The Foundation of your Hunting Ethics

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: shaman
Clothesline strung between bicycle wheels giving about 25 yards travel for a life-sized deer target mounted on plywood.  The idea was to get your rifle on a pie plate, stapled to the deer's chest.

I've seen a simmilar set-up. Secure a plywood circle to the outside of an old truck tire and tape on a paper plate. Then roll the tire down a hill (from behind and to one side of the shooter). The tire will move as fast as a deer and will bound over stumps and rocks just like the real thing. Try hitting that plate on a bet!

Oddly enough, I have pulled that shot off in the woods. I'm not proud of the desision or the style of hunting used in those days, but I'm glad It turned out well.
 
There was a refrence to walking shots with archery a while back. In my opinion this is a BAD idea. In fact, I think it is worse than a running shot with firearms (at least in terms of wounding). A poorly placed gunshot wound will often cause enough trauma to knock a deer down and allow a follow-up. A poorly placed arrow amounts to coyote food.

Again, it's standing shots only for me these days. It is much more in keeping with the ethics I was introduced to as a small child. It is much more about what you take in with your senses than what you hang from the meat pole. It's kind of hard to have a real natural experience when you and ten of your buddies are driving deer and slinging lead.

[EatDeer]

 Shaman, I agree don't take a shot that hasn't been practiced. I have no problems with bow shots at walking deer, it works for me, I just have to lead ahead of the target, and have a forgiving bow.  I have seen the "pros" even shoot at bounding deer with thier bows,and connect many times. Not something I would do, but they seem to do it just fine.  My 3-d archery range I practice at has a medium sized hog on a cable, you trip the catch with your foot  ,and gravity does the rest. Looks like peak speed is about 10 mph, I've hit it, and so has many others from the holes in the target. It's not even a 50% sure shot, but it can be done with practice. Not a shot I would take at a deer, but its fun to try on the 3-d range. 

[shaman]

I would like to report to you all that I got to my lofty place as an elder sportsman from a foundation of supreme oneness with Nature.  So much of the "Foundation of my Hunting Ethics" came from being lazy and cheap.  I really just did not have all that much money or time to spend on hunting early on.  I was over an hour's drive away from my nearest range. I worked all week at a high-pressure job downtown. On the weekends I needed to decompress.

As I wrote in earlier posts.  I fell in with a bunch of old fart hunting buddies. They were well past trying to prove things, so a lot of what I learned centered on being easy and inexpensive.  When I went camping with John, his big thing was finding a site that was close to the bathroom. When I went shooting with Jerry, we always spent a good deal of time sweeping up other people's brass.

Lazy and cheap?  Yep.  I could have spent $200 that first year, using premium shotgun slugs and trying to eek out an extra 20 yards from my shotgun.  The first time I shot my slug gun, I put 4  Remmie Sluggers into a pie plate offhand at 50 yards.  That seemed to be enough-- I've never tried to group it since with any other ammunition.  When I practiced archery, I put up 4 targets and shot one arrow into each one to save the cost of boogering up arrows.

Could I do a 300 yard shot on a deer with my rifles?  Yep. I know I could with a little practice.  However, if I can get 1-2 MOA out of my deer rifle at 100 yards on the bench, I know I'll be able to hit them in the woods at 50 yards from my treestand.  I make sure my zero is okay, take a few more shots to make sure the function is fine and I am still familiar with the rifle and then not worry about it any more. Sweating at the bench in August is not my way to have fun.  I'd rather be in the cool of the woods, scouting.

Archery is great, because you can re-use your rounds over and over again.  Later in the season, you can switch to a rifle and shoot the deer out of the same stand at fairly close range-- no reason to blow a lot of time and bucks at the range. And I reload too--can't get any cheaper than that.

Lazy?  I will admit to not visiting some stands, because I know every deer I take from that stand will run or fall down into a nearby ravine.  I will also admit that I am now all more motivated to wait for the best possible shot-- not out of some high regard for the animal, but I just don't like following blood trails.

For years, I complained that Ohio did not allow Sunday hunting. In fact, when the time came to buy property, I bought in Kentucky which had no Sunday restrictions.   Now I usually forego hunting on Sunday afternoon. I got sick and tired of busting a hump trying to get a deer gutted and to the processor before 7PM on Sunday night.

Lazy and cheap. That pretty well described my old hunting buddies.  Add 20-some years, and it pretty well describes this sportsman.  Which way to the restrooms?

[EatDeer]

[:)] Shaman, It takes all kinds.

[JPH]

Great post Shaman! One of the best I've read in a while. I dig honesty and I can relate to alot you had to say.
 
I remember you saying that one of the guys you learned from was in the Bulge. You are blessed to have a mentor like that. My Gramps was there too. C Co., 1st Btn., 517th Parachute Inf. Reg. Combat Team. We were hunting in the Adarondacks one year and it was bitter cold. So cold that the chilli my dad had packed was frozen solid. In heating it, it burned to the pan and I was bitching up a storm (14 yrs. old [:)]). My Gramps just sat on his bunk listening quietly until he couldn't take it anymore. Then he calmly looked me in the eyes and said "Boy, when you get hungary enough....you'll eat it." What whent unsaid (but was clear in his eyes) was "until then, shut your ungrateful mouth." I think we would all be better people if we'd spent a few days in the woods with a vet from the Bulge.

[shaman]

Yep, that was John.  John was my camper buddy.  On a fairly regular basis, John would go out and find a good campsite on a Thursday and then I'd come out on Friday night after work and join him.  John seemed to have a lot of baggage (a lot of it from the Bulge) and being out in camp seemed to help work it out.  We camped over 10 years like that. Lordy, the stories I could tell about that ol' guy.

I had a new girlfriend (KYHillChick), and John had invited us down to Juniper Springs outside Ocala. He was going down to watch races at Daytona and Sebring and was using  Juniper Springs  as a base. One night we got a call from his adopted daughter; John had assumed ambient temperature at camp-- had gone to sleep in his camper and not woken up. John got shipped home in a cardboard carton (cremated first) via UPS.  And his widow went out to the family plot and buried him using a garden trowel, leaving his combat infantry badge on top of the carton. 

I flew down with KYHillChick and retrieved his rig ( a Taurus and a Coleman Camper) and brought it back North.  I inherited most of his camping gear and his Folbot.  He'd just purchased a new folding kayak for doing the Inland Waterway from Texas  all the way up the Eastern Seaboard for a layout for National Geographic.  Sadly, his heart wasn't up to it. My gear was still being held at a storage facility and they wouldn't release it without documentation from the widow, so KYHillChick and I got to sleep on John's bed (ick) until the mess got sorted out.   Our last morning in camp, we consigned the majority of John's stuff to the campfire.

I know when I reach the end of my trail, there will be John. He'll have gone ahead and founf a good spot, and after chow, we'll bundle up and walk out past the fire to watch the heavens unfold.

[JOEL]

nice post shaman

[EatDeer]

Shaman, It will be just like you remember too.[;)]