Hunting thread

I grew up hunting in Central PA. Still enjoy getting out when I can, and look forward to taking my sons, 6 and 2, out when they are older. Taking a hunter's safety class is a great suggestion especially for someone completely new to hunting. I will say to anyone thinking they could save money by hunting for food, you don't want to do that math when you factor in gear, gas, and time away, when compared to the price per pound of beef, chicken, etc. But experiencing harvesting game is a valuable personal endeavor and I'd encourage anyone interested in learning to get out and try it, especially if you can do it as a family and/or find a good mentor to show you the ropes.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: I'm not so sure the hunting was really the primary goal all these years

I'm pretty sure that is the case for a lot of older hunters. Once you retire you cannot get away from that damn woman unless you get up at the crack of dawn and travel great distances

He wasn't that old 44 years ago! But you may not be completely off the mark.

iceracer wrote: The hunting part is great. The part that I disliked was what comes after the kill.

Rabbits and quail are a lot easier to get home than an elk for sure.

NOHOME wrote: Hunting in Canada is a Major PITA, between no open land, strict gun laws and high cost of tags, it is cheaper to buy your meat.

Is all of your wilderness a freaking restricted hippie park or something? Otherwise, learn to shoot a bow. A little more skill involved to make something challenging is always a good thing.

yeah, I was wondering the same thing … as sparsely populated as some of Canada seems to be, it's hard to understand the "no open land" thing … and I'd say it's time to vote in some gun friendly law makers

I grew up hunting in SW PA. Between my father, mother, brother and I we could bring home enough meat for a good part of the year. Small game, birds, and venison were a large part of our diet.

After I left PA for MD I hunted for a couple years before giving it up. Even though the is plenty of game in the area there are also a lot of "city hunters" who have no idea what they are hunting for or shooting at. So I decided it just wasn't safe anymore.

In reply to wbjones:

Canad already did, they eliminated their long gun registry.

NOHOME wrote:

iceracer wrote: The hunting part is great. The part that I disliked was what comes after the kill.

After the first time, I was so tired from dragging that dead doe a couple of miles back to the truck I swore I would not shoot anything that was not already standing in the pick-up truck bed! Seriously, I had not really thought that one out ahead of time.

My grandfather used to cut the front legs off and break the back legs so they could be folded flat and tied to the trunk. Then he laced some rope around the head/antlers and pulled it like a sled. I've never seen anyone else do that - but it worked as well as anything except waving down the farmer and trading meat for a lift on the tractor

yamaha wrote:

NOHOME wrote: Hunting in Canada is a Major PITA, between no open land, strict gun laws and high cost of tags, it is cheaper to buy your meat.

Is all of your wilderness a freaking restricted hippie park or something? Otherwise, learn to shoot a bow. A little more skill involved to make something challenging is always a good thing.

And where exactly did you get the silly idea that I wanted more challenges in my life?

Left to my own devices, "Hunting" would involve a well equipped drone I could run from in front of the TV. I am not particularity romantic about how the dead thing on my plate got there.

Mmmmmmmm tenderloins. I love whitetail hunting. I didn't get to go last year due to starting a new job. This year I made sure to get a few days off

Speaking of dragging deer....

Where I hunt in PA there was a farmer who lost three head of Black Angus when they broke through the gate. Once Angus are loose for a while they are not good livestock; they tend to forget they are a herd and they get aggressive. Plus, he could no longer prove that they were disease free so returning them to the herd wasn't an option. He put out the word to us hunters that if you see one feel free to drop it.

A friend of mine did. That's where the good story starts.

My friend was celebrating a good clean kill while he was gutting it (covered in blood up to his shoulders) and thinking about the Ribeyes and Strips he would enjoy that fall. He was planning a huge BBQ and thinking about how he could feed a hundred guests... when it hit him... A good PA mature deer is in the 150-180 lb range. A two year old Angus steer is more like 1100 lbs. How was he going to get it back to his truck 2 miles away?

He came back to camp and borrowed a 4-wheeler. Of course it wouldn't budge. We ended up going down in the dark and cutting brush and trees to make a road so we could get his truck to the steer. He used his truck to drag it up to the road where we waited with the carcass. He went off to his brother's place to borrow his engine hoist. When he got back, we dragged the steer out into the middle of the road so we had a solid surface to use the hoist. One of us directed rural traffic while 8 guys struggled to get a couple sling straps under it. Then the hoist wouldn't lift it high enough so those 8 guys were jumping up and down in the bed of his truck while a couple neighbors pushed.

We finally got it in about the time the game warden showed up. He was so confused that he just helped direct traffic.

We all went back to camp while the shooter took his prize to the processor. He finally made it back to camp around 10 pm, walked in, and said, "you should have seen the look on the butcher's face."

Haha thats what I was thinking the hole story, what the heck would the game warden say if he saw you shot a cow.

I grew up shooting guns on a farm but not hunting... it wasn't until the last 5 years or so that I really got into hunting. I hunt for the sport and the time spent with friends. I do not hunt for the kill although the food provided as a result from hunting is a great perk. From September until February I will see the sun rise just about every saturday morning. I get to hear the woods/fields come alive and see things that most people miss. I love hunting squirrel/rabbit, doves, ducks/geese, and pheasants. I get to be social with friends- we can walk or sit together and talk. We don't need to sit silent by a tree for 6 hours. We can laugh and bust each others chops- theres about 6 of us that always go out together. We also get more shooting in which improves our skill (or at least that's the idea). Some guys get one or two shots at a deer and that's it for them for the year. We go through boxes and boxes of shotgun shells and to me, the shooting part is the fun part. I'm one of the odd hunters who doesn't really hunt for deer. I go out each year twice during rifle season and sit by a tree but I don't enjoy it and I have never killed a deer and i'm ok with that.

One of my favorite times was sitting in my goose blind around zero degrees- it was 2 hours before sunrise and snowing. We all dozed off and on during that time and when the sun came up we realized we each had about 2 inches of snow on our clothes and we had no idea in the dark. Fall asleep and wake up a snow man.

Now if only PA would get with the times and allow Sunday hunting.

knb13 wrote: Now if only PA would get with the times and allow Sunday hunting.

Private property, fine. I'm not going there anyway but... public land... no thanks.

As someone who hunted for years but also mountain bikes, rock climbs and hikes in the PA woods... I am fine with hunters having only just the six days a week to own the place. Just the one day where I don't need to wear a hi-viz orange vest to walk around or have some clown ask me to bicycle more quietly. Not too much to ask really.

Due to the new baby and all I decided to put off my yearly elk hunt this year. Next year I am thinking of doing the sports pack here in oregon. Deer, elk, cougar, bear and Turkey. I need to find someone with hunting dog so we can go duck hunting.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Private property, fine. I'm not going there anyway but... public land... no thanks. As someone who hunted for years but also mountain bikes, rock climbs and hikes in the PA woods... I am fine with hunters having only just the six days a week to own the place. Just the one day where I don't need to wear a hi-viz orange vest to walk around or have some clown ask me to bicycle more quietly. Not too much to ask really.

I understand where you're coming from but at the same time, why do you get to enjoy your activity 7 days a week and I can only do it 6 days a week? Say we both work 40+ hours a week and can't enjoy our hobbies during the week- you have 2 days to enjoy mountain biking while I have 1 to enjoy hunting- that is assuming it's not storming on that saturday otherwise I'm out of luck. I can't take off work to hunt. Would you be ok with the state somehow banning mountain bike riding or hiking on saturdays? When I jog at night I wear a high viz vest/tshirt for safety- that's just being smart. Personally I'm fine with hikers/mountain bike riders/climbers sharing the same area I'm hunting- I don't hunt near trails or where people are gathering and those people enjoying the woods tends to move animals around which is good for me. I know there are idiot hunters out there who don't put safety first or hunt directly on a hiking/bike trail and I think it's incredibly rude to ask someone to change their activity to better suit me. I would never ask someone to bicycle or hike more quietly (with your kids or dogs) just as I would hope no one would tell me to hunt further away. Everyone should have the right to share the same public land at the same time. insert hippie crap about peace/love/coexisting here

Sunday hunting would also allow more people to get involved in hunting- I know kids who want to hunt but they can't because they are involved in sports on saturdays or their dad's work saturdays.

Nothing's stopping you from heading into the woods before dawn on a Sunday. You just don't get to shoot at anything. But all the things you described as the parts you love - hanging with friends, watching the woods wake up, getting covered in snow - you can do.

knb13 wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Private property, fine. I'm not going there anyway but... public land... no thanks. As someone who hunted for years but also mountain bikes, rock climbs and hikes in the PA woods... I am fine with hunters having only just the six days a week to own the place. Just the one day where I don't need to wear a hi-viz orange vest to walk around or have some clown ask me to bicycle more quietly. Not too much to ask really.

I understand where you're coming from but at the same time, why do you get to enjoy your activity 7 days a week and I can only do it 6 days a week?

Because your activity forces others to have to be extra careful to not look like game. My activity puts no such restrictions on you. Like I said... Sunday on private land? No problem. I want to keep one day in the state park where I don't need a day-glow vest or think about placing my safety in the hands of a 12 year old who just took the hunter safety course last Thursday. When I say that at the shooting club I belong to you would swear I was suggesting the jesus was a rape baby or perhaps that we should invite some socialists in to hear their views on government but I am standing on 6 days is enough regardless of my questionable commie pinko leanings

Keith Tanner wrote: Nothing's stopping you from heading into the woods before dawn on a Sunday. You just don't get to shoot at anything. But all the things you described as the parts you love - hanging with friends, watching the woods wake up, getting covered in snow - you can do.

You're exactly right- I can do all those things on a Sunday and I often do- I use Sundays to scout for hunting; however, in addition to the friends/hiking/watching the woods wake up, I do enjoy shooting game. It all comes down to someone else (a government body) telling me when I can and can't do the things that I love and I don't feel it's fair to single out those of us that want to hunt. No other group that I can think of are subject to the same ban from enjoying their activity on a Sunday. Hunters are legally allowed in the woods 6 months (give or take) out of the year... now factor in the amount of time a particular season is open (which isn't all that long for some seasons)... it's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things for those of us who can only hunt on Saturdays. All I want is one extra day to be allowed to enjoy a hobby. I'll gladly take being allowed to hunt private land on Sundays- I think that's a step in the right direction but it still doesn't solve the problem.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Because your activity forces others to have to be extra careful to not look like game. My activity puts no such restrictions on you. Like I said... Sunday on private land? No problem. I want to keep one day in the state park where I don't need a day-glow vest or think about placing my safety in the hands of a 12 year old who just took the hunter safety course last Thursday.

Fair enough... then I want one day in the state park where I don't need to worry about hikers and bikers- what day would be good for you do close the park down to those activities? After all, 6 days should be enough time for you to enjoy biking

At least we can agree on Sunday hunting on private land... maybe someday that will happen. The lifing of the Sunday hunting ban won't happen for a long time- every few years someone tries to push it through but it dies. So no worries, you will not have to wear a high viz vest during your sunday MTN bike adventures

For those who don't know, you can hunt crows, foxes, coyotes, and feral hogs in PA on a Sunday... but I'm not a fan of eating crows or foxes or coyotes and I'm not one to kill just to waste.

There's definitely a difference in how hikers and bikers affect others vs how hunters affect others. And I think a lot of it is due to perception - hunters think of themselves as safe, trained, stewards of the environment, considerate. Non-hunters are more worried about the 0.1% of hunters that are under-trained, not as careful as they should be, got a buzz on and are worried they're not going to get a deer this year so they take a shot with a high powered rifle at anything big that moves. Sure, it's a small minority and low probability, but it can be a bad end result. Other land users have a much lower ability to accidentally kill someone from a distance.

There are a lot of CO natives who hunt. Even at FM, we've got a couple of guys who are a bit scarce during elk season. But there are also the tourists, the guys who have the one big hunting trip a year and who are under a lot of self-imposed pressure without a lot of experience. They're the ones that worry me.

Guy at my last job is full blood Cherokee. He hunts deer. A lot. When you talk to him about deer hunting, his eyes kinda glaze over... He brought his latest purchase in to work. It's like a 5 or 6 thousand dollar compound bow. He must kill 20 deer a year. Probably a lot more counting what his kids kill. "I taught her to shoot them at the base of the neck so they drop quick..." He then packs them in ice and brings them from Misouri to some place in Louisiana which apparently is the only place in the world that knows how to make Boudin. A week or two later, he goes back to pick it up.

This thread is making me want to start bowhunting. Never hunted, but I do think that I'd enjoy the tranquility of it.

Keith Tanner wrote: There's definitely a difference in how hikers and bikers affect others vs how hunters affect others. And I think a lot of it is due to perception - hunters think of themselves as safe, trained, stewards of the environment, considerate. Non-hunters are more worried about the 0.1% of hunters that are under-trained, not as careful as they should be, got a buzz on and are worried they're not going to get a deer this year so they take a shot with a high powered rifle at anything big that moves.

I agree with this 100%- it's the usual "a few boneheads ruin something for everyone else" rule. Perception varies from one user group to the next.