Huntng - for or against and why?

[120 Acres]

Its been 27 years that the wife and I have not bought any store bought ground meat.

That is very impressive.

 

[aviator41]

I'm very pro hunting. If you don't and you've tried it that's fine. The "I don't see the sport in it guys" really chap my ass. It takes more skill to harvest a game animal than it does to drive to homeland or some meat market and pick up some meat. The antis who argue about it while wearing leather shoes need to get over themselves. Someone killed the cow that gave the leather for you're shoes. I enjoy putting lean wholesome meat on the table. I know where it came from and that it was wild before I harvested it. Everyone's ancestors where hunter-gathers at some point. So you've just chosen to remove yourself from it. I am a rancher and directly involved with a feed yard. I have also been to a packing house for every species we eat in america, as well as a horse plant that shipped meat to Europe. Anyone of those is more commercialized and cruel than hunting. I also enjoy wild places more than I do the actual harvest of any animal. If you've never heard and elk bugle at 12000 feet or a whitetail buck snort wheeze at 10 yards or a turkey gobble well I'm sorry and if I didn't hunt I would have missed these beauties of nature. A sunrise in the mountains is magical and hunting gives me a reason to be there to see it, that is for me more rewarding than just hiking in the backcountry. Chasing mule deer in Arizona or the badlands of South Dakota is a experience that is for me indescribably wonderful. I don't try and push my beliefs on anyone and won't tolerate some belligerent prick trying to the same to me. We can just agree to disagree. I'll prepare for the next adventure and they can prepare for their next trip to the grocery store. It's amazing how I can look at a landscape and dream of all the game living there and my non hunting friends can look at the same thing and find beauty as well and never wonder if a 210 inch Muley or 380" bull or even a pheasant, quail or chukar lives there. I don't live for the kill more for the chase of wild things on there turf, and matching wits with my quarry. And hoping it makes a mistake and I have luck on my side.


Sent from NSA wire tapped device.

Very well put.

 

[nofearfactor]

I used to hunt. I still hunt a lot, but I used to, too.

Hahaa, nice Mitch Hedburg nod.

 

[FredNOk]

I'm no hunter mainly because I dont like the flavor of the wild meat, but i can't eat red meat or pork (Its a gastrointestinal thing.) However, if hunting didn't occur, many families would have had no meat on the table. Long before there were markets or walmart, if someone in the family didn't hunt, they only got to eat veggies for dinner. I dont recall anyone in my family (my grandfather was 1 of 15 children) being a vegetabletarianese. According to my 10 year old nephew, that's what I am. Poulty isnt a meat to him. I honestly think he thinks its fruit, but poultry is my main protein. My great grandmother told stories of swallowing her chaw while chasing down wild bore (As comical as it is to imagine a 4 foot 4 little mean old lady with a 4 inch bun on her head going all Rambo with a knife on a poor pig,) she did her part to provide meat when she wasn't swelled up with a bun in the oven. (15 kids, damn!) As for considering hunting a sport, and I know many will disagree and you are welcome to have your own opinion just as I am, if the animal you are trying to bag doesn't have an equal weapon to use like the hunter is using, I don't see it as a sport. You dont see football players all decked out in their gear intentionally attacking cheerleaders on the football field. Why? Because they aren't playing the game and have no protection comparable to the football players. Now if the cheerleader is wearing pads, a jersey, helmet, and a bite guard, she's fair game because she's got the same equipment on that the players have. Sorry for that analogy, that's what popped into my gourd.

 

[300WSM]

If hunters had the same natural skills as the game we pursue plus the tools we use to quickly and efficiently harvest game, then i might agree with your opinion. However, I am not able to walk into the woods in my everyday attire, sniff the ground, follow a trail, and walk up face to face with a deer. I can also not fly from where i sleep into a field then back to a pond and catch get close to a duck. So, I use the tools I have to level the playing field.

 

[FredNOk]

That part wasnt the argument I was making, I can understand that point as far as the hunt and pulling it off with success, but I still dont see that as a sport. That is what I was getting at.

 

[300WSM]

Oh. Ok. How about recreational activity. Kind of like golf.

 

[ShurShot]

I used to hunt cheerleaders too. Can be a little illusive but the reward at the end of a successful hunt was great!

 

[Coded-Dude]

Prey don't generally have the same "tools" as a predator...that's what makes them prey. I didn't expect much if any negative hunting positions. This is a pro gun forum so most, if not all, will be pro or neutral.

 

[Eagle Eye]

That part wasnt the argument I was making, I can understand that point as far as the hunt and pulling it off with success, but I still dont see that as a sport. That is what I was getting at.

IMHO a sport is when humans compete against other humans for some certain achievement, like goals, touchdowns, baskets, fastest time, oldest deer, etc..
Hunting can be a sport, or it can just be a way of life.

Im obviously pro hunting, and I see the competition between humans and other animals as the struggle for life. Animals eat plants (which are living things too!!), or they eat other animals, or, god forbid, fungi! That is the only way we can live [turn something living into ourselves]. I think, If you accept that responsibility and kill the food you eat yourself, more power to you. I am however a believer that one should use as much of ones harvest as possible, and that everything living on this earth needs to live in a balance. We are dominant on this earth (maybe not to insects or bacteria), and so we need to accept the responsibility that comes along with dominance. We have a responsibility to conserve diversity and allow other organisms to have their own freedom and chance at a good life. Or maybe we do not, but then we should not cry when bacteria, fungi, or animals eat us up without regret or restraint.