Speaking of regularguy I'm surprised he hasn't chimed in on this thread yet lol!

I would check with a Georgia hunting forum.

Forum

If your hunting only to harvest meat and learn hunting skills, traveling several states away for guided game ranch cull hunts are not going to be your best way to achieve those goals. Just spend time in the woods and hunting what you have available to you. Your own state of Georgia has a public drawn hunt program just like Texas. Each year you apply and don't get drawn you gain a priority point for the next year to increase your chances. Not just for Deer hunts, but hunts from Alligator, to Quail, and rabbit. And it costs nothing to apply for those hunts. The youth hunt offerings and "hunt and learn" program would be a great resource to use with for your kids.
https://georgiawildlife.com/hunting/quota
https://georgiawildlife.com/LearntoHuntFish
If you or your family has an issue with the taste of game meat, you might consider finding a place that will make your meat into sausage like smoked sausage, breakfast sausage, jalapeno cheese sausage, etc. Paying to have a field dressed animal fully processed can be expensive. An alternative is to debone your game and taking only the meat to the processor to be made into sausage. I have both Venison smoked sausage made and an all game sausage of mostly waterfowl and wild hog, but could have any kind of game animal in it. Every member of my extended family will eat it including those that claim they do not like game meat.

Another main point; you seem to want an almost “guarantee” to kill several animals, but don’t want a canned hunt. That’s a very fine line. & it could take awhile.

That fee is for you to sit in a box blind and shoot an axis doe that he points out. Likely under a feeder. This will not reach your expectations of teaching you how to hunt. Also if you want to learn to hunt for meat hunting exotics on a game ranch in Texas will not do you any good. Be like saying I want to learn how to bass fish so booking a fly fishing trip in Wyoming.

Maximus is trying to help you. Swallow your pride and listen

I can see how you are definitely right there. I guess it wouldn't be fair to place those expectations on a guide simultaneously. I guess what I mean is my ultimate goal is to learn enough through a few of these hunts to become self sufficient as a hunter. But I would feel very bad about driving to Texas, Oklahoma or even further west and spending several thousand dollars to come home with nothing to show for it. I am going to attack this goal at all angles. I got some info on hunting squirrels with my hunting buddy this morning. A couple of earlier posters were kind enough to suggest that I look at hunting rabbits and squirrels locally. I know it is a far cry from stalking a caribou in Alaska, but I am guessing every little bit of experience will help.

Great advise here sir, and thanks for it. I followed your advice and looked up how to get a gator tag in Georgia and saw that I still have a couple weeks left to do so for this year. I read a suggestion that I have my wife and loved ones, even my hunting friend, also apply. Question: If my wife or friend draws a tag, can it be transferred to me? Could I legally buy a tag from someone else unrelated to me?

I am seeing guide fees from $500 to $800 a day to get on a boat and hunt for one. Seems very reasonable for this type of experience, even if the quantity of harvested meat is small. I really appreciate this suggestion.

I will certainly be asking for a large amount of sausage. But my goal is to acquire a taste for venison and other game kind of like one does for beer, lol. Eventually, I would like to be able to buy a grinder and vacuum sealer and fully process my own animals. Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to learn. I imagine once I learn how to gut, skin and age the meat properly, further processing should be doable at home. Seems like once I begin harvesting multiple does every season that I could save money buy doing this.

Thanks again John.

I registered there as well. Thank you.

i am hoping he does. Seems to be well respected here.

You are most welcome in my bhunting business sir, lol. I am here for all the help I can get! I look forward to speaking with him.

Thanks for your help. I am most definitely quite serious. I am really excited about getting started and deer season is a couple months away in Georgia. Also, there are no elk, moose, caribou, red deer, javelinas, axis/fallow/sika deer or any type of ram or sheep in Georgia. There are hogs, one type of smaller deer, and some small birds that are expensive to hunt and don't seem likely to feed my family of 6 for more than a meal or to. Little to get excited about. But I am starting to realize that plain doe hunts for venison is the most practical way to get started.

Here is my take.

I grew up hunting in the Midwest, but lived in SC and GA for 13 years. For the money that you would spend going out to TX for a "meat hunt", you can get on a decent lease in middle/southeast GA and kill 5 does and a buck every year. I know you haven't had the best experience with leased land in GA, but there is a huge difference in going to a lease as guest and going as a member. As a guest, unless you have a really good friend, you are going to get put in the "left over" stand, where you will see a deer if you are lucky. If you do happen to have that really good friend, you will get put in a solid location. That being said, on a standard lease where you are hunting local food sources (not food plots or feeders) and the hunting pressure is pretty high, you may only see one deer every 5 outings. The trick is to get into the woods more. When I was living in GA, I only saw deer about 20% of the time I was in the woods. Not for lack of trying, but deer don't move on my schedule and I can only hunt out of 1 stand at a time. There were many times when I hunted one stand and had deer under 2-3 other places on the lease (verified by trail cameras). That is the other thing. Once you get on a lease, you should have at least 3 places that are "yours" with trail cameras out at each of them. If you are not seeing deer on those cameras, find a different location. YouTube is a good resource for figuring out where to place stands and cameras. Also, if your lease doesn't have food plots, look into get the members together to plant them. If they do, you may not get to hunt the food plots as a new member, but look for places that the deer use to travel to and from the food plots and set up there.

When I lived in TX, I took advantage of going to some ranches and doing meat hunts, because a 2-5 hour drive wasn't that difficult and the price was right. Now that I live in Missouri, the only reason I am going to TX is to trophy hunt exotics and that is only when I don't get drawn for a hunt out west.

The GON and Outdoors Trader forums are good resources where you have a good chance of meeting up with people in your area to show you how to do things. I am a member on both of those forums as well. I was a Moderator on the GON forum when I lived there. There are some great folks in GA who would be more than willing to help show you the ropes, but rest assured, they won't just give up all the secrets until you build a relationship with them.

As for how to process your own game, there are plenty of really good YouTube videos on how it is done. As well as how to prepare game meat for consumption. The most important thing is how the meat is cared for after the shot. The trick is to get it cooled down as quickly as possible. At all my leases we had either a skinning shed or at least a grambel in a tree. My goal was to get the deer from shot to cooler in less than 2 hours unless the temps were really high in the early season, then the goal was <1 hour.

I hope this helps.

Depends on the day! HAHAH

Also beware of the snobs on the forum. Don't take it too seriously. I should take my own advice I guess, oh freaking well.

Some people think shooting deer from a stand in front of a feeder all their life makes them an expert. Take it with a grain of salt.

You guys keep going on like you'll never meet me. You'll be sorry when you do.

Ya'll had an opportunity to take a new hunter under your wing and trach him something and you just heckled the poor guy and dragged me into it.

As long as ya'll keep heading the direction you are going, you are gonna take hunting down with you. Good luck.

Edit- and yes I blocked you.

Let me try this again now that I blocked those dudes.

Have you tried Fort Benning? The Post commander has put a bounty on pigs at fort benning. It's not much but better than a poke in the eye. Loaded with pigs.

Georgia is a good state to get started in.

Nothing wrong with a trophy. I don't think you have a problem with it and I bet you'd be excited to have the opportunity. Just not your goal right now. Am i right?

Oh and finally, be realistic. You are not gonna feed your family a diet of game unless you live in the woods and live off the land. Supplement their diet- maybe, if they like it. And hormones in meat are honestly no big deal. Don't worry about that stuff. A lot of communities in 3rd world countries where people eat nothing but lean organic free range meat and home grown grains and vegetables, where the avergae adult male doesn't live to be 40.

Be thankful for that hormone raised meat in the store that you can afford to buy.

Regularly it’s just a little rib rocking. Based on your username, and having served in our military as well, surely you’ve become familiar with healthy back and forth banter. Also, I offered home to tag along with me. Blocking seems a bit of a safe space method, how about you stick around. I enjoy reading what you write, but take everything I say with a grain of salt. Geez

Well i can still toggle your posts when i get curious

By the way that safe space jab was the worst one of all!

Seriously though its alot different with dudes you know and have done something with

That and you gotta admit it is a little more than a little friendly ribbing. I ain't one of yall

But seriously why cant yall just help this dude and leave me out of it

SouthSaturnDelta,

You don't need a guide to take an alligator on public land. If you draw a tag, contact me through the forum and I can explain to you everything you need to bag one on your own.

When you apply for those quota hunts, you apply as a party with your family and friends. Any permit would not be transferable.

You do have some public Elk and Exotic quota hunts that are not very far from Georgia. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania have draws for Public Elk hunts. I know because I have double digit preference points for the Tennessee Elk hunt and put in for the Pennsylvania one every year as well. Florida has a public drawn Sambar hunt. Virginia has a drawn Sika Deer hunt. Visit the fish and game websites for those states around you to see about those and what else they have to offer.

My advice, which is probably worth about what you are paying for it, would be spend a ton of time hunting squirrels near home. Squirrel hunting teaches you the same skills you need to be a successful big game hunter, but with a much faster learning curve. You need to learn how to move through the woods quietly, spot game quickly before it spots you, identify food sources, learn animal habits in your local area, sit still, move when the game isn't looking, use the terrain to your advantage, and I'm sure a ton of other skills I am forgetting. The benefit to squirrels is, if you blow a "stalk" on one, its not like your trip is ruined. You simply walk another 50 yards and start again. You can have as many encounters with your target animal in a weekend as most casual deer hunters get in several years.

If you want to do the Steve Rinella, western public land DIY thing, you are going to need those skills, or variations of them. I completely understand the desire to fast track your learning experience, and guides, especially on spot and stalk hunts, can be an excellent way of doing that. However, without that foundation of skills, you will have a very hard time putting the lessons the even the best guide teaches you to good use.

It isn't nearly as sexy as bringing a 200 lb beast home to the family, but squirrel hunting is legitimately a ton of fun, and a great way to learn the skills you need to move on. Think of it as all the girls you dated before you met you wife. Sure, they weren't what you were ultimately looking for, but without those experiences, you wouldn't have had been able to close the deal when it counted. Plus, even the learning can be a whole lot of fun.

Additionally, to address your concerns earlier, squirrel meat is legitimately delicious and as far as bacteria, parasites, etc., its safer than supermarket chicken.

At the same time you are building these skills, start building preference points for western states. Wyoming antelope is probably the ideal into animal for big game hunting as there is plenty of opportunity, but you can build points to have the opportunity to hunt in some high success rate areas for many animals in many states in a few years, when you are ready. Feel free to PM me if you'd like some pointers on how to get started.

Finally, keep in mind as you are learning, especially when you move up to public land big game, that your odds of success will be very low for a while, but they do increase as you learn. The TV shows give the impression that with enough hard work and determination, anybody can walk up a mountain in Colorado and come down with a 6x6 elk. It ain't the case. I grew up hunting squirrels and then whitetails in Illinois and after many years, got to the point that today, if I were to go back to my parents property, I would bet dollars to donuts that in any given weekend I could put meat in the freezer. I've successfully hunted hogs and deer in Florida, moose and sheep in Alaska, gemsbok and hartebeest in Namibia, and a ton of critters in between. I tell you that to tell you that I have spent a full week in Colorado hunting elk the last two years and have yet to get within 1,000 yards of one. I lived in Alaska for over a year before I got my first opportunity at a big game animal. Its hard, especially when you are moving to a new species, area, method, etc. Without a strong foundation, like you can get squirrel hunting, I can't imagine how difficult it would be.

To summarize:
Step 1: Learn to hunt
Step 2: Bring home lots of meat

Man this is phenomenal advice and it is worth a great deal to me. I spoke with my hunting buddy yesterday and he said from his elevated deer stand he can bag several squirrels on any given day. He won't be able to walk with me through the woods because he is paralyzed, but he did tell me he could put me on plenty of squirrels, even large fox squirrels. And he did confirm they are quite tasty. He said the only concern for parasites are the same wolves associated with rabbits, and those can be avoided by not going in the hot opening month of the season. I will follow your advice sir, and I thank you for it.

Great advice and I will do all you've suggested......On the transferability of tags, I have seen some elk tags for sell, mostly out west. I believe I came across a couple advertised for sale in New Mexico. Perhaps every state is different or there is something else I am missing. But I was hoping they were transferable and I could get my wife and non hunting friends to apply so they could give them to me. But I guess if that were allowed then everyone would get tags and 3/4 of them would go unused and the gator population would swell to less than ideal levels. How much meat do you get off of an average Georgia Gator? Thanks for the offer to help me. Would I need a boat to be effective hunting them.