Hunting and Fishing Catalogs

High Intensity Created by Hunting

March 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

The desire to kill may have been misinterpreted by you as the desire to ach- ieve a “kill” which would mean one has been successful in their endeavor to hunt. That is not to say there aren’t some hunters who truley love to kill and love to beat their dogs or may even be murderers. But the my experiences have been that most hunters do indeed respect their prey.Sadly, there are “slob hunters” who are no better than you make them out to be. However, the majority are not so callous.

Most trips afield, especially for big game, such as deer, are unsuccessful in terms of animals harvested. Success lies in the hunting, not the killing. Hunting is the only time in my life when my mind is clearly focused and not buzzing with competing thoughts. Slipping through the woods, I may pause to watch a young raccoon at the waters edge searching for crawfish or frogs. A coyote in a woodland meadow chasing mice is a thrill. Cardinals courting, bluejays harassing an owl, grouse drumming. All are part of the hunting experience. All may be experienced without hunting, and are. Hunting just brings greater intensity.

The kill causes mixed emotions. There is satisfaction in cooking and eating game you’ve outwitted. Don’t think it’s easy to slip within 20-30 yards of a deer in the wild. It’s not a petting zoo. Getting into position for a clean shot and drawing a bow on an alert animal without being spotted is excruciatingly difficult. However, seeing a beautiful animal such as a white- tailed deer lying cold and lifeless is tremendously saddening. Yes, there is some guilt. But this is real. This is life, and death. It is the way of the wild, and I wish to be as much a part of it as possible. The hunter must accept the fact that he kills to eat. Others simply pay people to do what they can’t and buy their meat at restaurants and supermarkets.

Bowhunting Northen Black Bears

March 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Bears coming out of hibernation are not too active the first part of the season and will not readily come to a bait. The last half of May until the end of the season is usually the best time to arrow your bear. It is also when the dreaded blood thirsty blackflies are out and about. Bring a headnet and a supply of inspect repellent that is 95% deet. Muskol and Ben’s are the brands that are favored the most. Bring several rolls of black plastic electrician’s tape to bind the cuffs of your pants and sleeves.

I usually wear a suit of lightweight poly-propolyne long underwear under my hunting clothes when I go into the bush. Bears are relatively easy to put down if they are hit in the right place (lungs/heart). If they are not hit in a vital area, they can go a long ways before dropping. Couple this with the fact that bears are not good bleeders, due to fat and hair soaking up the blood, a lot of bowhunters are using tracking strings.

If you use a tracking string, be sure to sight in with it. It will definitely make your arrow shoot lower. Bear hunting on your own is the most difficult but most rewarding way of obtaining a bear rug. Bowhunters who set out their own baits are generally less successful than guided hunters. It usually takes the bears time to find the bait and become accustomed to it. If you only have a week or less, the bear could just be getting started good on the baits when you have to pack it in and head for home.

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Hunting for Sport

March 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

I’m interested in any opinions on the subject of hunting for sport (i.e. hunting that is for purposes other than for essential food and controlling the population), and what your beliefs are on this type of human entertainment. In essence, Do you believe this type of hunting is right or wrong? Please include comments. Also, if anyone is a hunter, I would like to know your reasons for doing so. Hunting is a Recreational Activity. Not a Sport.

Regardless, if we leave aside subsistence hunting and controlling the population, we are no longer talking about hunting. Hunting is a proven and accepted management tool. The issuance of hunting licenses and permits, setting of seasons and limits, etc. are all based upon the role hunting plays upon wildlife management and conservation, which of course includes “controlling the population”. Therefore, anyone who purchases a hunting license and lawfully hunts, is already playing a role in “controlling the population”.

What we are then left with are NOT hunters, but CRIMINALS. As to my belief, I am against any criminal activity whether it is for entertainment purposes or otherwise. Enough “personal” reasons, as well as statistics, facts and figures have already been posted in this NG and others, to the extent that I doubt that I can add anything else of an enlightening nature.

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Hunting Herbivorous Prey

March 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Herbivorous prey on plants, predators prey on other animals, that’s just the way it happens. There is nothing pretty about death no matter how it happens, but happen it will, and to everything. When an animal dies it opens up more resources to the rest of kin and competitors. Argueing about the way in which that animal will die is a mute point, because die it will. It makes no difference if say that deer dies quickly by the buulet from a gun, an arrow, predation, or by more “natural” means of starvation, disease, parasitism, or accident.

To give deer (or other animals) human characteristics and compare how they react with how we react to stimuli is a human device. Eg. deer flee from danger, it is a survival response. They cannot “fear” that danger or death, because they cannot understand or even conceptualize death. most people have an overblown fear of death. They characterize it as evil and bad. They fail to realize that death is as natural a process as life itself.

For everything there is a time to die. Instead of coming to grips with our own mortality, most of us try not to admit it to ourselves. We either don’t think about it, pretend it won’t happen, or seek man eternal quest for imortality, be that through science or religeon. The height of this is ARA’s belief that animals shouldn’t die either so we shouldn’t hunt them. Hunting is “natural” for us. As omnivours we can take advantage of whatever edible comes along, be it plant or animal.

Hunting for us is no more unnatural than when a bear capitalizes on the oportunity to take a deer or dig up a marmot. The problem arises from the way our society functions. Where the only part of consuming meat most people encounter is the hamburger. They have detached themselves so far from death, that they hire someone else to kill for them. Then many hypocritically condemn this action. It is completely dishonest to condemn hunting and then hire someone else to do it for you. To do it yourself is the only way to realize what goes into that steak.

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Hunting & Spirituality

March 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

I was recently asked to submit an article in support of hunting to the Microsoft Network. The article is below. I’m running it up the T.P.A. flagpole for your enjoyment, disgust, comments and/or smart remarks. Tim I’d like to thank Non-Line for the opportunity to lend my voice to the growing chorus of Americans who view hunting, fishing, and trapping as key elements of our outdoor heritage. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to share with you some of my personal outdoor experiences, and why it is so much a part of my life, and the lives of over 50 million Americans.

One could write volumes in “defense” of hunting, so I think in the interest of time and bandwidth, I’ll simply recount for you an experience I had while being part of a buffalo hunt in north central Montana, for it was here that I learned the true nature of hunting as a life changing, indeed spiritual, experience. As some of you may know, I produce a television program with Ted Nugent. As such, we were in Montana to hunt buffalo with the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Indians.

Now, this may be strange for those who subscribe to the rigid linguistic doctrines of “Political Correctness”, but our Indian friends said they don’t mind at all being called “Indians”. In fact, they considered it an honor. Our first day had seen a return of winter to the Northern Plains after several 70+ degree days. As the cold front moved through, the skies clouded, the temperature dropped, the wind increased, and a periodic snow/rain mix began to fall.

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Meat eating and hunting

March 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

There are non-animal alternatives to many, if not all, products. In Indiana, there is a problem with an overabundance of deer in the State Parks (no hunting allowed, hunters reintroduced deer to the state in the 30′s). There are two options being pursued in a study. Birth control and hired marksman. I prefer the birth control, but if for some god awful reason they choose the other, the plan is to have one marksman and all the meat goes to the local shelters.

The goal of the second option is to target breeding females only. This is population control for more than one season. I would be willing to say that above all of the other arguements I think are in fact ethical (which AR groups say are not) I personally think that using birth control on wild animals is unethical, not to mention unnatural and inefficient. Animals die while under going operations, and the process of catching and sedating (even if you plan on using chemicals) is harmful to the animals as well as costly and time consuming. Who is going to pay for this?

I am willing to suggest the animals themselves, as the allowance of hunting would not only help population control from year to year, but would help actually raise revenues to support further animal assistance programs for both game and non-game animals. People try to say hunting (as man hunts with conventional tools and weapons) is unnatural, but yet when an otter uses a rock to break urchins or a monkey uses a blade of grass to collect ants, that is O.K. Man has just become that much better than his surrounding, and also has the conscious capability to control the amount that he takes from the wild, and supplicate it with hand-raised food. This makes him not only better than his animal counterparts, but it does not do a thing to remove his right to be a part of the scheme of things, but in fact helps to strengthen that right. I am just fighting to uphold that right from a lot of people using loaded jargon and ill-directed emotional sympathy.

Hunting safety

March 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Fire your gun or bow only when you are absolutely sure of your target and its background. Use binoculars, not your rifle scope, to identify your target. – Wear hunter orange whenever appropriate or required while afield. – Remember that hunting and alcohol don’t mix. Obtain proper tags and licenses. – Hunt only in allowed areas and during designated times and seasons. Read hunting regulations carefully. -

Obey bag and possession limits. – Use only legal hunting methods and equipment. – Provide hands-on and financial support for conservation of game and nongame species and their habitats. – Learn more about wildlife and habitat issues, and urge policymakers to support strong conservation initiatives. – Become involved in wildlife conservation organizations and their programs. – Purchase state and federal wildlife conservation stamps, even if such stamps are not required for hunting.

Invite a young person or a nonhunter next time you go afield to scout or hunt. – Attend a hunter education course, and urge others to do the same. – Set high ethical standards for future generations of hunters to help ensure hunting will continue. Know the limitations of your skills and equipment, and hunt within those limits. – Improve your outdoor skills to become more observant, a better hunter and a better teacher. -Sight-in your firearm and bow, and practice shooting to ensure a clean kill in the field. – Learn more about the habits and habitats of game and nongame wildlife and their management needs.

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Deer Hunting Kills Birds

March 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Managing deer to suit hunters may be the major cause of vanishing songbirds. ‘ We’re talking about vireos, warblers, ovenbirds, all birds who use that bottom five feet’ of forest ecosystem, explained National Zoo wildlife biologist William Macshea as far back as 1992, assessing deer damage to the Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia. ‘These birds are all declining in eastern forests.’….. The impact of deer hunting on habitat isn’t any secret.

Philadelphia-area naturalist Chris McCabe pointed it out last September while showing reporters the deer overpopulation problem at Wissahickon Park, in northeastern Philadelphia…. Conservationists may sometimes finger deer for bird loss, but never deer hunting, perhaps because the National Audubon Society values hunter members, good relations with pro-hunting politicians, and a longstanding political alliance with the National Wildlife Federation, the umbrella for 49 state hunting clubs; because the US Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for maintaining populations of endangered birds, is largely supported by taxes on the sales of hunting equipment; and because state wildlife agencies, with few exceptions, are proportionately even more dependent on the sale of deer permits.

In all honesty, the widespread breaking up of large tracts of forest is one of the major reasons that small nesting birds have had more difficulty with other predatory birds. Large deer populations do have a strong negative effect on many animals, but I doubt that transplanted urbanites such as Wheeler would support the logical extension of that argument and increase deer hunting tremendously. Many of the suburban and urban ARAs such as Wheeler seem to want to have their cake and eat it to.

On the one hand their love for Bambi and Bambi’s friends makes them detest hunters and fight against hunting. On the other hand, they love to quote many of the problems that other animals encounter with heavy overpopulations of deer. The problem in their argument is when they attempt to equate the overpopulation of deer with hunting or game management. I would strongly disagree with this. If anything, their arguments point for the need for the encouragement of more deer hunting by existing hunters and the recruitment of more hunters.

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Dangerous Aspects of Hunting

March 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Different firearms have different ranges. Bird hunters have a very short effective ranges. Even the fall zones are short. Deer hunters are now limited to shotgun slugs in many areas to keep the range down. It is still a good distance but not “miles”. .22 rifles have a maximum range of about 1.5 miles though their effective range is under 200 yards most times. High powered rifles are a totally different story.

Typically regulation controls the size of shot or shell in adjustment to the population densities of the hunting area. This is one of the reasons that bow hunting has become so popular. The zone of potential danger is much smaller. A lethal shot from over a mile a way had to be a high calibre rifle round. Slugs, birdshot and .22s will not go that far with the impact that you described. (This was one of what I was saying previously) Lethal range is one of the reasons rifle hunting on the east coast is being replaced by shotgun slug and archery hunting.

Doesn’t hunting control wildlife populations?

March 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Hunters often assert that their practices benefit their victims. A variation on the theme is their common assertion that their actions keep populations in check so that animals do not die of starvation (“a clean bullet in the brain is preferable to a slow death by starvation). Following are some facts and questions about hunting and “wildlife management” that reveal what is really happening.

Game animals, such as deer, are physiologically adapted to cope with seasonal food shortages. It is the young that bear the brunt of starvation. Among adults, elderly and sick animals also starve. But the hunters do not seek out and kill only these animals at risk of starvation; rather, they seek the strongest and most beautiful animals (for maximum meat or trophy potential).

The hunters thus recruit the forces of natural selection against the species that they claim to be defending.The hunters restrict their activities to only those species that are attractive for their meat or trophy potential. If the hunters were truly concerned with protecting species from starvation, why do they not perform their “service” for the skunk, or the field mouse?