What is Fair Chase to You?

[Kydeerhunter03]

Fair chase to me is short and sweet...

No High Fences
No Bait
Respecting the laws that have been set.

[OHhunter]

ORIGINAL: shaman

ORIGINAL: OHhunter

I'll keep it simple to keep from going into a hunter ethics rant.  NO FENCES, NO BAIT and not breaking any game laws along the way.  If legal shooting time ends at 5:30 you unload your gun or take the arrow off the string at 5:30 not when you can no longer see your sights, unless you cannot see your sights before the end of legal shooting time, one step on the other side of the fence is still tresspassing.

I can smell a Buckeye.  I am one during the week, but on weekends, I'm living and hunting on the other side of the Ohio in Kentucky. I spent most of my formative years hunting Ohio.

1)  Ohio  used to prohibit baiting. Do they still?  Honestly, since I moved my hunting to KY and baiting is allowed, I don't see a blessed bit of difference. I don't bait. but ethics are not the issue with me. In the Ohio Valley there just simply is no food that deer will eat over the natural browse available in the Fall. I have hunted MI as well-- bait piles everywhere, but no deer visiting. There is a whole industry up there catering to deer hunters with deer carrots, deer apples and deer pumpkins.  It is honestly all a lot of hoo-hah, but the Michigan economy would collapse if they outlawed littering the forest floor with their agricultural surplus. 


2)  Ohio used to also allow shooting until an hour after sunset.  I used to sit there in pitch dark, wondering how the heck I'd ever shoot a deer if it came out. I even tried lighted sight pins.  Yep. You could see the pins-- against a totally black background. Kentucky limits you to a half hour after sunset-- with these old tired eyes it's getting to be about 15 minutes until I can't see through the sights. I waited out a deer a couple of years ago (about 20 minutes after sunset), and when they finally showed up, I could see a shape moving below me in the gloom, but nothing even remotely shootable.  "Okay," I said. "You won."    Surprised by my candor, the deer fled to a safe distance and snorted mercilessly until the truck came and picked me up.

 
Your correct,  100% buckeye here.  I know what you mean about the shooting hours, it's deffinately dark in the woods well before the end of legal shooting time during the archery season, they have changed a couple things though.  Sunset ends legal shooting time during gun and muzzleloader season, you miss about 15 minutes of good hunting but it keeps the lunitics from mistaking you for a deer, which happend a few times under the old laws, half hour after sunset still ends legal shooting time during archery season.  Baiting is legal for deer, most of the time I don't see a distinct advantage with the exception being during years when acorns are scarce then the deer hit bait piles pretty hard.

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: Kydeerhunter03

Fair chase to me is short and sweet...

No High Fences
No Bait
Respecting the laws that have been set.

 
I think that is a good start, but I'd add a few to the list.
No spotlights.
No live decoys.
No electronic calls.
No use of moterized vehicles to shoot from or to drive game.
But please note that I do not consider hunts that are legal, but outside of fair chase to be poaching. It's just bad form.

[EatDeer]

ORIGINAL: Woods Walker

Eatdeer: I understand that you have some very strong feelings about this, but do you really believe that using a .30-06 for deer is not fair chase?  How about a rifled barreled shotgun stoked with state of the art sabots?  Or a modern muzzleloader with modern ammo?

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I just want to know your reasonings.

Rifles are illegal in IL for deer hunting, so they are not fair chase here.  I've used a 1960's model pump action shot gun for 20 years to kill deer every year with no problem.  I think there is a big differance in a 3-4 hundred yard shot and a 50- 100 yard shot.  Rifles are not needed in my opinion.

[Woods Walker]

ORIGINAL: EatDeer

ORIGINAL: Woods Walker

Eatdeer: I understand that you have some very strong feelings about this, but do you really believe that using a .30-06 for deer is not fair chase?  How about a rifled barreled shotgun stoked with state of the art sabots?  Or a modern muzzleloader with modern ammo?

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I just want to know your reasonings.

Rifles are illegal in IL for deer hunting, so they are not fair chase here.  I've used a 1960's model pump action shot gun for 20 years to kill deer every year with no problem.  I think there is a big differance in a 3-4 hundred yard shot and a 50- 100 yard shot.  Rifles are not needed in my opinion.

 
OK then.  Obviously, using a rifle in Illinois, OR baiting, fits in to pretty much everybody's definition of "fair chase" because it's illegal right off the bat. (I live/hunt in Illinois also.)
 
So......am I correct in assuming that you believe that a high powered rifle would be fair chase in a state where it was legal? Or do you have an issue with their range?  If so, then what is your accepted "fair chase" hunting range....100 yards? 200 yards?
 
I shoot a Browning A-Bolt rifled barrel slug guntopped with a Leupold 1.5 X 5 VariX III scope with Winchester Partition Gold sabots. The vast majority of the deer I've killed with that gun have been well under 100 yards (due to the type of cover I choose to hunt), but I have killed two past 100 yards....one at 125 yards, and 150 yards.
 
Would what I've been doing be considered not fair chase in your opinion? (If it's not, that's fine, I will take no offense, I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from.)

[JPH]

I hunt both Iowa (a shotgun/ML state) and Missouri (a rifle state). The firearm I use has very little impact on the way I hunt. In fact, I tend to take longer shots in Iowa b/c the property I hunt is more open. But in Missouri I always carry my 30.06 during gun season. I find that when I do get that 20-100 yd. shot, my rifle is more efficent and results in quicker kills with shorter blood trails.
 
My ethics dictate that I use whatever means possible to effecently/legally take the game I hunt. That is why I have made a personal choice to give up on killing a deer with a handgun or a turkey with a bow. I had a few bad experiences and decided that I was not good enough, and i was unable to devote the time on the range to change that. So while more primative means may equal a greater challenge for ME, they would also equal a greater risk of a slow death for the ANIMAL.
 
I guess what I am saying is that there are more important things than Fair Chase sometimes.

[passin through]

JPH--- Awesome answer!  We have ever so slowly gotten away from one of the main premises I laid down when we started this thread and that was "if legal leave it alone."  How ever, it has been more civil than expected.  I think your rebutal here sums up alot of how I feel....There are more important things than Fair Chase sometimes.  I, as the hunter feel that I have a responsibility to myself and the animal to kill quickly and cleanly.  Even though one weapon or another may present more challenge to me it is the end all result that matters and if I am not good enough with that weapon leave it at home.  One of my beliefs has always been that when it comes to hunting, the hunt is over as soon as you get the shot opportunity, after that its all skill at arms and if that is not present then you have betrayed your hunt.

[Woods Walker]

I agree also. That's why I define fair chase/ethics like this....
 
"For me, "ethics" means this.....you obey the LAW, and you become as proficient as humanly possible with YOUR weapon of choice, and you ONLY take high percentage shots that are in YOUR personal effective range, so that when you do decide to take an animal's life, you do it with the least amount of suffering as possible. "
 
 
As has been said for long time, and by many others, "It's not the weapon, it's the man (person) that's shooting it."

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: passin through
We have ever so slowly gotten away from one of the main premises I laid down when we started this thread and that was "if legal leave it alone."....One of my beliefs has always been that when it comes to hunting, the hunt is over as soon as you get the shot opportunity, after that its all skill at arms and if that is not present then you have betrayed your hunt.

 
Wow. Good stuff there.
 
It may not be clear from some of my posts, but I too am a member of the "if it's legal, leave it alone" crowd (although I would also add "if it is sound conservation").
 
My one disconnect with some members of that crowd is that I do not believe that just because it is legal, it should be beyond question.
 
If the positions I hold are so brittle that they cannot stand up to a friend (and fellow hunters are all friends) questioning them, then maybe I should not cling to those positions. If I hold an opinion dearly, you'd better believe that I can defend it. So, as far as I am concerned, question away.

[schlupis]

I like this question about fair chase and have heard some great answers about what other hunters consider fair chase. If you really think about fair chase and the animal you hunt, is how we hunt today really fair chase.... we have camo that is so good it is hard for a human to see it in the woods we use scent killer so the animal cant smell us we have high powered scopes on our rifles and shotguns and bow that shoot 350 fps...... we sit in stands up 30 ft off the ground or in a ground blind...grunt tubes and bleat cans that sound so real most of us cant tell if it is a deer or another hunter...
 
I am not saying these things are wrong because I use them and they are all very effectve and legal.... but to be truly fair chase then I would have to say a spot and stalk hunt with no camo or scent killer playing the wind and using the terrain using a bow or muzzleloader with no scope would be totaly fair chase....
 
So I guess long story short I am a if its legal then its fair chase leave it alone...