Hunting with a motorcycle

DiRTY DOG

DiRTY DOG

Well-known member
Anybody hunt with a motorcycle for transportation and/or to access rough areas? A street legal bike could come in pretty handy for getting around in some areas for sure. A Yamaha TW200 or similar is only $5k new. Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to buy a new toy.

A motorcycle introduces a few new challenges, like transporting a rifle and gear, and what to do with it if you hike into a fenced or restricted area etc.

Thoughts?
 
I have in the past and really miss it. It has advantages.
There is a least one guy here currently that uses a TW200 and I knew of two in the past.
It would be cool with a utility side car to carry a wheelchair for me.
 
I have looked seriously at one, even put an offer out for one but couldn't come to terms with the guy.

My biggest concern with a motorcycle is getting to and from the hunting area when it is in the teens as I'd have to wear too heavy a clothing and then get undressed to walk to a stand. I'm don't carry much into the field, I was more concerned with extra fuel but found containers that are made to mount on bikes. Beware of hard saddle luggage boxes, if your foot slips off a peg in rough terrain they can easily break your leg.

If your a bigger guy the Royal Enfield Himalaya is nice bike off-road capable, higher highway speeds and larger full tank with nearly the same economy and price of a TW-200.

As far as leaving it while your hunting, it is the same as leaving a motorcycle anywhere, lock it up, keep insurance on it.

I'm still up in the air about it, I've been thinking about a Baja Bug instead, road worthy, heat(not much) and would work well on back country roads. Most of the places I hunt you can't legally take a vehicle off the road anyway(BLM, State, BOR, National forest). I might end up doing both down the road or get a light weight cruiser that that I can take on the better back country roads.
 
I have a 650 KLR but would not be an option to leave it in the woods to hunt. I already have to have my wife drive me to the Management area and drop me in the AM hours and pick me up when I call her back. The private land has to have permission and since the influx of rich buying all the land and posting it, I am limited to where I can hunt to areas that have access.
 
Originally Posted By: Sammo62I already have to have my wife drive me to the Management area and drop me in the AM hours and pick me up when I call her back.

Why is this?
 
I have a Yamaha TW200 setup for hunting and love it. I chose this bike for several reasons. Yamaha has not changed it since 1987 so parts are easy to find, lots of third party after market add-ons and accessories are available (larger capacity gas tanks, windshields, hand guards, etc), easy to work on, low seat height, and light weight. They come from the factory to be street licensed, but are designed for on and off road use.

There is a TW200 forum and here is the link. https://www.tw200forum.com/index.php


One of my hobbies is to fabricate things. I designed and built a tail rack for my TW200 so I could carry a rifle and other hunting equipment. I could not find an aftermarket tail rack designed to carry a rifle. Here is a picture of the tail rack I built which is made out of 3/4" EMT conduit.





The end of the rifle case is tied to the passenger foot peg and the rifle is removed by unzipping the top of the case and pulling the rifle out.



It is not practical to haul a deer or an elk out on a motorcycle. I just gut and tag the animal then return to camp and get my truck.

The disadvantages of hunting off a motorcycle are cold weather, muddy or slippery conditions, and limited cargo space. There is a safety issue with falling over too.

Advantages are gas economy, mobility, faster to get around, smoother riding than a quad, and it can be transported without a trailer.

To haul my motorcycle around, I fabricated a hitch carrier that I can swap between my pickup and travel trailer. It is also nice to have a street licensed motorcycle for alternate transportation if needed.


 
Last edited:
Afraid someone will break in my vehicle or steal it. I am also recently retired Deputy (2015) and do not want some of the felons I put in prison seeing my vehicle and hunting me with crossbows which they are able to hunt with and hunt with in my state.

If I get to go to a private property I will drive and park.

There is an access road that runs right through the Management area to two state hwys and the thugs run it.

14000 acres but it has a lot of off roads and only two Wardens to enforce the entire County which has three Cities and one town.
 
We tried motorcycle hunting for a while. The upside, your time between stands is going to be greatly reduced. You can just move so much faster, stand to stand. The downside, we found that our set up and tear down time increased. Why? Probably because everything had to be loaded into our packs. So in reality we only gained a few more stands overall. I am sure that if we had cut down our gear we could have moved faster. But moving farther into the back country comes with risks and we felt that safety would not be compromised so we loaded for "bear" as it were.

To each their own. I found that for back country hunting, a side by side that I could outfit similar to my truck worked better and was faster than my truck.

But if I am running coyotes, then I usually do it out of a truck because I am running father between stands and running a lot faster.
 
I had a TW200 for several years and it was a great little bike. I finally sold it though. I am 6'3" and the geometry of the pegs and seat height put my legs in a position where after about 30min of riding my nuts would be numb. Not just a little but very (extremely) uncomfortable. Never had that problem with any of my other bikes. Something to consider.
 
A suzuki DR 650 is great for summer time groundhogs.
cool.gif
 
Last edited:
Back
Top