O/T: Deer Hunting Season!

[Hudman]

Originally Posted by tartanlad

I agree i reckon it's cruelty and makes me and an also i reckon isnt it about time Americans were banned from owning guns

It's about time you guys laid down the bag pipes.

[Chordchunker]

Originally Posted by NASCARL

There are many days that I go hunting where I don't kill anything...and guess what...those days are just as enjoyable as the days where I am fortunate enough to actually get a deer.

[Gary Palmer]

Originally Posted by Hudman

It's about time you guys laid down the bag pipes.

[Terry Allan Hall]

Originally Posted by rjoxyz

It's not just the loss of natural predators either. In many areas, including Southeast Michigan, suburban development has sprawled for miles and miles, robbing deer of habitat and farmland (which fed them). In the deep woods of Northern Michigan, many deer do in fact starve to death during harsh winters.

Deer are incredibly adaptive and now live cheek to jowl with suburbanites, eating their shrubbery and running in front of their cars, dieing painfully or being horribly injured. Sometimes, the occupants of the cars fair just as poorly as they veer into a tree.

With fewer farms to choose from, deer will concentrate on what is available and cause serious crop damage and destroy the livelihood of some farmers. Amazingly, under these unnatural conditions, the local deer population continues to increase.

Simply put---too many deer and not enough habitat. Put another way, we humans chose to move into the deer habitat and have a responsibility to deal with the problem we created. That's where responsible hunters come in. We understand the concept of stewardship of natural resources.

I love and respect the deer I hunt more than anyone can understand from watching a Disney movie. I have spent a huge amount of time observing them up close and studying their behavior. They fascinate me.

Melodeus touches on what is likely true--some of us may have a vestigial hunter's instinct left over. There is a unique thrill to that final moment (though a close friend once commented I enjoyed the hunt more than the kill). However, if tomorrow, the deer population came into sync with the available environment, and hunting was banned---I'd be content to take my Pentax into the field instead of a bow or firearm---but I'd miss the venison.

Some very valid points...around here, it's not the deer that cause the major crop damage so much as it's the feral hog and (to a somewhat lesser extent) feral emu population.

Fortunately, they're excellent meat, as well, and our local food bank appreciates donations of both.

[C70man]

Years ago I hunted by bow.
Then I had children of my own.
So I quit killing legged animals and birds.
It just didn't seem right anymore (for me)
Now, I kill nothing but guitar strings.
End of story.

[Melodeous]

Originally Posted by Chordchunker

There is more to it than you think. The deer doesn`t always fall right down in front of you where you can pull up the shopping cart and have someone put it in for you..Pulling the trigger is the easy part then the real work begins. Drunken city boys who go to the woods once a year to just get away from their wives have given alot of real hunters a bad name. The rambo bow hunters also leave more dead deer in the woods than any other type of hunter with alot of bad shots, then being to lazy to track it for several miles if needed.

I also hunt predators mainly coyotes because there is an over abundance where I live (poultry industry) and the state doesn`t do anything about it. If your house is full of cockroaches you call the exterminator..Who do you call if your land is infseted with coyote or deer? Out here you do it yourself. A bow hunting guide around here kills coyotes by hanging a big treble hook about 3-4 ft off the ground with a big piece of meat attached so when they raise up to bite the meat..well you get the picture. Very brutal and extremely inhumane, but no worse than what they do to chickens in a poultry plant..

I know the deer don't just walk up and ask hunters where they want them to drop dead. That's asking a bit much of the deer. But, I would expect them to respect the fact that I did get up quite early and spared no expense to hunt them down and kill them. I mean, c'mon, they are in the food chain category and are clearly depicted as such in many cave drawings left by our ancestors. Guess they thought it a good idea to make a permanent record of it lest their prodigy forget which to kill - bipeds or quadrapeds - just in case. Anyway, the deer have been allowed reprieves to multiply to abundance again and I think they should avail themselves to the culling out process. So, it would be most respectful of them to organize themselves on schedules to walk back and forth, stopping head-high often, in front of known blinds and at a sporting distance.

[Chordchunker]

I have no problem with non-hunters, my problem is when someone condemns hunting, but has no problem eating that big mac, or chicken McVomit in other words turn their back and let someone else do the killing while pointing their finger.

[Do Fret It]

Originally Posted by jamesp

What I've always wondered is why more people don't object to fishing. Can you imagine hooking a deer? Catch and release isn't about the harvest or conservation, it's purely about tormenting the fish for the sport of it.

Don't get me wrong, I love fishing. It's just always seemed odd to me that the Bambi killers get such a hard time from non-hunters, while we fisherfolk bask in an aura of genteel civility.

I think about it this way all the time.

Fishing is down right cruel but, ain't it fun.!! You never hear ANYONE complain about fishing or, the environment a Chicken is brought up in but, ain't it good on the table.

[rjoxyz]

Originally Posted by Melodeous

Anyway, the deer have been allowed reprieves to multiply to abundance again and I think they should avail themselves to the culling out process. So, it would be most respectful of them to organize themselves on schedules to walk back and forth, stopping head-high often, in front of known blinds and at a sporting distance.

I've seen video games like that. Not many of us would find that enjoyable. Besides, if they were that evolved, they would practice contraception...or form adoption agencies.

[Melodeous]

Video games? Heck, circus arcade shooting galleries predate those. That was my mind's eye's reference, anyway.

I used to go squirrel hunting. I ate them. A quick visit to the salted pressure cooker, browning in the oven and then to the plate. I'd get to the woods before first light, find a stump, get comfortable and then invariable have to take a dump. I came prepared for that, though. As the sun came out and warmed the treetops the squirrels would become active and start cutting nuts. They'd be dropping all over. Then they'd start barking their warnings and begin a cautious descent. Sometimes you'd see their shadows moving in the leaves. If they remained there you could line up the shadows with the sun and fire through the leaves with success. I usually came home with my limit. Then I'd go rabbit hunting and quail hunting. Quail hunting without a dog was a rather startling experience but once you got used to a covey exploding airborne from a foot in front of you your aim got better. I never got up the crotch to go hunt larger game. There were deer-a-plenty in the woods as well as turkey but I didn't want to be bothered with the logistics of getting the game back home. A friend of mine living in Minnesota goes up to Canada each winter and roughs it out of a back-pack. He'll make a kill and live on it and the local veggies for about 3 weeks. He'll kill maybe two animals. He's a Grizzly Adams type. His whole bit is being one with wilderness and surviving in it. I hear Manhattan is similar.

[Hudman]

Originally Posted by Melodeous

Video games? Heck, circus arcade shooting galleries predate those. That was my mind's eye's reference, anyway.

I used to go squirrel hunting. I ate them. A quick visit to the salted pressure cooker, browning in the oven and then to the plate. I'd get to the woods before first light, find a stump, get comfortable and then invariable have to take a dump. I came prepared for that, though. As the sun came out and warmed the treetops the squirrels would become active and start cutting nuts. They'd be dropping all over. Then they'd start barking their warnings and begin a cautious descent. Sometimes you'd see their shadows moving in the leaves. If they remained there you could line up the shadows with the sun and fire through the leaves with success. I usually came home with my limit. Then I'd go rabbit hunting and quail hunting. Quail hunting without a dog was a rather startling experience but once you got used to a covey exploding airborne from a foot in front of you your aim got better. I never got up the crotch to go hunt larger game. There were deer-a-plenty in the woods as well as turkey but I didn't want to be bothered with the logistics of getting the game back home. A friend of mine living in Minnesota goes up to Canada each winter and roughs it out of a back-pack. He'll make a kill and live on it and the local veggies for about 3 weeks. He'll kill maybe two animals. He's a Grizzly Adams type. His whole bit is being one with wilderness and surviving in it. I hear Manhattan is similar.

You got to watch out for the freaking lions in Manhattan. Rumor has it they like to eat guitar players of the acoustic persuasion.

[Melodeous]

Originally Posted by Hudman

You got to watch out for the freaking lions in Manhattan. Rumor has it they like to eat guitar players of the acoustic persuasion.

This might explain certain citizens buying electric guitars for self-defense.

[Galabar]

Originally Posted by Chordchunker

I have no problem with non-hunters, my problem is when someone condemns hunting, but has no problem eating that big mac, or chicken McVomit in other words turn their back and let someone else do the killing while pointing their finger.

+1000

Now, I need to go get the Grilled Chicken BLT.

[guildfire]

I support the right to arm bears. Anybody like seafood?

[GuitarVlog]

Having attended food-processing seminars, I have to say that the slaughter of livestock cannot be classified in any way as "humane".

[Hudman]

Originally Posted by GuitarVlog

Having attended food-processing seminars, I have to say that the slaughter of livestock cannot be classified in any way as "humane".

I worry more about how people treat each other.

Livestock is treated better than some of the elderly, children and women.

[valentsgrif]

Originally Posted by Hudman

There are people that have been hunting for years without a single kill. It's not easy, so stop saying it is.

Thats ME!
30 plus years, one deer.
I only still hunt, but I've seen more nature, experienced more nature, and lived within nature so much beyond what the bird watchers and mushroom pickers can fathom. It is this participation in "the wild" that I seek. A non hunter would never understand.

By the way, I'm shocked that this fairly hippie-esq forum has so many hunters. Props to you' all.

[Glenn F]

I had a whole long reply eaten by the 'HC Maintenance' page yesterday, but;

I understand the arguments for hunting. I think, though, that if one thinks one is getting unadulterated meat, especially in Texas, by hunting, it is probably a misconception, as Texas is one of the most polluted states in the US, isn't it? It would be interesting to take a sample in to a lab, and have it checked out for dioxins, pesticides, and heavy metals like mercury and lead.

I don't want to get up on a soapbox, or a high horse, or whatever. I wanted to stop eating meat for a long time, but the moral arguments were never enough to make me do so. It took health issues for me to forsake it. My experience tells me that meat eating is somewhat conditioned, as is most dietary selection, and is dependent upon culture as much as anything. When I stopped eating meat, it felt somewhat like kicking an addiction, and I think Western societies, especially Canadian and American, are addicted to eating too much of everything, including meat.

And killing another sentient creature (and my studies have shown me that animals are not simply Stimulus-Response automatons, and are aware) is just something I find wrong.

Cheers,

Glenn

[rjoxyz]

Glenn---I respect your choices. I will not argue moral judgments in most cases, as it is fruitless. But in terms of judging something as "wrong", how do you reconcile that with natural resources management. Perhaps you have not experienced what urban/suburban sprawl can do to upset an ecosystem. I grew up in a farm town and have spent the last 3 decades in a suburban area. I understand the differences and how wildlife is impacted.

In the early 1900's, Michigan's deer herd was estimated at about 50,000 (severely reduced by market hunting in the late 1800's). It is currently somewhere between 1.5 to 2 Million. As that deer herd burgeoned, so did housing developments, strip malls and expressways. Habitat disappeared. As more and more family owned farms failed, food sources declined.

As the population shifted from rural to urban, fewer and fewer children were raised in a hunting environment. The tradition was not passed along as before. Natural predators became essentially non-existent.

The Michigan State police reports about 60,000 car/deer crashes every year. Plenty go unreported. People are sometimes killed in these accidents. The deer rarely fair well.

We modern humans have forced our way into and significantly changed a natural system. We have to accept that fact and determine how to manage the resources we have affected. Sometimes, that means replacing natural predators with hunters.

[Glenn F]

I understand, and I don't presume to make moral choices for anyone. However, as I said, I didn't stop eating meat out of personal choice, but because eating meat was harming my health. However, once free of the conditioning to eat meat, I am glad I did stop, because I abhor modern industrial 'farming,' and I think killing is wrong. There are many phenomena in this world that defy easy answers, and I have none for the situation you describe.


To quote a famous movie:

"Humans are a virus."

Cheers,

Glenn