Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

anti hunter ammunition

I

Iowa1

New Member
I think this is a good topic that deserves discussion. Do the animal rights groups search the internet looking for ammunition they can use against us? You bet. In fact, I have been told that a couple of the more well financed AR groups have full-time searches going on, looking for anything they can use against hunters and trappers: photos, statements, etc.

Having said that, should we crawl into a hole and live in fear that we might say or do something that can be used as ammo against us in the court of public opinon? I say no.

Certainly, we must use the web wisely, and take care not to do stupid things that could really hurt us, but wounding is a fact of life in all hunting, and if we can use this forum to help people wound less, and recover wounded game more effectively, then I say let's do it! A very small percentage of bucks that are shot at are wounded and escape, and we shouldn't hide from it, after all, it's an area where we can improve. Let's use this forum as a positive force, and discussions of wounding deer and suggestions on how to find them are educational for all of us. Let's tell it like it is, and look at ways we can all improve our hunting by reducing wounding.
 
First let me say I hunt whitetails with both bow and gun. I can see both sides of this issue. We can not be afraid to speak (or post) on a subject we love but we do need to be cautious of not just what we say but how we say it. I have seen some posts on here and other forums that were written without concern of how they would be perceived (most readers on a forum go with the flow and don't care about perception).

Some questions probably don't need to be on a forum - the questions on "what happened when I harvested this deer and the arrow or slug did this..." or "I hit a deer and can't find it" may be questions better left unansered. For the first type of question - congratulations you got a deer what difference does it make what the arrow or slug did, it worked!!! For the second type of question about finding deer - you are not going to find a deer here. It happens, we make lousy shots for 1000s of reasons that we all know about and we do get sick about it but these are probably the types of posts that this was based on.

We can't walk on egg shells but we can try to be careful on our wording.
 
It certainly is in bad taste/ethics for a "hunter" to brag or talk about hitting deer in the open public. Amongst ourselves we can hopefully talk about our experiences and learn from them to minimize how frequently this will reoccur. Good example is the guy who posted about taking a frontal shot on a nice deer and not recovering it. Most of the replies indicated that he should have passed the shot because a frontal shot with bow is a high risk shot that should not be taken by most archers. Another poster made the comment after reading all the posts advising to pass this shot that he was glad he decided to do exactly that when faced with the same circumstances.
 
Fact is, some deer are wounded and not recovered, but is it a good idea to post topics that advertise this to anti-hunters?
confused_em8.gif
 
This might be a place to discuss some of the ethical and moral aspects of our sport and some of the people involved. I made a couple comments about the young fellow who took, what I would deem, an unwise shot at an albino pheasant. I may have gotten a little preachey about all this, but my point was not to take a shot at something you don,t know what it is and don't know if it is legal. He and another seemed to think this was ok because it was a once in a life time thing. I disagree. I don,t have any problem with taking this bird legally and ethically, but from the way he put it neither of these fit. I think maybe we oldsters may have done young people a disservice by not instilling these aspects of ethics and morality and spirtuality of hunting. We get very involved with the sucess of deer hunting and judging that sucess by the size of the horns and talk about 140's and 170's. I believe that this has become how we judge a persons hunting skills and that should not be. I have read several post reguarding hitting a huge deer and not being able to find it and I accept that these things do happen. What I do have a problem with is those who say to bad but just go out and find another bigger one. What would be wrong with considering that buck tag filled because you probililly did kill him and just can't find him? If you want meat for the freezer buy a doe tag and continue hunting.

I believe that there is a very strong spiritial aspect of hunting. When we kill an animal we claim it's spirit and we should respect that no matter what the animal is. I read a story in a hunting magazine recently about a young boy killing his first deer. His father asked what was the first thing he did after the shot. The boy said he waited a while and then followed the trail just like he had been taught. Then when he found the deer he said a little thank you prayer to God and the deer, just like he had been taught. This is something most of us are missing.

Here I go again getting preachey, but we are the only ones who know what happens when we are the only one in the woods. We must know what is right, moral, ethical, and spiritual and then teach that to our children. Maybe then the anti-hunting groups won't have quite so much ammo.
 
I do not think i could put it any better bowmaker,
Yes i do believe about the albino pheasant, that if you do not know what it is and if it is legal than you should not shoot it. I do believe that these ethics and morals are brought up in the hunters safety course. After all isnt this why young hunters have to take the course. I think that it is a good learning experience that people do post when they miss a animal because poeple on the forum may be able to help this person find the it. It is not wrong when someone posts a forum stating that they lost a deer. The person that is wrong is the one that would say something like oh well just go find a buck that is bigger and better. NO!!! this IS wrong. I think that the statement that bowmaker made about giving up that buck tag and purchase a doe tag. A person through their career is bound to miss or wound a deer. Our forums try to help the people by posting comments about what they might have done and what they could correct
Thanks for listening
 
In my opinion this forum is used by many of us as a support group. Almost all of us can relate to not recovering a shot deer. We should be able to get on this forum and look to others for support, criticism, and suggestions. How we present our feelings or describe the situation is what I think we need to be concerned about. Don't hide the fact that you shot a deer and did not recover it, but describe the situation with respect for the animal in mind.

I don't like the idea of not talking about important subjects because they might offend someone, but we do need to pay attention to HOW we talk about some subjects.
 
Bravo bowmaker. On ethical hunters - I hunt with 2 others & one of my hunting partners hit a buck (with a deflected shot) opening day of Missouri's firearms deer season & considered his tag filled. We found the deer 3 days later but he considered his season over that morning. (P.S. Missouri does NOT allow party hunting).
 
This foolishness of taking the "spirit" of the animal feeds right into the anti-hunters mentality. Animals do not have spirits; what a silly notion.
 
Certainly everyone has and is entitled to their own thoughts about the spirits of animals. I think if you could read some of Ted Nugent's articles maybe he explains it better. I just can't bring myself to see these animals as dumb hunks of meat on 4 feet. They mean much more to me than that. In the last three years I have killed 6 deer, 2 black bears, and an elk, and I do believe that they all have spirits. Thanks to all for the supportive comments. Some times I feel kind of corny and it is nice to know that someone else feels the same about things.
 
To have respect for the life of an animal that we harvest, I consider an ethical thing. To think that an animal has a "spirit", I consider it "hogwash." Animals do not have a "spirit" or a "soul" and your puppy that died when you were a kid didn't go to heaven. Sorry if that crushed you! Iowa 1 is right in saying that kind of foolishness feeds the fire of the Animal Rights nuts. "Here's your sign!"
 
I'm wondering if I should dive into this debate on this forum, and I guess I will not, although I would like to tear down these notions about any animal's spirit. I would leave you with one thing to ponder: do mosquitos have spirits? Do you stop to ponder their spirit when you kill one?

I think this prevailing thought we have today that we must respect any opinion, no matter how ridiculous, is leading us down a very dark path that we really don't want to go down.
 
I wouldn't read one of Ted's articles because I think he is a nut. I would have to agree with Iowa1 about the notions of the "Spirit" of the animal. Ted and his notions of the animal being a "Spirit Brother" is one of the reasons why this is becoming so popular. Next thing you know we are going to have to drink the blood to become one with the animal. I don't think I am a spirit brother to anything but my creator. Animals were put on this earth for one purpose and that is to serve mankind. As far as shooting one and not finding it, whether it is a good or bad shot, I have never had that problem with my rifle. My bow on the other hand is a different story. In the early years I lost some deer, some shots were good, some shots were bad. After exhausting every means to find the deer I hit, if I did not find the deer I would resume hunting. This goes for does and bucks alike. Today I am much more proficient with my bow and have not had that problem with a deer in sometime. I will say this, if I pay $320 for a out of state any sex license, I don't care if I hit a doe or a buck, if I have tried everything possible to find that animal and can't find it, I will resume hunting. It is legal to do so which to me means expected. Dose this mean we can just shoot up the woods and let things lie so we can keep on shooting? Absolutely not! That is against the law and is different subject all together.

wstupid.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom