Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hunting vs. Shooting

Friend of mines Grandfather used to talk to us when we were teenagers and just getting into hunting. He would ask us "Are you boys going to hunt, or just take your gun for a walk?"

Digital Dan: I absolutely love to shoot - but I "live" to Hunt!
So I guess I am a Hunter first and shooter whenever I am not Hunting or planning a Hunt.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

At the point I pull the trigger only I know if I was a hunter or shooter. At least if I understand what question means.

I'm a hunter, so I shoot big game rifles in preparation for the hunt. Once I'm zeroed properly and have settled on the ammo I'm going to hunt with, I'm done. That said, I shoot the ruger 10/22 I keep in my farm truck several times a week at some critter. I also keep a bolt action. 223 handy to shoot coyotes and beavers when I start noticing them during the early morning or late evening.

I have a friend who is not much of a hunter AND not much of a shooter.

He rarely sees game when he hunts and he has taken to calling hunting "walking with guns".

when i left home and got married we had nothing but a new Ford 6 cylinder pickup and few guns , some fish`n poles , very little money , but knew plenty about the outdoors and my well trained lab named Jake too . we ate plenty fish ,when bird season open we ate plenty ducks and pheasant ,most falls a deer i shot with the bow , we never wasted anything . once i finished trade school and went to work i purchased more guns , reloading equipment , yes i shot plenty paper targets but my goal was to be a better shot for my animal food provider for my young family which i was. matter fact when my daughter was in 1st grade they had to tell the class what they ate that week ,teacher kinda thought my daughter was lying when she said she had deer ,antelope ,ducks and walleyes ,teacher had ask us about this during a conference and was impressed with her wild game menu after that. to this day my adult kids still prefer wild game and i am shooter ,butcher ,provided for them and now will be the outdoor teacher for a young new shooter hunter for my young grandson. so yes i am a shooter ,hunter and provider of wild game for my family . we are all meat eaters and much it is what we harvest / kill ourselves and butcher , i am lucky at my age of 70 i have never lived in any town or city , always lived in the country and dang glad its been that way . Pete53

I enjoy both hunting and shooting. Shooting is necessary to be a good hunter.

I'm both a hunter and a shooter. When I'm still hunting deer with a rifle or a bow, or walking up pigs in the scrub, sneaking about looking for sign, thinking about where the animals are likely to be and getting in close without spooking them, that definitely is hunting. If I'm spotlighting pests from a vehicle, that is shooting, but there's not much hunting in it. Sitting in a stand waiting for something to turn up doesn't involve much hunting either, mainly just patience, especially if someone else worked out the best place to put it. That isn't a criticism - I have occasionally shot animals from a stand myself, and I've been a posted shooter on deer and fox drives too.

There's a bit of a spectrum between the two ends of the scale, and I enjoy pretty much all of them..

I guess you could say the same of fishing. Sometimes I just cast a bait in and put the rod on the holder to see what might turn up. Sometimes I sneak up on a trout and put a dry fly just there for it. There's a whole spectrum between these that I enjoy too.

I would say I consider myself a hunter that takes shooting seriously in order to kill as neatly as possible.

In my opinion hunting and shooting get along together in perfect harmony, at least until someone starts shooting animals from two mountains away without caring for the rest.

Both

If you learn to be competent in both shooting and in hunting you discover that there is a very real difference.

Of course, the underlying point to be made here is to establish which of the two ranks "higher".

yep your right but being competent in both is an advantage too for hunting or for me putting meat in the freezer

Assuming we’re talking about shooting at a game animal, the question of whether one is a hunter or a shooter seems to be considered by some as more of a philosophical or abstract question than do I.

To me, effective shooting is just one component of hunting. On my successful hunts, through some combination of patience, knowledge, luck, skill, and /or diligence, I have come within a reasonable shooting distance of the desired game animal. Then, I had to quietly or quickly, depending on the circumstance, put the sight (on my properly sighted-in firearm) on the appropriate spot and fire. Then, there’s the processing of the animal, which I always do myself.

The OP’s question is no different to me than: “Are you a hunter or a game skinner?” The latter is just a component of the former. Good hunting involves a lot of skills or characteristics. Shooting is one of them.

Both. Just to illustrate with one species, I have killed Antelope from 80 yards lying on my side to 380 yards using a Harris bipod from a sitting position, and pretty much everything in between. Hunting to me is part skill, at both stalking and shooting, and luck. One thing is certain, like the old saying about not catching a fish unless your line is in the water, you cant be a hunter unless you are in the field. The other saying that comes to mind is that you have to be in the right place at the right time in order to take advantage of whatever luck comes your way. I just returned from a much-hyped wild boar hunt in Tennessee where I saw tons (literally) of hogs but never felt like pulling the trigger--they were way too tame for me to consider it a hunt. It was a shoot, one that I didnt care for. I guess that boils down my definition of the difference to one thing--if the critter is truly wild and free, it is a hunt. If the critter is half tame and raised on a high fence ranch or farm, it is a shoot. To each his own. PS, I shoot pen raised pheasants but only because thats the only way I can get any training for my dogs.

Having done both i enjoy both.

But with being broken up over the years i set better than walk anymore.

Doug Kok, the late, great Zimbabwe PH always claimed he was not necessarily a great shooter, but that he was an experienced shooter.

After taking up bow hunting I learned a heck of a lot more about how to get the jump on critters when walking and stalking, even on a bareass cutblock, it made me take a look at what I'd shot with a gun over the years and during the time after bow season was over, I ended up being in a position where I decided to buy a double rifle for my gun hunting, didn't need a gun that would shoot over 300 yds. The one I have is good for 200 with a 2.5moa red dot holo sight, and it shoots well enough to work at 300, although I haven't tried that with it yet, so can't rally evaluate it as to the feasability yet, I'm a little in doubt about seeing the target well enough with the holo site.

Like I said, shooting-well is just a required component for a successful hunt, after you already have done all the things necessary to get within reasonable range of the animal and understand your weapon and have it sighted-in. Any more to this question is just philosophical playing. Some of you seem like it's some kind of metaphysical difference between "hunting" and "shooting." It's silly to me. Shooting at the game at the end is a requirement to close the deal. Clearly. A lot of work and intel may be required to get to that point, but then you gotta put the bullet into the vitals. Not really philosophical.

Hunter.

Only Hits Count.
(Good hits count more)




GR