Define sport in hunting

[Fly]

I guess I,m just bored & thought I would throw this out just to get the board going.
First I no longer hunt deer.But when I was younger I bow hunted, muzzle loader & gun
hunt.Times were some what different then today.


We went out looked for rubs, scrapes deer run ect, as to where to set up.Now other than
bow season I always used a ML.Nothing against regular guns, just me.Today things are
a little different.Feeders, cameras, inlines & so on.I,m lucky to live in the woods.I have
a feeder I set up before the grand kids come, for they love watching the deer.I also have
a camera just to see what pasted threw in the night.If I feed the deer everyday, I could sit
on my back porch & pick what ever deer I wanted.

Don't get me wrong, I,m not putting any down to the way you hunt.Remember I.m just
passing time on this computer, but it would be neat to hear your thoughts as for the sport
of hunting today, compared to the past.

Fly

[smokeywolf]

I think some tend to blur the line between culling or thinning a particular animal population and hunting. We recently had a thread that related to shooting feral hogs from a helicopter. That is not hunting. It was however, a necessary exorcise to prevent damage to property and ecosystem done by a runaway population of a particularly destructive (and tasty) species.
Also, if you're hunting out of a need to supplement your food supply, I don't think the process used to harvest the animal matters as long as it is done safely and humanely.

Contrary to popular misinformation thrown out by tree-huggers and so-called animal lovers, the majority of hunters are the most conscientious when it comes to wildlife health, nutrition, habitat and numbers.

Although walking and tracking great distances is getting difficult for me, I still prefer tracking, stalking and a clean shot, quick kill. Not opposed however, to performing needed pest control around the farm.

smokeywolf

[Good Cheer]

When I was a kid we were in the woods all the time. We hunted. We ate what wasn't cautious.
Now we're fat and happy and the deer have names.


The squirrels think we're their sanctuary.


Coons, well, if injured they get fed until their ready to make it on their own.


The range rabbit doesn't seem to care one way or the other but enjoys getting May Bell to play chase and watching me pop caps.


But what do I think about hunting there days? I think that with all the labor saving devices we have these days that people don't have time to live. And in reaction to that the outdoor experience has been turned into an exercise in efficiency.
Sorry if I'm stepping on any toes. But, please understand, I in no way want anyone to change from what they want to do. Your experience is yours. Mine is mine.

[Good Cheer]

I miss my coon.
http://vid791.photobucket.com/albums...psgevcgqwd.mp4

[WallyM3]

The ethic of the hunt is entirely subjective...except that "(sport) is built on a tripod of geography, history and law, and it is made up largely of limitations."

The italics are mine, and the subject was "civilization"; it applies equally to "sport".

[bubba.50]

don't do much huntin' these days but, when I was younger & knew less than 1/2 of what I thought I did, i'd roam the mountains & probably put in 15 to 20 miles in a day and have little to show for it except tired achy everything. later on when I actually did know a little bit, I became more of a sniper. i'd sit in a grove of hardwoods & head-shoot squirrels with a .22 or set-up on a confluence of trails to catch deer in their comin's & goin's to & from beddin' & feedin' areas. and occasionally my brother & I would walk the creeks & jump-shoot puddle-ducks.

[starmac]

What little hunting I've had time to do the last few years, I guess I would call it table fare hunting instead of sport hunting. In other words what ever method best gets the coon. lol

[Good Cheer]

Yeah, look at it that way I don't much care for sport.

[nagantguy]

I don't kill for sport, I do use bait at some sights food plots at others. We are meet hunters and less than a deer a person per hear doesn't fill our needs. Up north with the big woods in Michigan's upper pennensila its spot and stalk and drives. All methods require a human kill and the animal being used. Then exception is varmits. I guess that Could be a sport but we do it to protect the harden and chickens. Don't see how killing game animals could be a sport. But that is only my opinion. And not a judgment.

[WallyM3]

Would you mount an 8mm Spandau on a "headache rack" on a pick-up and use dogs to drive the deer into the head lights?

I've seen that done. Didn't like it much, but then I wasn't in Auschwitz.

Which then takes us back to my post #5.

[Good Cheer]

What's the difference except where you see yourself?

[GhostHawk]

The big buck that hangs on my wall had a distinct "area" which he preferred.

I watched him grow from a very smart kick up heels fork horn, to a 6 pointer, then an 8, and eventually an old grey nosed 10 point.

I always at some point in the bowhunting/squirrel hunting/Shotgun single day deer season ran into him, no way of telling when. But the where was the same 1/4 section of ground up on a ridge near a retention dam. Some years I'd see him every week, some only once in the year.

You might say we had a relationship that lasted years.

Eventually when he was getting old, turning gray, he did not see me hunkered down behind that bush. He jumped over the windfall the bush was growing in, and over me, and got himself shot.

We taught each other a lot.

This was all long before the days of trail camera's. It was (and still is) a shotgun and slug only zone. Normally with a single day hunt.
The deer know a week before which day it is going to be. (Yes patterns change)

Back then in Minnesota you could buy 2 licences, for bow and gun hunting, but only got to tag one deer.
I never loosed an arrow on a deer with a bow. I had lots of chances, but never had the good shot at the deer I wanted when it wasn't already too late in the day to have a chance to track it.

If you shot a deer in bow season you were not even supposed to be out there.

So I mostly used that as a time for learning, contemplation, and I brought home some awesome story's. Like the time the blue jay landed and tried to sit on my nocked fiberglass arrow, and kept tipping off. Or the time the moose came through scaring all the deer and threating to knock down the tree I was in. Or the time a grouse climbed into the same bush I was using as a ground blind and crapped on my shoulder.

For me, that truly was sport, it cost me only money, time, and some gas. And I was living large on the interest.

That whole mindset seems to have been lost somehow down the years.

I see the hunting shows on the outdoor channel and if he makes the shot it is all about "Look at what I just did, wahoooooo"

I don't see a single instance of a buck sneaking up behind a hunter, out of range, snorting, and then bouncing over the nearest ridge or into the nearest trees where the hunter says "Wow, seeing that deer do that just made my day"

Maybe I'm missing it, maybe.

Or maybe the times indeed are a changing.

[WallyM3]

It's not about me (in response to post # 11) or thee or anyone else. This observation was presented to me by an author I know (hence the quotation marks) whose point, I think, has broad applicability.

It's an invitation to give the idea that he expresses some contemplative consideration. I took a week to think about it. I don't agree or disagree in a practical sense (since his context is philosophical), but it got me to thinking more critically about how I understand my ....whatever.

I do silly stuff like crushing down the barbs on my hooks because I know that I'm going to release that fish (usually Atlantic Salmon) that I've hooked. But real game is a different matter. I don't shoot to eat (meaning that, otherwise, I have no alternative, which doesn't really exist in this country any more), but for the experience and the wholesomeness of the process...shoot, hit, kill, dress, prepare, cook and eat.

Otherwise, I shoot paper.

[Janoosh]

There is a quote that states "there are only two sports in the world, mountain climbing and hunting, everything else is just a game".
I have always hunted for the kill. I'm a meat hunter, to share the kill with my friends that can no longer hunt. Kind of like making meat for the tribe.
To be in the woods, to become in tune with, and attuned to, the workings of the forest. I use a single shot muzzle loader. I don't use bait, or trail cams. I enjoy the art of the stalk, to meet my prey on their ground. Is it hard.? Is it time consuming.? Yes. And that is how I do it. I'm not critiquing any body else, or the way they hunt. I'm just explaining how I enjoy my sport.

[idahoron]

If I were to define sport hunting I would say that it would be a hunt where the only thing important is the kill. A varmint hunt, Predator hunt. Guys that kill ducks and give them all away are sport hunting imop. Guys that kill deer and give them away would to me be sport hunting. Trophy hunting to me is not really "sport" hunting because the emphasis is on the antlers and respecting the animal, but not everyone that hunts trophies respects the animal. The guys that kill a trophy animal and give away the meat are in my opinion worse than sport hunting. I think using the word "Sport" with hunting is a mistake that hunters should not make. I think that the word sport puts a negative connotation on hunting. I have outsmarted several animals that are trophy animals. None of them were hunted for "sport". I have hunted and killed several for the table.

[Fly]

This thread is really going well.No one putting the other down, & just respecting each other
opinion & I thank you guys for that.Let's hear from others, for it is good to hear what each
of you love about hunting & such.

Fly

[Fishman]

Hunting shows are to hunting what reality shows are to reality.

[Duster340]

For me, Hunting is not about the kill. I have passed on many, MANY, more shots than I have taken over the past 42 years I have hunted. And the reality is, some of my most enjoyable, and memorable hunts occurred without a shot being fired. For me it's about being with friends and family. Away from the rat race, phones, computers, traffic etc. It is about the time spent around a campfire solving the world's issues, re-telling stories of hunts, and hunters, past. Good jokes. Meals cooked on an open fire. Sitting in the woods before sun-up listening to the forest wake up. The rush of adrenaline when that deer materializes from the mist, or that pheasant the rockets into the air few feet from your feet....These are just a few of the things that I consider to make up the "sport" of hunting. If a clean shot presents itself, and I choose to take that shot, great. If I pass on that kill shot in favor of spending more time into woods with my family and friends that is great too. Hunting is not for everyone, but for me and my family, it is just a part of who we are.

Be well all.

[DougGuy]

Sport = Hunting in sneakers because they are quieter in the leaves than boots, sneaking up to within arm's length of a gray squirrel feeding in a low hanging branch and seeing him totally LOSE IT when he notices you there!

And yep, he alarmed two nice whitetail bucks I was stalking, they came out of the thicket same place they went in (I was trying to work myself into position to cover this in/out route) fully alerted and hi-tailed it fast as they could outta dodge.

[Black Powder Bill]

Sport hunting, is that like going to Wheeling to get the feeling?