Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire As a hunter has your view about killing changed any?

There's about a half dozen possums and the same number of 'coons,...and one particularly rank old feral tomcat that makes my backyard a part of their stomping grounds.

15 years ago the whole lot of 'em woulda et a hollowpoint a long time ago.

But the way I see 'em today,...they're just scratching around trying to make a living,..and not bothering anybody or anything that doesn't bother them.

In other words,...they're just like me.

I throw 'em a chicken leg ever now and then.

I can recall when I wished somebody would throw me one.

I can also remember when a chicken leg would have made my day,

my blood lust has abated as well


still do it though, cause I don't have the skills to grin a moose into our freezer

and perhaps since I mainly only hunt moose anymore, it could be I've developed a flinch

pull the trigger, watch moose fall

and then FLINCH


oh but you've buggered yourself again ya big dummy

I'm not very keen on packing meat anymore either

but like killing, necessary evil to fill the freezer

I believe, the closer you get to death yourself, the less you want to kill things. Unless yer f'd up.

I also believe people's political beliefs evolve, unless yer f'd up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG4V_6pCLVo

I never took pleasure in the killing part, less so now. So why hunt and fish? At the root of it it's my nature, people are predators. That's our role in nature, our instinct. When I have an animal in the sights or a fish following I find myself locked down with determination and no remorse in the result. Pleasure in the process and result (usually food) but not the killing. The process connects me to the world, the ecology if you will. Much more so than walking around observing nature, actually being a part of it. So many "ecologists," the bunny huggers who set themselves apart from their human nature, lack perspective on how the world, nature, works and man's place in it. Shared with friends and family, my tribe/pack, so much the better.

Yep, if you aren't liberal when you're young and dumb, you have no heart.
If you aren't conservative when you're old, you have no brains.

The older I get, the more depressing it is to me that many were fine with giving our country and wealth away, regardless of what those who died for it had to say.

Said it better than I could/can.

This ^^^

When I was a teen I'd kill anything with a smile of satisfaction.



Now I have an appreciation for how fragile life is, and what a gift every day is.

Only a liberal troll would toss politics into this thread

i'm the same way anymore. i just enjoy going to camp, sighting in my guns, putting on the clothes, going into the woods and reliving my old times. i don't care if i pull the trigger on an animal anymore. i shoot one deer a year because i like deer meat and jerky and the whole field to table experience.

I regards to the OP..when I was young I felt I had to fill every tag because of the financial outlay that could have been used to "buy" groceries. Yep the big bucks and bulls excited me. I have a house full of mounts to show for it. Now if I see a buck or bull it most likely gets a pass. If I fill one or 2 out of 6 tags a year it is by choice. I like wild game meat but I let the bucks live just because our populations are down. I would rather shoot a spike bull or young cow elk because I don't need anymore antlers but I do enjoy the meat. And with no family at home how much can two people eat? A hunting license supports our game & fish department and gives me an excuse to be outside.

I've hunted for 30 years now, with the exception of last year. I no longer hunt to kill, but rather because I enjoy venison, and I enjoy being in the woods. I always feel and express reverence for the deer I kill, and there's always a bit of sadness when I do kill a deer. I also find I don't have to kill to have a successful hunt.

I was never a hard-core killer of big game or small and some of my best hunts I never fired a shot.
I love getting close and beating the animal, being inside their safety zone and they don't know I'm there.
If they volunteer, well I usually shoot but I've been hollered at for not taking the shot and just smiling and knowing I could have.

Killing to feed myself of family doesn't bother me in the least but I don't have to kill to have a successful hunt.

P.S. If Nebraska gets overrun with deer again I'll be there to help!

I guess I am different. I love to hear bullet meet hide. Nothing better than a day on a prairie dog town. Or shooting antelope, or deer or....

I still like to fill tags. I don't think it will ever get old.

Dink

Hmmm...

For flat dead certain, be it fishing, bird hunting or deer hunting, I go out fully intending to kill something to eat. No maybes about that. When I do decide to kill one, I am just making meat.

When I fish I don't tend to practice catch and release very often, but when I do, it's just something I do. I couldn't begin to explain why some go back in the water and some go in the frying pan.

Deer are sort of the same. I get to pick and choose which ones I kill, and I couldn't begin to say why some don't get shot. All the ones that do get shot are in good flesh. I do look carefully before I put one on the table. By and large I kill fawns or yearling does.

I do take great pleasure in putting prime venison on the table. I don't remember the last time I bought hamburger, and I only buy a whole sirloin the cut the way I want it, and at that, I buy precious damn little meat in the store. I much prefer eating wild meat, and I get a lot more personal satisfaction out of it on top.

I used to kill a lot more. My attitude towards the game, towards the killing, towards the eating has stayed pretty constant through all the years. I never have considered it "sport hunting". It's always been just making meat and there has always been the same satisfaction in the butchering, the packaging, and the preparation as there has been in the killing. The deer I hit with a car and turned into the best she could be last October was every bit as satisfying as the other three I killed with a rifle. Despite the fact that she was really old and really tough.

I understand what you are saying, and I appreciate your candidness on the subject.

But I can't really relate...

It is true that after many years of hunting and harvesting game animals, and after expanding my hunting experiences to most of the United States and some of Africa, that my blood lust has certainly been satiated somewhat. But, I actually feel pretty much the same as I used to when I take an animal that I am truly in pursuit of. These days, it's more often than not something besides the normal deer hunt for me and this less than mundane experience probably has a lot to do with it, but I get almost as excited about a hunt as I did as a much younger and less experienced hunter.

That's just me.

+1..........

Let's see 'em.

EXACTLY! As usual, I didn't draw for elk and antelope in my home state but no big deal. In the last four years I've done a cow elk hunt on a very large private ranch. It's not a sport hunt but a cull hunt so is easy on my somewhat antique body. (75 YO) I share a guide with two friends and we have an enjoyable time of it. Me with my bad knee, another that's has open heart surgery and the third fellow was doing his first elk hunt and we've all booked again. The killing isn't really the thing but the comments Gunner made are what's important. I don't know what or how the irraddiation of store bought meat affects the human systen or if it even does at all. However, I believe that the hormones fed to livestock in order to make them gain weight is a major factor in the obesity epedemic in this country. I also believe that the antibiotics given livestock may be a causatived factor in the antibiotic resistant bacteria that is causing so much trouble today. I've dicussed this with several doctors and they happen to afree with me but as long as corporate greed rules this country, nothing will ever be done. OK, I'll get off my soapbox.
As far as the subject of this thread, I still get a touch of buck fever. It's all good until the shot and my game is on the ground. Then, I feel sadness and sometimes shed a tear. Dunno how many hunts I have left but I can always deliberately miss if I decide to call it quits.
Paul B.