Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Personal Ethic Debate

I wasnt directing that at you, or anyone else. I find road hunting very un-productive, but i will take an easy one if i can be that lucky. the "anal" thing is all too common on the internet when it comes to ethics, and i take it the same as some one trying to shove religion down my throat.

Thanks rosco. The best thing about this thread is (IMO), out of everybody who said they personally wouldn't shoot, I don't think anybody tried to extend that to everyone else. And the more I think about it, I kind of agree with saddlesore, the proof is in the pudding. Heading out in the first ten minutes on opening day is one thing, heading back to camp on the last day of the season after a week of busting ass and not seeing anything is another....

That's why I like these kinds of threads, they make me think twice and look at different points of view, which is a good thing.

Guess a lot depends on tradition and were you hunt. In Texas it would be illegal to shoot from any public road....including any National Forest road......but it is totaly legal to hunt from a vehicle on private property.

In fact, on some South Texas ranches it is a very common method used and they have towers of 15 feet or more in height set up on trucks for just that purpose. They have conrols so the truck can be driven fom the top of the tower, and to be honest, with the thick brush in that area it would be very diffecult to even see a deer without the adde height. The "mobile tree stand" is just to cover more ground......not much different, to me, than walking the ridges and glassing in the more open terrain of the west. That's not an option in the brush-filled, flat South Texas ranches. Shooting from such a tower is not as easy as you might think.

I really get pissed at true "road hunters" who cruise the backroads during prime hunting times and screw up those who have spent hours in the dark on a stand waiting for first light. However, when going to or from a stand......I'd certainly not look a "gift" deer twice. Would I be particularly proud of the kill and brag about my hunting prowess???? No, but stories about "luck" are sometimes just as entertaining around a campfire.

I will admit that sometimes late in the season after most hunters have abandoned the woods, and I wake up to one of those overcast days with a slow drizzle of rain......I will call my partner and spend a day cruising the hunting club roads in the Scout with the top off and windshield folded. Texas, even in December, is mostly hot and dry so a slow rain means deer will likely be on the move and feedig.....often on the lush growth along side the road edges. It is a great way to fill the freezer and enjoy the company of a partner.

Do I consider this an effective and "proper" hunting method??? No.....but it can work very well under the right conditions. I don't typically "road hunt" for the same reason I don't typically hunt over a corn feeder.

It will be a rare buck over the age of 2 1/2 years that will go near a road or feeder (except possibly during the rut when bood rushes to his balls and cuts off the circulation to his brain). I do maintain several feeders each year to "harvest" (hate that word in general, but sometimes it's appropriate) does for the freezer (I LIKE deer meat). For "real" bucks, I hunt differently.

Hunting a feeder or slow cruising on a rainey day are very effective ways to "harvest" meat.....but not really "hunting" and I don't pretend otherwise. Does that mean I will pass up a 150 class buck that stupidly walks by my feeder or stands in the road.......I'll show you the mounts on the wall sometime!! Right beside the 140 class buck that was standing in my back yard on morning when I looked out the back door with my first cup of coffee in hand.

Am I as proud of those trophies as I am the ones I spent days (weeks, months?) patterning and sneaking through thickets???? Certainly not....but they are still hanging on the wall.

The scene proposed on the original post here is very much like those. Those are "targets of opportunity" and shows no lack of "ethics" to take the shot (as long as safe and legal). Not a prime example of your ability as a "hunter", but still a trophy.....no matter how it was taken.

Those who "claim" they'd pass up the shot (there are a lot more "claimers" on the internet than those who would "really" pass on a gift deer) should also pass on all shots during the rut. After all....isn't it sort of "unethical" to take advantage of a sex-crazed buck that you'd likely never see without that advantage??

Just my opinion.

Take what ya can get!

Funny you should mention that. Some people disdain feeder hunting - or at least prefer not to do it, but that depends on one of the few driving forces an animal has. Yet the drive to breed, an even greater urge, if shorter in duration, is never quibbled about. Feeding animals rarely lose their survival focus, they're just more easily located. Breeders can be just plain stupid. It can be really a laughable way to acquire a trophy, yet few regard it that way.

Yes indeed! If one wants some great entertainment, run down a local game officer and ask if he/she has some decoy footage. The behavior of some of the classic road hunters is beyond belief. Stupid, dangerous, and nearly always a violation.

There's some great youtube videos of state cops busting people for shooting from the road.

Good for a laugh.

Twice, while walking back from my hunting area on an old closed forest service road, I've walked up on a bull standing in the road and shot him. Both times, as soon as I saw the bull I thought WOW, an easy pack out. Afterwards though I felt like I'd cheated myself. The hunt had no character. So I vowed to never do that again. That's not something I look forward to every year and drive 1500 miles for.

I guess I like to see my tactics and strategies come to fruition. That's what I get a kick out of. After all, after the shot the work begins and the elk hunt is over until next year. And who knows if there'll be a next year? Before the shot is what's fun.

I think it can be so true what you say. It's a very personal thing. Once, after hunting hunting hard in the fall for several days, nearly scoring on a long tundra hike in the first few hours, and then coming up empty, I had given the fall season up. Winter can be easier. As I was coming back down to the boat, my "wheels", I glimpsed the antlered bull I needed barely a quarter mile from the boat. No problems there.

Another time, last couple days of the fall season, and last opportunity for me to get out; wife had just left town and- with kids at home with a sitter, I had just a few hours to try my luck. After making the 22 mile ocean run, I was a quarter mile or so off the beach when I saw a legal bull not 75 yards up the beach. I could have taken him right there, but I waited 'til I landed. What could easily have been let-downs under other circumstances and certainly for another person were very welcome in those instances.

But I can certainly see your angle.

In Oregon they call that mechanical stalking . During bow season I have seen guys with racks on the front of their trucks to hold their bow so they can jump out and grab them. I have seen guys setting on the front end of their cars and drive around not to mention the easy boy or couches in the back of trucks. I crack up at those guys but it does bother me when I see them with a truck load of boys all holding their bows in the ready in the back of the truck what a way to teach young kids how to hunt. That is sad. Then there are the rifle hunters who have their guns sticking out the window on with pillows to rest them on.
Last year I almost had a hunter hit my truck with a rifle barrel he was in the back seat of a SUV and did not see the that the driver had pulled over to let us pass. The other guys pulled theirs in pretty quick he must have been asleep. They did have all four windows covered with guns. Its bad in Oregon.

I much prefer hunting wild anmals by hiking off my "hind legs," but for many years have thought that passing up a gift from the hunting gods might offend them. Chance is bigger part of hunting than most of us like to admit.

Taking one by legally shooting from whatever distance off the road is a lot different than what we call the "F-250 sneak" here in Montana.

F250 sneak. LOL. I always thought it was "Death before Dismount". Like has been mentioned before most of the hunting accidents involve weapons around vehicles. In Oregon it's legal to be cocked and locked in a vehicle. Amazing the whole exploding pinto thing doesn't happen more.

When I see people hunt from ATV's I see little difference with doing that and hunting from your truck. Drive around till you see something. I am not against all forms of road hunting. If we see a deer going to lunch or driving back to camp or the hotel, and you can get out and legally shoot at it, we'll do it. I don't condone trespassing or violations like shoooting from a road. You need to be 50 feet off the road here in WI and it has to be a road marked on a county map. So, if you are in a driveway, you can shoot from it, or a logging road, or a dirt forest service road. As a sole way of hunting...I think road hunting is pretty bad. Most of the people who do it are too lazy to really hunt and my guess here a large number of them are drunk.

Didn't go back to read it all again, but a few things. First to assume that folks in a vehicle are drunk is way off base IMHO.

Second, its kinda funny to me that its a debate here, though I do it at times looking for one last doe or whatever, or simply to enjoy riding around looking at other game, that its taboo here to lots of folks, but a major practice in Africa and accepted there.

I suspect its kinda like feeders or no, I was raised around feeders and come to accept them and used correctly I've no problems with them. Yet go to other places they are taboo.

The topic title still says it all, personal ethics debate. Thats how it should be. If its personal anyway. If its legal and you are happy, what more matters. I don't like to preach to folks about what to use, how to do it, how close or far to get, what minimum caliber, perfect shot etc... I have my own thoughts but those are ..... personal and shouldn't be shoved down someone else's throat. I"m sure I"m guilty of that even though I try not to be.

I don't like seeing folks drive around so for the most part I try to get to wilderness or at least country where they are not allowed. I've even done it here on public land.... walk in 3 hours in the dark and get passed by an illegal ATV.. and no cell signal or tag for the ATV driver......

Road hunting while drunk is a good thing because a lot of those guys are too drunk to walk safely while carrying a firearm.

TIC

Not all people who do that's right. I was referring to some of the always in the truck road hunters I see in northern WI. You can tell how long they've been out sometimes by the number of cans in the bed. I see handicapped people out and others who aren't drunk or drinking.

toltecgriz;
Good afternoon, hopefully you and yours are well. Regarding your comment about being too drunk to walk I have this tale for you.

I was out sheep hunting one fine hot Okanagan afternoon when I happened upon a fellow I knew to say hi to but more by reputation via his brother who I knew quite well. Both were in the logging industry and neither was a stranger to Mr. Molson�s products.

Anyway we were both on foot and at least a half an hour from where any vehicle could be parked. As soon as we exchanged pleasantries, I noted this chap was absolutely gassed. I was amazed that he was hiking in moderately rough country in such condition much less that he was �hunting� sheep!

It was a hot afternoon and perhaps the heat had caused a great thirst, I can�t say.

Have a good rest of the weekend.

Dwayne

Ditto- Never look a gift deer (or whatever) in the butt...

The only thing we did in that situation when I was a kid was announce that you have to take a leak and as you get out grab your iron and do the old HOLYSHIT and point quickly up the hill on the other side of the road so your buddies pile out looking in the wrong direction. Then it's all windage and elevation.