Anyone here hunt?

[frozenthunderbolt]

Ive bagged bunnies and peacocks with and air rifle, turkeys and feral chickens with my crossbow and am still waiting to nail the sodding deer that are eating my hill slop garden with either my bow or X-bow!

[jammie*dodger]

Be aware that if you are in the UK it is illegal to hunt with Bow or Crossbow. It is also illegal to own or buy hunting tips for your arrows or bolts. Hence why my Shotgun application is currently in. I have owned and shot a recurve for years and not beign allowed to hunt with it is a but frustrating. I understand why but doesn't make it any easier.
Rob.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Be aware that if you are in the UK it is illegal to hunt with Bow or Crossbow. It is also illegal to own or buy hunting tips for your arrows or bolts. Hence why my Shotgun application is currently in. I have owned and shot a recurve for years and not beign allowed to hunt with it is a but frustrating. I understand why but doesn't make it any easier.
Rob.

Cheers for that JD, it is a good point to make.

luckily I live in NZ and it is legal to hunt anything short of people and native birds on your own property, or on another's property with their consent.
Deer are a pest species as are feral goats and pigs, their hunting is encouraged and ballots are held by application in different areas for permission to hunt a certain block of govt/corporation forest.

I'm living the life of Riley!

[hubert hubert]

I hunt! Well, I've been learning how to over the last six months. I've plugged this elsewhere but I'll plug it here too: my blog on attempting to learn how to hunt rabbits with an air rifle is at http://austeritygrub.blogspot.com/ and it's called Rabbit Stew. Do come and tell me how it's done, scoff, etc - all most welcome.

Pete AKA "Hubert"

[lucidtim]

I don't yet but I'm thinking of starting it up. Mainly for rabbits, maybe some deer as well. If I'm successful I'd like to try and can meat and make jerky. First I'd have to take a hunters safety course (required by law in the US) and then get my license.

[JeremyinCzechRep]

Interesting that no one has said anything negative about hunting on this thread... I used to be anti hunting but now make a distinction between the hunters who do it for a 'bit of fun' - the trophy hunters who want a large set of antlers on their living room wall, and those who do it as a sensible way of obtaining fresh meat, controlling the populations of animals (such as deer) which have no other natural predator (in the UK). Here in the Czech Republic there are plenty of hunters in the second category. In Slovakia I've heard there are German hunters who pay quite a lot of money to be allowed to shoot a bear. Is this a sport? Hardly a level playing field. Many Americans claim the right to bear arms. Perhaps it is time for us to arm bears instead.

[Millymollymandy]

Interesting that no one has said anything negative about hunting on this thread...

I save that moaning for the French forums! Anyway hunting season is blissfully over so we can have peace and quiet in our gardens again..... until October.

[kirkpatc]

We here in Texas are being overrun with wild hogs. These are domestic pigs gone feral, but genetic tests show some Russian Wild Boar genes as well (imports from Europe brought over to hunt, escaped and spread their genes.) My newest hobby is setting live traps, baiting them with corn, and then butchering the pigs for the smoker. They are so plentiful that I can supply all my friends with wild pork.
I had to learn how to skin them and prepare the meat for the table, but I am not especially squeamish about such things. My largest catch (see pic) was a 200 lb boar. Tales abound about a 500 lb monster still roaming the pine woods, and I hope I never see it. You can see the good sized tusks on my boar.
Warm weather will curtail my trapping activities. You can never be carefull enough when handling pork.

[Annpan]

Cor, they must be delicious kirkpatc.

Jeremy, there is hunting and hunting isn't there. I don't think a bunch of upper-class twits riding horses chasing after a defenseless animal and eventually exhausting or petrifying the poor thing to death is quite the same as someone taking a good clean shot at a rabbit, or a deer for that matter.

[Ellendra]

Hey Kirk, if you find yourself with too much wild pork, you could always send some up here to Wisconsin!

[frozenthunderbolt]

Jeremy, there is hunting and hunting isn't there. I don't think a bunch of upper-class twits riding horses chasing after a defenseless animal and eventually exhausting or petrifying the poor thing to death is quite the same as someone taking a good clean shot at a rabbit, or a deer for that matter.

exactly, there is hunting, then there is animal cruelty and persecution. two entirely different things for different purposes.

[Claripup]

Jeremy, there is hunting and hunting isn't there. I don't think a bunch of upper-class twits riding horses chasing after a defenseless animal and eventually exhausting or petrifying the poor thing to death is quite the same as someone taking a good clean shot at a rabbit, or a deer for that matter.

Ok, the ban on fox hunting is my pet grievance, Yes I hate the "trophey hunters", but as an animal lover over the years I have found myself nursing a number of injured wild animals, one of which was a fox that had chewed it's own paw off, the vet said it was most likely it had been caught in a trap and done it to escape. So while chasing a fox across the countryside with a pack of dogs may not be the nicest thing in the world it is definite that the fox will either escape (scared but unharmed) or be killed very quickly. I have gone fox hunting and I am the furthest thing from a "snobby upper class twit riding a horse" but foxes do need to be culled, as do rabbits and other pests... And shooting is the best method, so long as it's a clean shot, but even the best gunman in the world can't always guarantee that and there are far to many idiots out there with guns who 9 times out of 10 don't get a clean shot.

Anyway I'll put away my soap box now...

[eccles]

Very recently my partner has taken to hunting i have a colleague with a farm and he attempts to keep the bunny population down for her, usually ive got 4 or 5 in the freezer, he also shoots pidgeon and pheasant when in season, his latest ventur is to get a fire arms licence and go deer hunting now that would fill the freezer and very nice too. All this is a long way form most of my supermarket shelf previous life and we love it i grow limited veg and fruit too, learning all the time. ----- Eccles Derbyshire

[Vajk]

Be aware that if you are in the UK it is illegal to hunt with Bow or Crossbow. It is also illegal to own or buy hunting tips for your arrows or bolts. Hence why my Shotgun application is currently in. I have owned and shot a recurve for years and not beign allowed to hunt with it is a but frustrating. I understand why but doesn't make it any easier.
Rob.

Ye gods... ILLEGAL to hunt with bow or crossbow?

Forgive me, but how did the country where the Magna Carta originates from tolerate this one wee bit??

Now, I'm certainly not suggesting to do anything against the 'law', but if people stood up and just said NO, en masse, it would stop.

Not being able to hunt with a BOW... fer crying out loud... *trails away mumbling*

[Vajk]

Interesting that no one has said anything negative about hunting on this thread...

I save that moaning for the French forums! Anyway hunting season is blissfully over so we can have peace and quiet in our gardens again..... until October.

Perhaps no one said anything bad about hunting, because in reality there IS nothing bad to say about hunting. Only things to say about bad HUNTERS. :D

Hunting, next to gathering, is our oldest and most honored traditions. It's how we feed/fed ourselves as a species in the dead of winter and through ice ages.

Most of the objections I hear regarding hunting is how hunting is 'cruel', and nature's way is kind.

Let me give ye an example of how nature hunts.

Two weeks ago in our back yard, not 10 feet from our house, a great horned owl that lurks in our woods and makes it his/her home decided to cut down on the coyote population. Not minded, as coyotes here are introducted to 'control', the deer population, and they attack children, so they are unwelcome and hated here by large.

Anyway, the owl who really is a great owl clocking in at about a 4 foot wingspan, (even though the book says they only go up to an average of 3 feet... this one is bigger.), was in our pine tree having dinner on the coyote pup.

We had heard what sounded like frantic puppy whining about midnight, and I went out with a flashlight, and had demon red eyes staring back at me. The owl shook the bottom branches of the tree, and it wasn't a small tree!

The owl 'purred' as it did it's work amidst the trees, and the coyote pup's frantic yelping slowly reduced to panicked whimpers, and then ceased altogether about 15 minutes later.

It was something out of a horror movie, and I'd never seen anything like it in my life. It was LOUD, as in full surround sound stereo movie loud.

Nature's way of hunting is not 'humane'. Nature's way is brutal, vicious, and merciless.

I don't think that coyote pup enjoyed the 15 minutes or so that it was being consumed whilst it was still conscious.

I'd take a bullet any day over being eviscerated, disemboweled and eaten alive whist fully aware. What about you? ;)