Lot's of moralizing and value judgments here.
c&b...
I make two inferences from your post: first, that you have never actually done any longrange hunting, so you are ignorant of the skills and challenges it entails; second, that any exposure you've had to longrange hunting is of the type portrayed on the "hunting shows" described in the OP.
If I have inferred wrongly, then please correct me.
But if I am in fact correct, then you might want to go hunting with some long-range hunting folks and find out what it's all about before you condemn us all. To be frank, your blanket condemnation is not much different from Jim Zumbo's "no real hunter needs an AR15".
Long-range hunting is an art of its own, but that doesn't mean it's exclusive sport for most of us who practice it.
Doc, (and smokepole), you are correct, sort of.
The long range "hunting" that I have done is limited to shooting gophers ( ground squirrels) at hundreds of yards away on the open prairie. I can only surmise that the skills involved in shooting a gopher in the head at 400 yards is not too different than hitting an elk in the chest at 700. But I'll never know. Because I treat gophers as pests, and targets of opportunity. Their fate is to be poisoned otherwise. I have way too much respect for an elk to take the same approach with them. And because I think we have a moral responsibility to the game animals we hunt.
I have not been influenced by television hunting shows, because I have not had a television in my house for several years. But I have been hunting elk and deer too often with people who watch TV and fancied themselves as long range "hunters". That experience has been entirely negative. In my experience, my companions were focused on technology, and equipment, shooting, and not on hunting skills. Any animal that they saw was an opportunity to shoot, not an opportunity to hunt. And several animals paid for their attitude of entitlement to run away gut shot, or with a jaw dangling, or a leg swinging. Those shooters did not have the skill to follow the tracks of the wounded critter, or even to find the exact spot where the far distant animal was standing with any consistency.
Ironically, these same sad excuses for hunters were not giving themselves all the advantages they imagined with their specialized equipment. Unable to make a shot on a game animal that trotted across an opening in front of them at under 100 yards, because they were so focused on their long range obsession that they couldn't find it in their 16X scope or swing their bipod encumbered 26" heavy barrel rifle in time to make the shot. But there is never any real harm done by not taking a shot.
We all have the great good fortune to live in countries where we do not have anyone looking over our shoulder when we hunt. But the game laws in North America are only the absolute minimum of behaviour that the public requires. Yes, I am guilty of moralizing, and of value judgements. I would be happier if more of us chose to hunt with our responsibilities in mind, not just our rights. I am guilty of believing that the animals we hunt deserve our respect and also our best behaviour. Amoral behaviour and lack of judgment is not doing our hunting fraternity any good.
