Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold hate

You don't "need" to take long shots. In fact, you don't "need" to take any shots at all. There is no "need" to hunt unless you're a hunter-gather and have to live off what you kill.

It seems to me two different cultures have arisen. The traditional hunter that , maybe, grew up hunting, was apprenticed into it by and older hunter, maybe a grandpa, whose principal goal is the animal itself, and much less about the weapon that gets them that animal. It's about the tradition, the breakfast before the hunt, the camaraderie, and the sacrifice of an animal's life, etc.

Then there is a newer culture, whose principal aim isn't tradition or the animal. The principal focus is on the equipment that gets them that animal, and the photo op and bragging rights that follow.

I'm not saying there aren't ethical hunters in the second group, nor am I saying that there aren't slobs in the first. But I will say that the second group, to the extent it sees itself as practicing ethical hunting, has been infiltrated by a large segment whose practices suggest otherwise.

Youtube and the various sniper websites are replete with the sort of thing I'm talking about. Hell, even Leupold hosted a video on Youtube of a "great shooter" taking an elk with a marginal caliber at extreme range pretty much just to show that it could be done. There's a 70+ page thread at the Rokslide forum on making the .223 and elk, moose and bear gun. Why? It's the "because I can" mentality. "Should I" never seems to be the question anymore.

So... "...because I can." I can, too. But it doesn't mean I should. And there is certainly no "need" to do so. Especially when an animal's life is at stake. Animals aren't targets upon which I hone my long range shooting skills. I've never taken a shot beyond the range that I couldn't ensure a good chance of hitting the animal where I want to hit him, with enough velocity and energy to expend a bullet and cause fatal trauma. No "need" of mine as been so great as to play craps with an animal's life.

Like I said, two different cultures. Both legal, I guess. But they tend to mix like oil and water.

Robert Raurk said, "...if you properly respect what you are after, and shoot it cleanly and on the animal’s terrain, if you imprison in your mind all the wonder of the day from sky to smell to breeze to flowers—then you have not merely killed an animal. You have lent immortality to a beast you have killed because you loved him and wanted him forever so that you could always recapture the day." That's my goal. I never want to leave a field more concerned about the tracking of my scope that I am about the animal that gave its life, or wandered off gut shot so far from me that I couldn't find it.

Boy this thread is a cluster fhuqck. I like Leupolds. Here's what I hate: red wine, The Beatles, and tattoos plastered all over otherwise attractive women.