Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

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Sugartit
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by Sugartit »

I consider myself to be in both of these categories! I love the hunt, and consider myself a proficient woods person, literally a lifetime of gaining the knowledge. However if certain legal to take critters show up during the course of pursuit of other critters, they are definitely in danger of being harvested. regardless of whether or not there is a place in the pot for them or not. Sometimes times I do catch myself thinking that somehow I have been elevated above others, per criteria or whatever. However, reflection on my youth reminds me of times when the number mattered. As quoted from someone and somewhere else, age is a high price to pay for maturity!
F224
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by F224 »

I'm a prairie dog and woodchuck shooter first. When it's coyotes, deer or other big game; I like to think of myself as a hunter. If you can get closer, get closer, always use enough gun, and hopefully I'll pass on low percentage shots. In the late 1990's I helped out on a cull hunt and killed over 60 deer myself in one night. Over the last forty plus years, I have killed over 250 head of big game, everything from Suni to Cape Buffalo. That is hunting, not shooting, the hardest trophy animal to kill in my opinion is a good whitetail.
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rebel
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by rebel »

I'm neither this year, having nothing worth shooting during deer and not enough money to book hunts, not that I ever had enough.
Groundhogs I shoot as a favor to farmers, Coyotes I hunt because here, they have to be hunted. Crows, I shoot as favor to farmers.
As I get older, seems that where I used to have a deer paradise has turned to a desert. Glad to see some states still care about hunters and the money they bring in. My state certainly doesn't.
You can't beat the mountain, pilgrim. Mountains got its own way.
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Max_Spansion
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by Max_Spansion »

Came to hunting late in the game as I grew up in a non-hunting household. I was always a target shooter and loved being in the woods as a kid but these didn't converge until my early 20s. I'm not a great hunter by any means, and had to learn the skills mostly myself. I'm already planning tracking lessons and suppressed subsonic target practice for my 18m/o boy. I feel it's my responsibility to provide him a hunting foundation almost as a hedge against an uncertain technology driven future. Hopefully he takes to it.
hardcase
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by hardcase »

I use to be a deer hunter, now more of a deer watcher. I could easily limit out sitting at our kitchen window. No sport in that.

Reminds me of this guy that use to work for my dad. A neighbor/farmer planted a food plot every year and had a shead with shooting ports kind of like a 18th century western fort. Invited my dad's hired hand to come over and "hunt" deer. The hired hand would line up a shot and was told "no not that one". This repeated for 3-4 deer and he never took a shot.

Like that old song about women. "I toast to the ones that will, and I toast to the ones that won't. But I don't toast to the ones that say they will, and later decide that they won't".
Mrmike328
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by Mrmike328 »

I am a shooter of animals. I shoot or have shot just about any animal within the confines of Texas law. I mostly shoot varmints, predators, and LOTS of hogs but i also like to shoot birds such as dove, quail, ducks, and turkey. I will accasionally hunt deer only because i have tags, but not really my thing.

I favorite to shoot are hogs... they are an invasive pest that should be eradicated. I consider shooting hogs a service to the state. I like that i can shoot hogs 24/7 with no bag limits and can donate the kill to meat processors for distribution to local food banks. A win/win for everyone.
Jcm800
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by Jcm800 »

Depends where you hunt.

Hunting on small parcels, around swamps ect... you need a fast kill with little to no tracking.
Woodsmanship has nothing to do with it. If the animal gets to someone's posted property it's gone.
Better to lose a few lbs of bloodshot meat than the whole deer.
If a 300 mag accomplishes this then it's the right tool for the job.

I have a couple nasty areas on my property that are a real bitch to track deer.....I'll just use my dogs :lol:
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by KTMRacer »

I'm a hunter.
Born that way. For years, opening day for Alabama gun season was Nov 15. Happens to be the day I came into this world. Now it's on the first Sat before Thanksgiving because of all the schools that were missing students when the 15th fell during the week.
I took my first deer 5 days after I turned 9 using a 16ga double barrel with buckshot (stock cut down with a hack saw to fit under my arm), freezing to death, no camo (owned none), and on a dog drive.

When I was in college, until a few years after I got out, averaged close to 20 deer a year with bow and firearm combined. Not real proud of it now, but it's the way it was, no sense in denying it.

These days, it's mostly meat with a bow. I try for a couple of doe early and then I trophy hunt. I shoot mature bucks only and even most of them don't meet my standards so I put other people on em. I just don't hate em like I used to. I do exterminate hogs like the plague and with any means possible.

As far as "issues" taking game with certain calibers or means; I consider myself a smart person and I realize that there are those "I don't have an answer why" moments that don't require any other excuse.
I don't ask anyone to do things my way as it's for sure not the best or the only.
I guess my greatest accomplishment in these many years is being able to enjoy a hunt without have to smell burnt powder.
Good campfire discussion.
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dellet
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by dellet »

KTMRacer wrote: Good campfire discussion.
It's also a needed discussion. One thing that comes out is that just because it's right or ethical for me in my area or animal, does not mean the same for you.

Had a discusion with someone I considered an arrow launcher, uses a compound contraption to fling arrows. In the conversation I found out he did not want to rifle hunt, but the area he lived and hunted was basically desert scrub in southern California. Normal shots were 60-80 yards in flat open. Traditional bow was out of the question. He might get one shot every couple years, I pass on more shots every hour than he sees. If I hunted where he does, i'd probably use a rifle. :mrgreen:

Adjusting for game and conditions, making sure the game is recovered, choosing the right weapon is all part of it.
300 Blackout, not just for sub-sonics.
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Re: Are you a Hunter? or do you just shoot animals?

Post by MinimalistNutter »

Love this discussion, quite thought provoking so I will bring it back from the grave.

I'm a weird one, hence my username. I certainly grew up a shooter just killing animals and only animals that were easy, only ever stalking Bunnies. These days I like to consider myself an aspiring hunter-gatherer, It's not sport, recreation or hobby, I don't get all camo'd out with artificial scentblockers to look for trophies while straddling a scooter. I won't even consider harvesting an animal without the means to honor that animal in more than one way. Like to take a 'Yote just for the fur or a Deer just for the meat. So far this year I have come as far as cooking and eating one of those dirty little rodents(Prairie Dog) that I grew up murdering just to pass time with my family. That was a big step for me doing some right by the PDs massacred in the past. Not bad meat by the way, better than the drive through "meat" at least, I'd eat it again but as a stew.
To be honest these days I don't find an iota of joy or pride in pulling the trigger, cleaning or butchering, though I do have more of an issue with fishing as usually I am apologizing to the fish for the time it was out of water until dispatched. But it's one of those things that needs to happen to put (real) meat on the table. Over the last two years I have got more to learning the land not only the animals, but the trees, berries, other wild forage, springs, and all the resources.


The goal this year is my first small antlerless Elk, barebow compound shooting fingers, about 15-20yds max. This will be my second attempt after my first season a few years back was unsuccessful, which I believe had more to do with my hunting partner's scooter usage than anything else, Rocky Mountain Elk are much wiser to motors than Moose or flatland Whitetail that's for sure. Which is one thing I see as a big difference between the hunter and shooter, the shooter will generally use mechanized advantage to the extreme, going as far as shooting through the passenger window from the middle of the road at PDs on BLM land. The first Whitetail I ever had cross hairs on was after stepping a minimum distance from my father's pickup on private land with a Mini 14 223, because that's the way things were done who was I to question it.

From spending time in the woods not actively hunting, my personal preferred hunting method has evolved as a spot, sneak and bum rush, It's really quite easy to get within contact distance of a Mule Deer, Rabbits and some Turkey. Even the paranoid Pronghorn I have been able to close in to as close as 20 yards before they took off. I don't see Elk falling for this trick except maybe barefoot or in moccs.

When the season opens I will shoot some Grouse, because you can't really hunt something with so little regard for self preservation that it will let you step on it with a bow in your hands walking down a game trail. I am not one to pass up a legal opportunity to harvest an animal because it's not 100% "fair" or "sportsmanlike" but at the same time I do try to keep things "fair" by limiting technological advantage. Fair sport really has no place on the food chain, the Wolf doesn't wait for the Fawn to get a head start, instead it closes in until the Fawn is aware it's being hunted. But as Humans we must use some ethics, The tale of the Hunter and the Alligator comes to mind.

If I fail at harvesting an Elk again(highly likely) the Blackout and I are headed south for to put Swine in the freezer, could be shooting or hunting, NM doesn't have quite the Pig problem of Texas so some actual hunting may be required.

Okay, I am done with my ill-organized ramble on a 6 month old thread.
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