Quad for hunting/scouting
 

How many of you use quads for hunting or scouting and if you find them more of a hindrance or asset?

I don't have much interest in four-wheeling for the sake of four-wheeling, but I thought a quad might be beneficial for getting deeper into the bush to scout. As many of you know there can be quite good hunting on our public land but it's often concentrated pockets that you have to find. I thought maybe this would push me to seek out some deeper areas or maybe even set up camp deeper in the bush.

What do you guys use your quads for in terms of hunting? I think my actual days of hunting would still be all on foot and the quad would be left at home. If I don't plan on four-wheeling I assume 400cc would be enough. I have a 3-year-old I think I would take a long for some of the half-day adventures that could include chasing grouse or just tomfoolery.

I have owned ATVs for years because of farm/acreage and still own one now

The only time I believed my ATV was worth taking hunting was to access my goat and grizzly areas in B.C. where there was ATV trails that could get me close to alpine that was 20km plus away from the nearest road. Even then I ditched the ATV and walked further yet.

It was handy if I shot a moose close to home in an area that was ATV accessible.

In the last 5 years my ATV has not seen the bush as I don’t see it worth it. I also find running an ATV into your spots encourages others to follow your tracks both recreational and hunters. Because of this we have a no ATV rule in our group

More times than not I intentionally look for areas that have boundaries that make ATV access tough to avoid others. My opinion ATV traffic does impact game movement

So if you are physically capable without an ATV I would not recommend one. For those who don’t have the physical ability and an ATV gets them out in the bush it’s worth it

ATV's definitely have their purpose, and for me it's game extraction. I never hunt off of mine.
I bring my quad moose/elk hunting and it usually just rides around in the back of the truck for a week, but nice to have if we need it to get something out, or the truck gets stuck/breaks down and you need to get help.

Having said all that, if you're not going to hunt off of it, pick something small that fits in the back of a truck, like a 3 or 400.
My Honda 420 just fits in my 6'6" box.

Honda Rancher 420 4x4 sounds perfect for what you described.
Unreal machine. Bulletproof.

A close 2nd choice for me would be a Yamaha Kodiak 450.

** Ensure you get power steering whatever direction you go.

Haven’t had an ATV in all my hunting life, but members of my party do. I carry a frame pack for the deeper forays.

Definitely helps with the extraction part, and also for scouting trips.

Like Smoky says, we try not to give away our locations holes by driving to our spots. For spots that are farther from camp we might drive, then walk.

For us the smaller machines are preferred, since no one in our group is into fast riding or bogging.

Thanks for the feedback, it’s exactly what I was looking for. After re-reading my initial post I’m glad you guys understood me!

I haul mine around for in case of and when my truck decides to die!

I run on a Honda Pioneer 500 sxs. Only slightly wider than a standard quad but way more comfortable. I only hunt crown land but to be honest you don’t really need a quad to get away from the crowds on crown land. Just walk into the bush a few hundred meters and you’ll be alone.
I am mostly chicken hunting so I don’t care too much about getting too far off the beaten path.

I’ve had a Kodiak 450 for 20 years now and love it for retrieval. I’ve hauled a lot of deer and pulled a number of moose out with it. Mostly on public land. I don’t use it for hunting but do use it to get further back into bush.
Basically the ground I cover with the quad leaves the truck hunters behind. Then I park the quad and get off any trails and walk which leaves most everyone else behind. When I do have to retrieve game by hand, it sure is nice once I get back to the quad. And sometimes I get lucky and get something near a quad trail where a few lengths of rope and the quad winch turn a cut and pack job into a much easier retrieval.
I also find the biggest advantage when I’m first scouting a new area. I can cover a lot of ground and get to different areas that I want to walk into based on airphotos and then return to those spots when I’m hunting.
The only hunting I do with the quad itself is driving some of the trails over the noon hour looking for grouse. Especially when my kids were younger and they didn’t have the patience to walk or sit all day. Breaking the day up with a mid day quad to get some grouse kept them going for the morning and evening walk/sit.

For strictly scouting I found that a dual sport motorcycle was far more effective than my quad. The ability to go from trails to highway without unloading/ re-loading meant I could cover allot of ground in a day, and since I hunt on foot scouting any deeper than I could get the bike didnt make a whole lot of sense.

I wouldnt do it with a kid in tow though unless you are a very good rider, and even then your distances and where you can take a DS are severely restricted.

We use the atv's a lot while hunting, with the exception of our late season deer hunts and then just for extraction.

A lot of our roads are really rough and if you want to access an area you can camp miles away and ride in with the atv, less truck repairs, less fuel used and you can actually see better where game has been moving and feeding to help you choose a spot to hunt on foot.

Where we hunt elk they de-activate the roads, sometimes really bad, and we can atv hunt 15km from camp to get into where the elk hang out. Without the atv's we would never be able to hunt there.

For us they are a life saver and got us to almost completely quit road hunting and burning hundreds of $ in fuel each day, plus we are older and packing game is a young mans sport.

Same as most.

Use my quad, and haul my tub trailer to get into the areas that I hunt. Park it and walk from there.

Great machine to take the game out of the bush...:)

Spot on. Have had a quad of some sort since about 1983, trikes and dirt bikes before that. Even when I was young, I quit hunting moose because packing them out miles in a trapper Nelson was just ZERO fun. Once we got quads for retrievel, moose hunting was fun again.

2 x on using a motorcycle .
We had a couple of Yamaha Tw 250 that we even put rear tire chains on that helped going over wet logs. I say we seen 10 times more game than driving a quad. They are so quite . We found any time there was a hill ,we would shift in to neutral and shut off the engine and glide in stealth mode for up to a km or even more . We always had one quad in camp to haul the game back .
We always had our moose down on the first day using motorcycles.
On a quad we where lucky to even see one in a week .

Electric bikes are the answer now if its not muddy

We hunt as far as 25 kms from camp and it would be tough without our quads, they are excellent for extraction and they can carry more tools than you’ll need. We each have a 400 and it’s probably more than needed but they don’t have to work hard while still getting decent fuel consumption.

Quads are just plain handy. Buy one

Exactly!

Luv our little Hondas for the grunt work.


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Thanks for all the feedback. I’ll have to give it some serious thought. I have considered a quad, ds bike or electric bikes before. I have been trying to figure out the pros and cons of each. I am pretty comfortable on a ds bike as I have owned one once before. I am also confident on a mountain bike as I live and ride in the mountains. I have probably only used a quad a handful of times but figured the advantage might be that I can take my kid with me more safely and easily. For me the advantage to a e-bike would be the quietness, simplicity of unloading and more regular use for non hunting activities.

Yeah, I didnt do any scouting with my kids on the KLR, but they did enjoy zipping around town and some mild trail riding/ exploring. For the kind of use you describe, JR's TW200 suggestion is pretty sound if you did go the DS rout. Likely what I'd get if I got another DS, like a cross between a motorcycle and a lawn tractor.

Same here, I hunt moose and Elk as far as 20km off the main roads away from where the 4 x 4 trucks can get to, my S x S is worth every penny, as is the tub trailer when an animal goes down.

Quads are by far best for extraction of moose or elk. If you want to see game need to use quad to get into good hunting area then park it. Elk and moose now know sound of quad means "Danger" and most disappear before you get into hunting area. EBike, just a toy will never haul moose or elk out of the bush.

Hogwash e bike pulling a trailer will haul out elk and moose out easily did it twice this year 4 trips to get whole moose out minus the hide and 3 trips for the bull elk minus the hide both were one and a half miles back. Elk in September and moose end of November.

I am sure it will work on an established hard trail, where we hunt an e-bike would work about as good as a screen door on a submarine, S x S or Quad and tub trailer, whole moose just gutted 11 km 1000 lbs in one trip, an e-bike would never even get in there much less pulling a trailer.
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