Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game When hunting became shooting

I don't carry a rangefinder, shooting sticks, bipod or even a sling.

I have carried a rangefinder before but haven't in YEARS.

I certainly know FAR more bow hunters that carry rangefinders than I know rifle hunters that do. But I'm only basing that on personal knowledge, not guessing out my elitist ass.

My ass is more elite than your ass.....

Smoke is right. Most average hunter dudes can't hit a target like that 2 shots after the cold bore. They have no idea how to allow for drop and windage either with their knobless duplexes.

We shoot a cold bore shot at every match. The range varies and so does the target size. For the group I shoot with, a pie plate at 400 is a piece of cake, but they're not your average bears, nor is their equipment...

Trying to answer the question of when hunting becomes shooting is sort of difficult.... I suppose it may be like defining pornography in that you may not be able to define it, but you know it when you see it.

As some have rightly pointed out, all hunting involves shooting. It is the essence of closing the deal. But this presupposes that some hunting-related activity or effort on the part of the hunter preceded it,other than just showing up. Inherent in this pre shooting process is ALWAYS (if it is hunting)the possibility that the quarry, whether through the use of its own senses, conditions of terrain or cover, or any combinations of these factors, can escape and render the outcome uncertain. In other words, there has to exist the possibility that you could lose...and not get your game.

An example or two come to mind. One story I think I read on here involved a group of guys perched on a ridge and the quarry was some sort of out-sized ram, whether Rocky Mountain bighorn or desert sheep I cannot remember. The story was about a fabulous shot that killed the ram at 1200 yards, or something like that.

The permit was once in a lifetime....seems there was a group of people along for this...some were charged with doing the necessary ballistic calculations on an i-phone to help the trigger man/permit holder (that's all he was)and IIRC one guy had to leave the scene to access a laptop to do the calculations or access the ballistic tables for that distance...the i-phone was apparently not enough. In any event the shot was made and the ram was killed.

Several thing struck me about the episode(setting aside for a moment the presence of a large group which would have been pretty impossible to bring along if the ram had to be approached more closely, and the extensive use of technology which rendered the "hunter" nothing more than a trigger man), one of which was the justification for having to shoot at that distance, which was that the ram was in an impossible position for a stalk....no doubt sometimes this happens but I could not help but wonder how, then, did they ever manage to retrieve it? My suspicion is that the "hunter" couldn't make the climb.

The other thing that struck me was the sense of entitlement displayed that somehow, because he had drawn a long sought tag, he was entitled to the ram and would employ every technical trick in the book to make sure he got it. I couldn't help contrast this story to the that of the killing of the world record typical mule deer by Doug Burris; or the hunting feats of a lot of guys who took record heads in the mid 20th Century.....sure they used technology but there was a whole lot more "hunting" involved.

Another was a recent Best of the West episode and the animal was some sheep, maybe aodad....I forget the distance but it was out there quite a ways...800 yards or so(?)....and this was all caught on camera....the animal was killed but I could not help but notice that the shot was taken over an intervening ridge,and draw that would have concealed a stalk and cut the distance by half .....or maybe more. Maybe this was not an option in light of having to sell the uninitiated some more Huskemaw scopes.


Observing human behavior tells a lot....I notice that when someone on here manages to kill some animal at long distances....say 500-1000 yards or beyond, or kills elk annually at 1200 yards from his back porch, they are quick to post and tell the story, and the thread will go on forever while everyone marvels at his skilled use of the technology....the poor slob who had to crawl through ground cactus and broken rock for the better part of a day to pull off a 75 yard shot at a big pronghorn is greeted with a few handclaps, and two pages of congrats.....that is if he is able to escape being reprimanded for "not giving the game a chance" for having shot it at such close distance.

I know some very good and consistently successful hunters who are ,by the standards espoused here, mediocre riflemen in terms of their acquired skills, and the equipment they use. The rifles are not finely tuned, the bullets garden variety and the scopes contain Duplex reticles and have no adjustable turrets for instant spinning. They could not make a wind call in a wind tunnel....their rifles are reliably zeroed ( they see to that) but I doubt they could always pass the 400 yard pie plate test and have no doubt infrequently flubbed a shot at an animal (show me the guy who has NEVER flubbed a shot at an animal and I will show you a guy who has not shot much game, nor done much real hunting....or is a liar). Their biggest nod to modern technology is the ability to crank a scope from 3 to 9 power....not much help these days.

But their dens are loaded with big bucks and bulls and hides and skulls, and their garages piled high with the antlers of lesser specimens....the freezers are always loaded.

When confronted by a 700-1000 yard opportunity, they figure out how to get closer for a certain shot....implicit in the decision is the knowledge that the animal could escape in the process but this is expected. In short, they know how to "hunt".

I'm impressed by the guys who successfully use bows, rifles, and muzzleloaders interchangeably.....this show great versatility and hunting ability and a lot of different skill sets....I am equally unimpressed by the use of technology as described in the ram story above...or the Best of West episode. The lines of demarcation between "hunting" and "shooting" may be about as clear as mud these days....but like pornography, I bet we all know it when we see it.

Good post, Bob.

Indeed.

Regarding hunting versus shooting, I think there is room for both in the field, especially with regards to younger or inexperienced hunters. My 7 year old daughter killed three deer last year in her first season and really had little say-so with regards to the actual when's and where's of the hunting itself. I just made sure she could shoot when the situation presented itself and that her equipment was up to the task. All the field work was up to me, but she learned something every time we went out. I've heard of folks in similar circumstances referred to as "trigger pullers" and will agree to a certain extent, but a little success right off the bat can make for an enthusiastic hunter on down the road, one with eventual input and interest in details of the hunt itself.

Just yesterday, I had my wife shooting her .243win at gongs when we were visiting our camp. I painted a few walnut-sized red dots on the 100yd and 200yd plates and then put a fist-sized dot on the 400yd plate. From our litle wooden shooting bench, she proceeded to tag all the small dots with one shot each. Spinning the turret up another 5 minutes, she put one right next to the 400yd dot and the next one smack in the middle. Probably 95% of the local hunters in our area couldn't have pulled that off with their equipment. The funny thing is that my wife is neither a hunter nor a shooter. This was actually her first time to ever shoot a rifle of any kind. The reality is that she was handed some really good equipment, showed how to properly use it, and then did just as she was shown. I put the rifle together for her nearly 5 years ago, but she'd never pulled the trigger. She was amazed that the bullets just kept going right where she put her crosshairs . Now she has some new confidence and is signing up for a hunters safety course so she can hunt with the me and the girls. I think that this little bit of "shooting" may lead to some "shooting/hunting" this fall when I bring her along and a bit of success in the field may (hopefully) lead to some full-on "hunting" in her future.

Whatever; rationalize your pansieness all you want fellas. I'll be tree-jumpin (no stand, thank you very much) in a loin clothe and moccasins with my Bowie knife between my teeth wrestling game and slitting throats in sub-zero temps after walking through hip-deep snow.

Anyone who does it different belongs in the kitchen cookin it for me.

Dang that felt good.

Huge +1

Let's twist this in another direction and see if we can generate another 10 pages of discussion. Given that many will swear and be da--- that a 223 or 243 is too light for deer yet will nod their heads sagely and agree that shooting an elk at 1000 yds with their 6.5 or 7mm or even 300 whizum is very doable even though the bullet energy is probably in the 400-600ft lbs range which is half the 1000 ft lbs generally mentioned as the threashhold for deer sized game. That's the real reason I question some of the long range shooting I see being thrown about.

Someone who gets it. Thanks for the response.

Yes, good thoughtful and articulate post.

And another!

Well stated Bob.

Bob as others have said well stated..

One thing I would like to add to this subject.. Long distance shooting has been part of America since there was an America.. Timothy Murphy's long shot in the Revolution has been called the most important shot ever fired..It turned the tables gave revolutionaries the push they needed to defeat the overbearing English govt.
Farther down the road, we have the American Buffalo Runners who were some of the finest long range shooters to ever come down the pike..
Look also at bows and muzzle loaders.. Fred Bear hunted with a simple bow.. Now they have compounds, sights, and maybe some sort of built in range finder..
Muzzle loaders in the modern era started off with T/C's flintlock, now we have inlines capable of killing deer at several hundred yards.. In both cases, the goal has been to shoot farther, make the long shot..
I guess, I feel the current 1000 yard plus shooting is just a bit too much.. Like the bow hunters with tree stands, scent blockers, bows with all kinds of stuff on them to enable them to make longer kills.. Muzzle loading the same deal..
The long kill attitude is not limited to rifles..
I almost never watch TV hunting shows, and all though I enjoy long range rifle shooting, it is mostly at varmits, and plastic jugs..

Realists vs idealists, just another way to divide the hunting community.

Muzzle loading, archery, and LR hunting are all stunts that diminish our sport in many cases.

So everybody should shoot game at under 200 yards with a center-fire rifle? And that's it?

I can't tell if that was serious or not...?

Nicely done Bob. I may not be as old as some but I have spent a lot of time in the woods hunting game. I don't mount anything, take pics or beat my chest about it. I simply fill the freezer. I have also found in the last few years that I have reversed the technology curve. I back off my handloads, close the distances on all game and have sold the compound bows in favor of recurves and long bows. It seemed that it was just getting too easy and I'm more about fair chase that just shooting animals. Fair chase is a variable. What's fair for me may be impossible for another. I guess it boils down to how do you feel after the kill. Did you earn it or not? Only the one who took the animal can judge that. I have seen the traditional scene grow quit a bit with a like growth in the super magnum development. Seems like a Yin Yang effect. It's a big world and there is room for us all. As long as we see it as such and not cut each others throats it's all good. Don't let the antis win.