Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Lucky, Good, or Cheating?

This thread has been using the term “ ethics “ throughout so maybe it should be clarified. Ethics and morals can be confusing since they generally go hand in hand but they are different. Killing for the sake of just killing may not be unethical or illegal but it’s immoral . “ Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.” Ethics are the foundation for our laws and how the public must act. Almost every profession such as medical has a set of Ethics that in effect are laws of performance or obligations. Break these ethical rules and you lose your license.

Morals are generally unwritten except in the Bible and other sources. These are the rules of conduct that most people learn through life and family not through law books. Each person has an inner moral compass that without stopping to think about steer a persons actions. Disregard your moral code and it’s usually going to result in a damaged soul or self punishment. Unlike Muslim civilizations who follow laws derived from the Koran, the Western civilizations follow ethical laws, many of which are founded in the Bible but others that are developed by a countries founders such as the Constitution etc. so when somebody says hunting is unethical they really mean immoral. Though many will state their morals are their own it must be understood that a personal moral code has more in common with others than not. Few would disagree that murder, stealing, messing around with somebody’s wife,abusing children or cheating is not a moral violation otherwise ethical laws would be impossible.

Just Spitballing
Rick

A Texan calling me clueless when it comes to hunting is hilarious !

so it seems some would believe that shooting a tree'd mtn. lion wouldn't be "sporting"
What about shooting a turkey on the ground? Heck, they can fly so why not flush them and give them a "sporting" chance
What about rabbit hunting, is it only sporting if ya shoot 'em on the run?
Hunting bear over bait "sporting"
what about antelope over water, sporting?

Seems some of ya believe that if it's not done "your" way that it isn't sporting.

I generally agree with you. I believe killing animals just for the sake of doing so is immoral even when technically legal. My point is that morality or "the way we hunt" is still subjective to a person's personal standard of belief - unless illegal of course. You don't have to condone or agree but at least respect that right.

I have no problem congratulating the OP on a good deer. He used available legal technology to his advantage and was successful. Don't most of us do that when we hunt? Are we still hunting the same way it was done 200 years ago when it was about sustaining family and not sport? Of course not. Is that wrong? Of course not.

The only thing I would have done differently had I been the OP is never bring it up to this group. Not because I was ashamed of how I hunted but because I wouldn't want to invite the "holier than thou" attitudes.

Show me otherwise dip chit.

This^^^^^

Do you even know what LMAO means? A little touchy aren’t we?

No, not really, just calling you out for a BS statement. I know what it means for me - of course maybe in Montana it means something else.

By the way, I also called you a hypocrite in another thread - since we are talking about be "a little touchy" - LMAO

The non hunting public will ultimately decide whether hunting continues and what methods and technology will be allowed. In case your dumb ass hasn't noticed, several methods are already illegal and others have been outlawed in some States because they were considered unsporting and not fair chase. For instance, baiting and/or running bears, mountain lions and deer with dogs. It's the reason Boone and Crocket and Pope and Young don't allow entrance of pen killed/high fenced animals into the books, because it's not considered fair chase.

If you did it legally - I'm not gonna be upset.

For me tho - that was a killing, not hunting. The feeder doesn't matter to me - it's the camera with phone notification. That's not hunting to me and that's not the way I'd have done things myself. But you are the only one that has to look yourself in the mirror or at the deer. I think tho, you'd not have asked if you felt 100% okay with it. Part of you feels like it was cheating and you're taking a temperature check from others to see if you're right/wrong on that. Don't know if responses have given you the answer you want.

Just for me - legal, ok - I'm not kicking dirt on your deer. It was a good killing. I'd not exactly call it hunting tho - not for me and, me personally, I'd not feel all that enthused myself. Getting the notification on the phone and heading out then to shoot it - feels a lot like just getting a coupon in the mail and headed down to the Piggly Wiggly for venison.

Basically my thoughts as well. Although I'm personlly not big on baiting either and am glad it's illegal here, I know it's legal and accepted as legit in some areas.

Not sure how this proves your hunting prowess but OK... Funny you mention "some states" but you were talking about how much better you are than a Texas hunter. I think you are a little jealous and still a clueless dipchit.

I average 5-7 deer a season, no bait, no food plots, no lease fees, no cameras, no range finder, no turret twisting, no elevated stands, mostly on public land. Why the fuuck would I be jealous of a Texan that has to pay out the ass to sit in a box watching a feeder ? Oh and I may not be good but my hunting partners say I'm the luckiest damn deer hunter they've ever seen and I'd rather be lucky than good any day.

Sure you are kicking dirt on the guys deer. You are just trying to be nice about it. But he did ask for it.

I have several cell cameras and look at them daily. Not asking for your thoughts or opinions as I don't really give a chit.

My question is where do you say hunting technology stops and becomes Piggly Wiggly? Was it when we started using gunpowder or when hunting around farm fields became ok? I know, it's when we started driving our pickup trucks hundreds of miles to "hunt". You do know that hog hunting took on new technology with the invention of the flashlight and we got rid of the fire torches. Wade through my sarcasm and hopefully you see my point.

This whole I do it better than you or my ethics are higher than yours is BS. Hunting is regional and a privilege. Why rain on someone because you have a different opinion. Chances are if we were S TX neighbors you would hunt just like we do in S TX. If I was from a western state I would do the same. If I was from New York - I would just quit. LOL.

Lived in TX for 3 years. Didn't hunt because I didn't care to spend the money it costs there to lease as a Jr enlisted guy. Wasn't the same as being home. If I had, I don't know how I'd hunt it but my ass would be out there, not waiting on a text to tell me to swing by and shoot - appointment deer "hunting" (sic)

Technology turns hunting into the grocery store when you don't have to put in seat time to shoot the damned thing. "Deer's on the pile, pause the DVR while I go out n smoke him" - that's shooting, not hunting to me.


I'm not even against cameras - brother uses em a ton. But he's 9 hours away from where he has em out. Nice to know what's on property but you still go out and hope to intercept, you don't simply chill till you get the pic. That's my point.

Wasn't kicking dirt on his deer, it's a nice deer. He, apparently got it legally -congrats, but just like your pronouns, don't tell me I have to call it hunting just because it was legal. I didn't even say it was unethical - I just said tgat for me it was shooting, not hunting.

I don't ground swat ducks either FWIW.

I just keep thinking this thread over and over cause it’s important. So just spitballing again because I believe this discussion is central to not only hunting but gun ownership in general. In the beginning early hominids most likely killed as an act of self defense. Predators of the four legged type don’t suffer moral dilemmas only a need for food. These early people learned to fight off and eventually kill predators and other animals then eat them. Eventually a diet of red meat and the natural defensive skills of non-predator animals created the need to stay clear of these hunters. The original club or rock was now ineffectual so meals were less frequent until the spear then progressively the bow and arrow evolved to feed and protect.

As game became became scarcer and smarter the ‘ uprights ‘ continued to invent better hunting tools in order to protect and feed themselves. But even today, and maybe even more relevant, the gun is our last straw tool that by itself can protect and feed when all else fails and one piece of equipment that the prudent man won’t relinquish voluntarily. This progression of hunting technology continues to this day. But at some point the balance of technology and the simple minded game animal will start to upset to the point where no matter how clever and fleet the animal he will be no match for electronics or technological advantages as these devices are beyond the animals senses and instincts. May as well be a UFO or a helicopter hovering over a primitive tribe in Amazonia. Even though there is a major advantage gap between the arrow and the bullet both required the hunter to stalk his prey. In so doing the human hunter actually enters the world of the animal by using cover, higher or tougher ground, his scent, optics that can offer visual acuity on par with his prey since man’s senses fall way short of the deer and other game. The old proverb of ‘ thinking like a deer ‘ is all to true to the hunter who stalks his prey.

So my “ bitch “ is that until recently the hunter regardless of bow or rifle still had to rely on his brains, cunning and physical ability to stalk and shoot his prey. It just becomes increasingly obvious that what all these technological gadgets are really doing is to remove the hunters abilities from the equation. So to those states where the legal argument of allowing the use of drones linked to phones under the guise of trying to find wounded game will be the end of true hunting.

Rick

Great conversation, guys. And, we're just continuing a conversation that's been going on for thousands of years. Some anthropologists think that this conversation was the beginning of ethics and religion for the human race - our relationship with the prey species. Some see the sacrifice of the prey species for the tribe as the paradigm that the Christian religion grew out of. Of course, Christians have seen it as a prefiguring of the reality of Christ's sacrifice. How do we earn this sacrifice? How do we enter the ritual as ceremonially clean? How do we earn the blood? What is worthy? Does worth have anything to do with it?

Fair chase and a sporting chance can be seen as bourgeois, anthropocentric virtue signaling (I'm not saying they are but, I see the point). All subsistence hunters valued securing the most calories and nutrition from the prey species with the least expenditure of calories on their part. And, if you respect the prey species and show that by limiting suffering, only taking "ethical", high percentage shots on deer, why does an ethical shot on a bird involve the bird in flight when it's much easier not to wound him when he's roosted? I shoot birds both ways. My buddy won't shoot a running deer. All the deer I've shot (almost) have been running. I've passed on deer because it would have been too easy. And, I've shot deer that were just dumb luck on my part.

What is wrong with "blood lust"? I love killing stuff. Destruction is beautiful and I feel compelled to hunt, chase and kill. And, yet this same compulsion is revolting to another part of me. There's sadness, joy, regret, and elation all at the same time and it's been going on for many, many centuries. In the end we are hunting ourselves.

Of course, there are psychopaths who should not be sold hunting licenses and misanthropes paralyzed by self-loathing who would file their eye teeth flat. But, we know a reality that can't really be spoken about. It's full of contradictions and paradoxes.

It's not the specifics of your hunt, the bare facts. It's the experience and how it changes you, how it feeds you, how it informs your relationship with OTHERS. Sell it short at your peril.

I wonder what it's like to be such a twat like you.

Love it, a term that fits so well and was applied right between the running lights ( eyes ).

Nice deer!

Congratulations!

I wonder if they will make claymore like deals with buckshot. U can touch em off by yer feeder via the phone?

Pick up the carcass at halftime?