Reverance- What do you like or dislike?

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oldandnew

Active member
I'll confess right off that as a younger man, hunting was a competition sport, limits were important, less seemed a failure, or at least mildly disappointing. As I grew up, ( a little bit!), the experience, which of course I always enjoyed became more, and more of the primary enjoyment, bird total or lack thereof less and less a factor. Now obviously, I still enjoy the "big day ", where birds are everywhere, otherwise I'd become a hiker or birdwatcher. I remember, I hope, that I always had respect for the sport, and did things right. I call that reverance, and I see and read a lot of that on this site which is why I spend time here. what bothers me, is the mainstream media, particularily print ads, and some Outdoor TV shows. One print ad proclaims in a two page spread " CUT ' EM", when refering to their shotshell loads. Sends a real great message to hunter and humane society loons alike. Do we use bayonets too! Not me with a cartridge left. I have no problem with proclaiming "speed", "penetration", killing power, etc. These are somewhat abstract, and relate to legitimate "humane" responsible purposes. The same applies to the cheesy waterfowl shows during which, everytime somebody shoots a bird that is hard hit, everybody whoops and hollers like idiots, ending the show with "we really whacked them and stacked em". Really, I wouldn't share a blind/ field with those fools for money. Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be seen as? Feel free to tell me I'm an old man, with antiquated chivalrous ideas of who we are, but I'd rather defend us on my terms, than appear like a bunch of Visigoths, or worse yet diminished capacity creatons. Chime In.
 
Your points are well taken Sir. I don't believe that his is who "we" are, but I believe this is the perception people get by watching shows like the ones you're referring to. There are a great deal of bumper stickers out there that aren't doing us any favors at all.

About bird #'s.....I guess I haven't grown up yet. I still prefer a day with birds everywhere, and yes, early season my goal is to shoot a limit and I do feel as though I've fallen short when I don't accomplish that. Why? B/c I like to eat them for one. A good time pheasant hunting includes harvesting birds for me still and I know I'll be chastised for saying so, but I don't feel any more noble when I've walked 10 miles and have nothing in my bag. Nor do I feel bad when the opposite happens and I have my 4 birds at noon and we're fixin' pheasant nuggets. However, I don't have "whack em' stack em'" stickers all of my truck!!
 
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you are absolutely right i to always hunted for killing a limit but in the past couple years i have grown to enjoy what the hunt is all about it is about comaradore and time well spent with new and old friends and good dogs i carry a gun out of habit and i still shoot but i would much rather watch my sons or a friend that comes hunting with us limit out instead of me killing them all becouse at the end of the day when your setting around the campstove telling of the days events and making the memories thats what it is all about in my opinion
 
I was hoping to here what I've read so far. What do we do about this? I get the feeling that the Mad Men ad agency responsible for this type of thing doesn't know which end of a shotgun to use. I also think when it comes to edged non round, shot, its offensive to the hunters intellect. I guess we are supposed to throw out 200 years of ballistical data, and common sense, and become beievers. It seems to me we are now being marketed to like the novice, bumbling fisherman with 10,000 lures, all designed to catch fishermen, not fish! I find that offensive too! Why buy shells at all, Hell we can go back to the depression and load gravel with rock salt for buffer. Talk about cutting power! maybe we should load some up, and market it, Call it, "Granpa's game getter" Grandpa for nostalgia, game getter for performance! Wonder if my MEC dies would handle it.
 
Doesn't sound quite as disrespectful and destructive as Whack em' and Stack em'. That Whack em' Stack em' bumper sticker makes us look like we are to wildlife what Hitler was to the Jews. We just don't need that kind of publicism. Others will say, "Well I'm about sick and tired of this politically correct world, blah, blah, blah" Unfortunately, this is the world we live in these days. Point is, when we do things like this we're bascially sh!#ting in our owns beds.

Another thing to consider, having a "Get them" sticker on your truck is going to be percieved much differently in W KS than it is in Chitcago or Kansas Chitty.
 
yes we are and like you said its the world we live in i know of alot of peaple who ad surf for the next best thing and its not right or is it helping our decline in numbers as sportsman nowadays especially to the young kids its all about killing them all or whack em and stack em what the hell happened to the good ol days of hunting and sportsmen when we were a proud group we at what we killed and didn't show gory blood pics of our kills as a part time guide when i take pics for the customers i always clean up the birds a little and if there is one that is totally blown away i will hide it in the pic so as not to offend others and to bring some kind of peace to the animal showing oictures is one thing but don't discrace yourself or draw a picture of other hunters by having the bloodiest animal picture ever seen thats more demoralizing than the advertisements in my opinion
 
I like most like to kill a limit of birds, but what I truely enjoy is watching the dogs work. I especially like watching young kids hunt, a few years back I was the youth director for the local pheasant forever chapter and I really enjoyed working with the kids until we had a youth hunt and some of the mentors would not let the kids shoot at some of the birds because "they were to far away" and I had some kids complain about it so I stood back and watch the mentors and the kids were correct the birds were still in range. The reason for them acting this way was because the mentors were able to go out and harvest the left over birds. Need I say any more, these would be the guys with the wack um and stack um bumper stickers. As I grey a little I enjoy taking a break and petting my pup as I share a sandwich with him and apologize to him for missing that easy going away shot. I think he forgives me as he lays his head in my lap. Heck here I go just rambling away. No one wants to read a novel right :)
 
copheasanthunter those would definately be the whack em and stack em sticker guys it really all boils down to eventually those kids are going to be us and if they don't have fun they won't be here when they are our age
 
Let me start off by saying I do not need a limit of birds to have a great day. Hunting with my Father, brother and son and all the fun that comes with it including the laughs and memories comes first.
Having said that, I challenge myself to be a good hunter. Position the blockers correctly, work into the wind when possible, shoot well and safe when an opportunity presents itself. So with that said, we try as a group to get our limit. If we fall short, no big deal, but I will ask myself was it because of poor shooting? Did the birds escape where we should have had a blocker?
We make one trip a year as a group to SD and I can tell you it is the best trip of the year! I know in most years the birds and bird numbers are there. If we hunt safe, smart and hard, shooting our limit is what we should be able to do.

Bob
 
You know something that bothers me is the guys who go out and kill a limit of birds than look for some one to take them, maybe that is alright with some but why would want go hunt then not want to eat them, I guess if you gave them to someone who was in need of them it would be one thing or if you had someone already in mind to give them too it would be one thing, last year I saw two guys who were at a fast food place trying to find someone to give their doves away to and they were bragging about how they slaughtered them, they gave them away to a couple than they took off to hunt some more. Another case was when I was a MP at Ft. Hood, Tx. I was driving in a remote area watching the reserves play their games when I noticed a pile of some thing in the ditch so I drove up and the pile was about 15 dead rabbits :eek:some low life A== had shot and just left. I called my buddy who was the on calll game warden and they found the guy who was hunting the area but they could not prove he killed them and by the time I found them they were not salvageable.
Makes us all look good. :(
 
yes it does make us look bad indeed I will give some of my birds away throughout the year but not becouse i don't eat them its becouse the peaple i give them to can't go becouse of limitations beond their control ( old Age ) and they just cannot get out there anymore
 
Gove County Britts said:
yes it does make us look bad indeed I will give some of my birds away throughout the year but not becouse i don't eat them its becouse the peaple i give them to can't go becouse of limitations beond their control ( old Age ) and they just cannot get out there anymore
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I did the same thing w/ my ducks in high school. Had a retired and handicapped vet in town that just loved them. He's not around anymore and I no longer hunt ducks for that very reason. I've been known to get my waders, calls, and dekes out and just sit at the marsh watching everyone else shoot them.

The guys that went out to shoot another limit of dove and the a-hole that left the pile of rabbits are indeed bad for our image! I hope to have the opportunity to report someone like that one day......but it would only infuriate me more if they weren't charged:mad: Read the KDWP officer log books sometime and you'll occasionally see comments about judges lessening the severity of charges to something as petty as littering. So, even in the rare event one of these jerks is caught red-handed, it's not likely they'll be punished accordingly.
 
I think the limit push really comes for some of us. From the people we hunt with. They don't get out much and have to have a limit to justify the trip. People like that I give them my birds. I Make it a point to be booked the next time they want to go hunting. I enjoy watching Tony work. He is a show in himself and loves his work. I hope Gunne is as good of a field companion as Tony. It makes me depressed to think that Tony's hunting life is winding down.
I have a buddy I hunt with his family don't like game birds or venison. So he takes his birds down to the VFW and gives them to the DAV's there that promise to eat them. He now has regulars that ask him for some birds next time he goes hunting.......Bob
 
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Like I said I have no problem with people giving game away if they have someone who wants them but to just go to kill and not worry about knowing they have someone to give them to bothers me because on the slight chance you can't find someone what are they going to do with them. I also have old friends who can not hunt no more but enjoy a bird or a piece on venison once in awhile and I enjoy their look when I live them some.
And I agree with you about the sentences some judges give some of these criminals, it is unbelievable, they get slapped on the hands and some are just habitual about it knowing they are just going to get a light sentence. The day of reckoning is coming though, one day one of these a==holes is going to get a judge who sees what is going on and sees that he is a habitual offender and he is going to lower the boom on him.
My Dad every year for Christmas subscribes to a paper in Missouri for me called the Traveler, it is a hunting/fishing newspaper and on about the last page it shows the name and home town of people who are caught breaking wildlife laws and the sentence imposed. Usually it is forfiture of license and hunting rights for 6 months to a year or possibly longer. Can you imagine your name in the paper like this and you just try to do something like hunt when your priviledge, yeh it is a priviledge right, is suspended. I can hear the law abiding guy calling the game warden John I saw Billy Bob out spotlightning in the lower 40 last night I know that is illegal but also he has his priviledges suspended. Hopefully he will go before a judge that likes to drop the hammer.
There I go again, I better get off of here, you guys don't want to hear an old guy rant on, you got guns to clean, close to pack, shells to sort, dog kennels to get ready and damn there I go again, I guess I can do that cause I got mine done and my Ford is partially packed, only so I can make sure there is room for everything :)
 
Nowadays I often find myself with a strange contemplative mix of celebration/euphoria & a tear in my eye while respectfully patting a downed deer or elk be4 I get down to the business of thankfully processing some good eats for the year...

I am perfectly content if I see birds/game & maybe have a half-decent opportunity or two at puttin something in the bag, but the killin for me now is just a little gravy on top of the soul-food meat & potatoes of being out there immersed interactively smack-dab in the middle of God's wonderful world of nature & wildlife! Often it's the other nature & wildlife observed that makes for "the memory of day" - just as much, sometimes even more so than the specific quarry pursued...

I am unashamedly a hunter for life - but equally a birdwatcher, wildflower & flora admirer, amatuer naturalist & semi-greenie in defense of all things wild forever too..Heck, some of my non-hunting friends are rightfully puzzled by the fact that it really bothers me to see a magnificent animal get run over in the road, but it doesn't seem to bother me in the least to kill & eat one! :confused: :D

I didn't start out this way - it took me a long time to get here! As a young buck went thru all the stages...1st just wanted to shoot a gun (A LOT - at anything - no game necessary, dirt clods & pop cans were fine & more action)...Then went thru a rather long phase on the success/limit kick (not really ashamed or proud of it - just was what it was)...Finally got my fill enough to pretty much skip over the obsessive trophy-stage thing...Now just like being out there (never thought I would say this - I still like a solitary ramble in the woods, bowhunting & such - but even more so now the camaraderie-friendly pursuit of sharing it all with friends and/or kids behind a good dog)...Not gonna lie though, even to this day I would go find something else outdoorsy to do if I knew beforehand I was gonna spend a whole season on a willy-nilly crapshoot or tromping my legs off thru fields that didn't have a chance in h#!! of holding nary a rooster!!!

As for giving away game - I eat most of what I catch or kill (and often serve it on the dinner table even to non-hunting friends & family). I do give away quite a bit of meat only to people I KNOW for sure will eat it, but I personally do all the hard work of cleaning/processing it beforehand & give it to them in neat, tidy freezer baggies ready-to-cook (whenever you have a little too much for yourself or just wanna bless somebody, most folks have a tendency to really like & appreciate this kind of gift). Only the lowest of LAZY SLOBS & BUMS make a regular habit of dumping a pile of bloody, uncleaned animals on the farmer or neighbor's porch (don't kid yourself, you're not doing anybody a favor - not the just-as-busy-as-you person who usually receives it, nor the rest of our hunters' image)! :mad:

If any of you are really serious about or enjoy ruminating on the subject of this thread overall, the best book I have ever read on the matter is "A Hunter's Heart: Honest Essays On Blood Sport" - a collection of essays compiled by David Peterson. Therein you will find my favorite hunting essay of all-time - "Before The Echo" by wingshooter/birdwatcher & Audobon-naturalist Peter Dunne! A heck of a book for hunting camp or fireside reading at home, with many other brief essays from people on all sides of the aisle that are just as inspiring & intriguing... :thumbsup:

If you want some short stories to read just for fun, DU's 'Autumn Passages' collection is hard to beat. It contains Aldo Leopold's unforgettable 'Red Legs Kicking' & a couple of the funniest duck hunting stories I have ever read, 'In The Presence Of My Enemies' (about a hunting preacher & his deacon sidekick) & 'Russian Agents On the Chesapeake' (a slapstick, side-splitter about game wardens, baiting & breakin all the rules)!

Dang, see y'all boys - I gotta finish packing & get my butt rolling for India!!!
 
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Have fun in India good Sir! Keep fighting the good fight.....the world needs guys like you running around. Make it back safely and WAY before hunting season ends;)
 
my goal is to have the opportunity to shoot a limit ever day in the field, of course that (shooting a limit) never happens, but the challenge is to pick the field(s), work it considering the wind, lay of the ground and cover and all the while trying to help put the dog in the right places to be successful.

pheasant hunting is definitely a team sport, there are lots of ways to coral or work birds in ways to increase your odds for success. the real fun begins when you start working late season birds which have been hunted hard, it is fun to watch the war of wits between dog and bird, you can just "see" the wheels turning in the dog's head....shooting a couple of those wily roosters over the course of a full day of hunting is very rewarding....one on one is even better, one hunter, one dog, one bird.
 
At one time shooting a limit was more important, Now I just want to go hunting with the dogs as much as possible. I want to see birds and good habitat. I like breaking a sweat and feeling my legs tire. I saw two roosters today in a harvested field where there should be at least twenty. 20 years ago, I would have been in a panic about the upcoming season for Iowa. Concerned for Iowa yes, but made my heart race just seeing two beautiful birds.
 
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