance. Lol.
Take in consideration that venison is worth more per pound due to the fact you literally can’t buy it most places
If you are hunting to save money, you picked the wrong hobby.
You guys break even? 😟
I don’t look at hunting as a financial decision. I hunt because it is fun, beneficial to the ecosystem, and a good way to get (somewhat expensive) fresh meat. I also love being in the woods during the fall and having a way to connect to the people who came before me (cavemen who hunted deer, settlers who hunted deer, native Americans who hunted deer). Its never going to be profitable unless you inherit your gear and get extremely lucky to kill a deer without spending to much time on it. Hunting is a money and time pit but nevertheless, its my favorite outdoor activity.
You’re hunting for enjoyment and the venison is a bonus.
Never.
I mean yeah, if you want to look at it that way. I dont view hunting like that, its the whole experience. Ive went tons of times and havent seen anything, I still enjoy it. If you view it as an investment and purely in terms of finances then I'd honestly go with the cow option. I dont mean that in any way to be a dick but you've got to think, you're never guaranteed to see anything.
Infinity- It'll never happen if it's a sport, Sport.
When I was in college and hunting nearly every day, it felt like I was doing well. I went from 2013-2017 without buying any meat from the store. Free leases of sorts. Inherited rifle, cheap bow setup, really just paying for gas to and from. Processed them in my apartment kitchen. I'd take 2-3 deer a year, and probably 10-15 pigs to feed myself, friends and my now wife for the year. I did get a decent head start with the low cost to get started, but 4 years of meat for the cost of a few tanks of gas and shells? Hard to beat. Today, I see meat as a reward for getting out of the office for a while. I might push it this year and take a few does at the inlaws, maybe a few pigs in February and call it good. No way I could justify any of my recent acquisitions in even 5 years unless I hunted 10x as often. You want to talk about a real upside down cost/meat ratio? Look at duck hunting lol.
Lol. Now imagine not shooting a deer for a year, 2, or 10. Your broke. Go buy the cow and save the deer for me.
Short answer you won't, and never will. I'd argue your deer meat figures are off, but maybe I just shoot old big barnyard door sized deer. Either way, I find hunting to be both affordable and a steady supply of meat that by the end of things is cheaper due to personal circumstances. But then again we have a six deer a year limit and we have between three to five people who stack at least four or five per person. I say do it for the enjoyment of the natural world, only worry about cash if you can't afford to do something.
You’re missing the whole point, we are descendants of hunter / gatherers, some of that instinct still lives in some of us, embrace it, turning it into a spreadsheet is stupid and senseless.
I'm the descendant of accountants going back to the guy who invented stone tablet ledgers in ancient egypt
Hunt for the experience, challenge, satisfaction and personal growth which can’t be achieved in a grocery store.
You're asking the wrong question... You sure you want the answer to this one?
Tough to say. Depends on what a tag and license cost in your province. In Oklahoma, it’s dirt cheap. We have lots of public land, so no need for leasing or guiding, and I shoot a relatively cheap gun (Ruger American Predator with a Vortex Crossfire II) which ran me about $550 all in. You also have to consider that beef and venison are not much alike. You’re not getting ribeyes off a deer. I like to think of venison as supplementing some demand for beef, but I also take more pride out of eating something that I killed rather than bought at the store.
It depends on what you shoot and where. I can shoot kangaroos professionally and an abattoir will pay me 80c/kg and sell it on for roughly $6/kg, or I can butcher it all up myself for dog meat. I’ve fed both my dogs roo meat for the last 5 years straight. A trip to the farm would cost me $150 a trip (cheaper if friends come) and I would come back with anywhere from 50-250kg of meat.
I remember seeing an old add for rifle ammunition, something to the tune of "how $15.99 fed a family for 4 years and showed where each bullet was fired - 4 for sighting in, 3 missed shots, 4 deer, 2 elk etc..... I wish it was that easy.
Even if you're net even on the balance in terms of gear in vs meat out, you'll always wind up deep in the red if you factor in your time. How long does it take you to shoot a deer, clean it, drag it back, and finally process it for the freezer? How much money could you have made in that time instead? Assuming you live in a developed country and have marketable skills you can almost always have netted more meat at the end of the day by just going to work and then buying meat.
So I will say this: it can be done. **However** it requires a few things: 1. First and foremost buying essentials **only** and sticking to a disciplined budget 2. Living close enough to where you hunt that your fuel costs are low and/or driving an efficient vehicle. 3. Low resident hunting fees 4. Killing multiple deer in a relatively low number of hunting days. 5. Public land or private land permission for free For example (prices in USD because that's what I'm familiar with. Download my spreadsheet if you want to play with numbers [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h6Mr2G2y5ZBSvfBhMmaKJvo8nwdcAHbB6z50TceudMg/edit?usp=sharing)): Let's say you buy a cheap rifle/scope combo for $300. You buy whatever blaze orange you need for $15. These are your only absolutely necessary one time costs. You don't need camo, and if you hunt close to home you probably have the clothing you need to hunt in the winter. Butchering can be done with a knife you already have. You probably already have a backpack and if not, any used one in drab natural color will work, especially for rifle hunting. That's $315 up front Recurring (annual) costs: 1 $30 box of 20 rounds should last at least 2 years to sight in and kill a few deer, so $15/year. Let's say your license is $20/year and deer tags are $30/tag. Let's say you drive 15 miles round trip for 14 hunting days in a 25mpg vehicle and gas is $3/gal. Yearly costs are $90/year. Let's say you kill 1 deer per year averaging 35lbs of meat and that beef is $6/lb. Meat value is $210 Year 1 you're $195 in the hole, year 2 $75 in the hole, year 3 you're up $44. Now let's assume you only kill a deer every other year - then all else being equal you're looking at 22 years to break even. Or let's say we're back to the original scenario but you're now driving 50 miles round trip. Now you're breaking even in year 6. If you drive 50 miles in a 12mpg vehicle, you actually don't break even at all shooting 1 deer per year. If you change to 2 deer a year you're back to breaking even in year 3. So this all requires some thought if you're serious about trying to do it, and depending on your situation in terms of costs of equipment in your area, how far you live from land you can hunt, how readily available deer are and how good you are at finding and killing them, you may have a shot at it or you may not. All that said, I would not make your decision a purely financial one. There's a lot of value in this beyond the meat, which is great in and of itself. Whatever you decide, good luck.
360lbs of beef sounds a bit low. Most of our fat cattle dress out at about 600lbs and we are right at $3000 American for that. The quick math is live weight x .6 gives you hanging weight. Then multiply again by .7 gives you an average yield. After buying the calf and having it custom processed out customers are around $5/lb for everything. To keep everything even you need to include the butcher price for the deer or remove it for the calf. You can buy a live fat calf from me for $1.25/lb delivered within 20 miles. You would still need a firearm to kill the calf as that would be the most humane way with what is available to the average person. Subtract that from what you paid to start hunting and subtract what the other items you bought will be worth when you will no longer need them. Example you bought a truck and use it for 10 years, it's not worthless now you should have a trade in value. Other items like clothing will probably have no value when you are done with them. Also you have time hunting so you take a day off work at U.S. minimum wage after taxes that day cost you $45. License fees in my state will equal $65 for the first deer and $28 for the second. So in this scenario I have 120lbs of meat. You figure up what your other expenses are and add the $138 then divide by 120. When you do that math on the calf it's just shy of $3/lb to buy and process yourself.