Hunting and Fishing Tips

April 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Hunting and fishing are the considered to be the favorite pass time of Americans. Hunting has been there in existence from many centuries ago. It is the act of pursuing animals commonly from wild life for the purpose of recreation, food, or trade. There are lots of skills required for hunting down animals. Deer hunting is mostly prevalent throughout the world. Some tips regarding deer hunting are discussed below.

 

The key factor for a good deer hunt is to know the weapon you are using. Make sure that you feel comfortable with the weapon you have at hand before going for deer hunting. Shoot it for more than one time at a good shooting range. If you are a beginner you must shoot at least 100 round so that you will become confident to shoot the deer without wasting much time in the forest. Sight your scope. Many of the people forget to do this as a result when they target the animal; all they see is the animal’s rear running away from them.

 

Another important technique for attracting deer is by scenting yourself by scent of a doe deer. This definitely will attract the buck. Mastering this technique will help you get the deer that you want. The key factor involved in this technique is the amount of scent that you pour on yourself. Keep in mind that the bucks have a great sense of smell and too much smell can be an over kill. A little is always the better. If you prefer this technique, learn more about this before setting out for a deer hunting trip.

 

Remember that you are not going to be the only hunter out there in the forest. So make your plan before you go for the hunt. The area that you have chosen might be infested with other hunters. They may spoil the trap that you have already set for the prey. Therefore, always a backup area is recommended. Make sure that you have enough ammo in your equipment.

 

Fishing on the other hand, involves the capture of fish for food cannot be categorized as a form of hunting. There are various techniques used for fishing such as spearing, hand gathering, netting, trapping and angling. There are lots of differences between fishing during the morning and at night. Fishing during the night can be a tough job. There are certain things that have to be kept in mind if you prefer to go for fishing at night.

 

Night fishing can be extremely dangerous and hence it requires additional safety measures to make your task safe and comfortable. The first and foremost safety measure is to include a firmly fitted personal floatation device that has to be mandatorily won by everyone at night. No matter if you are a good swimmer, you should not take any chances. In the worst weather conditions if the boat turns upside down, it will be very difficult to locate people in the dark.  The next thing is to equip the vessel with bow and stern light. Most of the night time accidents occur as a result of boating without lights.

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Hunting and Fishing – Is It Your Favorite Sport?

April 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Hunting is the act of pursuing any living organism for the purpose of food, recreation or trade. Lawful hunting is different from poaching. The former refers to hunting animals that are legally approved, whereas the latter refers to killing, capturing or trapping animals that are contrary to applicable laws. Poaching can also include hunting in illegal areas or killing animals that are endangered and thus ought to be protected.

 

Hunting is also sometimes referred to as game. Trapping is a different terminology altogether and is quite different from hunting. While hunting can involve killing of the animal, trapping may be for other purposes like photography or close observation. The act of hunting has a very early history with the Paleolithic man hunting down his food. Initially, early men used to hunt down herbivores animals and consumed them as food. Later, they began to hunt down large animals and eat them too.

 

With the invention of fire, the flesh of animals were cooked and fried before consuming. This was a mammoth step towards civilization. In fact early men were often termed as hunters because they always hunt down animals for food and the skin of animals were used as clothes to protect them from cold. They also possessed many tools to help them capture animals.

 

This included spears, bows and arrows etc. later; they began taming and domesticating animals. Wild dogs were captured and tamed and were used as pets. Today, hunting and shooting has been regulated by many laws. Many people consider hunting as a recreation and choose places for hunting. Government specifies that only licensed pistols and rifles can be used for hunting. Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish.

 

There are different techniques for catching fish and these include hand gathering, spearing, netting and trapping. Fishing is a term applied to catching aquatic animals. Fishing too, as an activity dates back to the Paleolithic period. Primitive man used fish as a source of food. They also used its bones for paintings and creating small and attractive show pieces for their homes. A traditional method of fishing is by using a fishing hook or a rod. A fishing line is a long pole with a hook in its end.

 

Bait in the form of a small worm or a small fish is often attached to the hook and inserted into the water. This method of fishing requires patience as the fisherman has to wait until a fish gnaws at the bait and then pull the rod up. Today, fishing is done as recreation, livelihood and a commercial activity. Big fishing vessels are involved in large scale fishing.

 

Moreover, fishing industry also involves packing, storing, and canning of different variety of fishes. Big game fishing involves catching large and heavy fishes like sharks, and marlins. Fishing as a recreation is pursued by people more for pleasure and competitions. Such people often register with recreational fishing groups and fish in remote areas of the sea. There are many regulations that govern the activities of such groups.

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Dangers of Hog Hunting

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Outdoor Life receives information about injured hunters for their “This Happened To Me” series. Over the years, bears are #1, deer, elk, moose are #2, and pigs and mountain lions tie for #3 in terms of frequency of injured hunters. There are far fewer pig hunters than deer/elk/moose hunters, so I suspect the % of hunters injured by their quarry is far higher for the pig hunters. This year alone in Colorado at least 3 hunters were injured by bears.

 

A few years back a friend of mine was attacked ny an elk while bow hunting. He was able to kill the elk before getting seriously hurt, although it was close. Your statement that you’re “a hunter that realizes what a fallacy this dangerous hunting shit is” indicates a high level of ignorance of the facts. We raised pigs, both sets of grandparents raised pigs, my father-in-law raised pigs, and everybody else around us raised pigs. Several of the farmers and more than one dog was injured by them. Trust me, I know a bunch about pigs.

 

Have shot several domestics with a 16 gauge shotgun at extreme close range (5 feet or less, muzzle to pig). One of them, after being shot right between the eyes, still nearly took my buddy’s leg off. This whole thread, which you responded to, was about a pig hunter who lost an ear, a testicle and, IIRC, other body parts. Ask him if pig hunting is dangerous. Dad just sent me an article out of Forbes, about boar hunting in Hungary (“High on the Hog”, pages 78-83, don’t know the issue except that it is recent). The article quotes the guide talking about how dangerous boar hunting can be.

 

The family of one of my co-workers owns a vineyard in California. They allow guided pig hunting and the guides lose dogs on an all to frequent basis. For you to suggest pig hunting isn’t dangerous is like suggesting hunting Cape Buffalo isn’t dangerous. Not every Cape Buffalo hunter is killed or injured, but anyone with an open mind knows hunting Cape Buffalo can be quite dangerous. Same with pigs. Both animals can and do injure quite a few hunters. BTW, the difference between a domestic pig and a feral pig is often only the fence that separates them.,

 

I’ve seen many, many hog hunting shots on the various hunting TV shows. Enough to know that the danger of hunting hogs is a part of what makes it so much fun. If they were out snipping the pigs at 300 yards, it might still be fun, but it certainly would not be like any hog hunting *I’ve* ever seen or heard about. The *vast* majority of hog hunters I know do so on the ground at short range (either with a handgun or bow). Yet others do it by “pig sticking”, ie. using a knife or spear. Perhaps you think that doing this is not “responsible”? (note: answer this question carefully)

 

In another message, your argument seems to stem from the definition of the word “dangerous”. Is hog hunting a life-threatening type of danger (ala hunting for cape buffalo)? Almost never. Can it be the type of danger that can cause physical harm, even to the point of being serious? From what I’ve seen, certainly. Thus to deny that hunting hogs is not dangerous is more than just simple ignorance (defined: missing some facts); it is foolish (defined: ignoring known facts).

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What age to introduce hunting?

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Taking kids hunting is a great thing, but thats how you should look at it: “I’m taking junior hunting”, not “Junior is going hunting with me.” They set the pace, and when they wanna go home, go home. If you head to the field with the expectation that you are going to have a typical day’s hunting, you are going to have a bad attitude and a budding anti on the way home. I taught my son how to shoot at the age of four (air rifle) and took him deer hunting at six, him with his own .357mag carbine with custom stock. The day he really first totaly enjoyed hunting, all day, no complaints, no wanting to go home, he was nine and we were squirrel hunting.

 

We both got the limit, and he shot about 200 rounds of 22′s and we had a real ball, laughing and cutting up while we hunted. We were at the Jeep, cleaning the tree rats when he looked up at me with a bit of blood on his cheek and said : Dad, it doesn’t get any better than this . Well that was 14 years ago and when I think of it ,I get this good felling inside of that day. He has never been in trouble and I believe its because of that one day, when he truly feel in love with hunting. Now he makes a good living in the hunting industry and hunting is only second to his wife (who Hunts with him) and his step child.

 

I’ll never regret teaching him when he was very young about the hunting sport. Last year my 4 year old daughter wanted very much to go deer hunting with me. I tried to explain that we (my cousin and I) hunted all day and she might get cold and very tired. She was not easily dissauded – in fact she would not be talked out of it – not no way – not no how. Fact is she asked Grandma if she would watch her “’cause Dad says I can go hunting for a couple hours but all day would be too cold and too tired for me.” So Opening Day was cool, windy and generally unpleasant and she stayed in with Grandma all day (we did not see a single deer anyway which is way depressing on Opening Day).

 

The next morning my cousin and I went out early again whilst she slept in a bit. After seeing some deer I went back up to get her and thus fulfill my promise to let her come hunting with me for a couple hours (so she would not get too cold nor too tired). She was so very happy and excited she could not keep from asking a jillion questions despite my prior instructions to be perfectly quiet when we got close to the woods and in the woods. Inside of a half hour on stand (sitting up but snuggled down inside a sleeping bag to keep warm) she got to witness my cousin and I both fill our anterless tags inside of a minute of each other. She loved it and remains excited about hunting.

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Which Choke Tubes to Use for Duck Hunting?

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This will be my first duck hunt with interchangable choke tubes (used to have a Remmington 870 Express). I have upgraded to a Benelli M1 Super 90, 28″ barrell with several choke tubes. The hunting situation will be as follows: 35 yards maximum distance between the ducks and my gun, and no-lead shot is required.

 

Also is there a recommended size shot (ex. BB, T’s, 2, 4, etc.) with this gun that anyone might know of? I hunt in Southern Michigan FWIW. I would definitely use your modified choke. I assume that you are hunting over decoys and you will get a great shot which will call for a pattern that will not put too many bbs in the meat but will drop the bird. I always use modified and have never had any trouble. It might be a different situation if you have passing shots at a greater length.

 

Just make sure that you wait long enough for the ducks to cup in to your decoy spread. Steel shot patterns much tighter then lead so I like to use improved- cylnder for ducks and modified for geese. I use 1 & 1/4 oz. of 2′s or 1 & 3/8 oz. of 1′s for ducks. T’s only have about 56 pellets per shell which is way too few for ducks IMHO. I don’t even like them for geese because too often you only put 1 or 2 pellets in the bird and it flies off to die somewhere.

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Things to Consider While Renting Hunting Land and Equipment

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Anyone who is so poor a h unter he has to resort to baiting ought to just go buy a sheep and shoot it in the backyard. Better tie it to a tree first. I have been reading all this stuff about Texas land leasing and I have a question- Does the state of Texas give any incentive to land owners to allow people to hunt? Here in Wyoming the state pays land owners for each animal taken from their property. The state applies some pressure on land owners if they are filing large property damages and not letting people hunt by limiting the damage claims that they can file for.

 

Also find it interesting how this topic works in other parts of the country. Here where there is alot of public land (1/2 the state, about the size of NY state) there is quite a bit of leased land. But most of this is by private out of state clubs. I personally don’t know of anyone who has paid to hunt as most of the hunting I do is on public lands, but I have hunted on private land and have not paided anything.

 

One thing though is that land owners will charge out of state hunters a “trespass” fee, but when they see that you are a resident (see the bucking bronco on the licence plate) they will let you on their land for free, (just make sure that you give them your land owners tag which they can turn into the state for money). I guess this happens because there is only 450,000 people in the state and as a result everyone knows everyone else to some extent- “do you know so and so?” or “shoot the bull” about whats going on in the state. So how do I feel about land leases for hunting? I personally wouldn’t do it, but then again I have options.

 

What if I lived in (gulp) Texas, (no flames, just a little humor) well I guess I would do what is normal there to do, and if I didn’t like the quality of the hunt experience I would probably quit. I wouldn’t blame the land owner, I feel that if you own the land you should be able to control who is on it for whatever reason.I have been reading about lease hunting and am reminded of one farmer I know. In the lease for agricultural land it is spelled out in writing that “neither the land owner nor the tenant shall give permission for hunting nor shall either part permit any hunting to occur”.

 

Furthermore the state game officer has seen the lease and knows this restriction will be enforced by both the landowner and tenant. The land incidentally is rolling pasture, woodland, and general cropland and is 1/4 mile from a state park. I have seen as many as many as 16 deer jump the fence in a group. What are the reasons for this restriction; fear of liability should a hunter hurt him or herself, damage done by inept hunters, value of the registered cattle, and general poor attitude of hunters with respect to landowner’s right.

 

The landowner has said that hunting will be allowed when the deer do more damage than the trespassing hunters have done. The latest incident involved a neighbor who was first seen climbing on top of large round bales (it breaks the thatch and allows water in to spoil the bales) and jumping from one bale to another with a loaded shotgun. Twenty feet from him was the herd of registered cattle. He was talked to and said he was chasing a deer he had shot on land he had permission to hunt. He was ordered off the bales and off the property (this was via a hunting partner with a radio).

 

The deer had been seen by the landowner in binoculars. The deer was unable to jump fences because of the wounds and the deer was two fields away from the land he claimed he was hunting. Only because it was a neighbor prevented the game warden from being called. The trespassers was ordered off the land. Another hunter in the area (in his 70′s with arthritis) who had not gotten his deer yet was called and euthanized the deer. He was the one who tagged the deer and kept the meat. The landowner was offered some meat but was so angry about the whole situation that refused any. What does lease hunting do.

 

Does it provide written records of who has permission to hunt the land for game officers? Does it lay out standards of behavior and liability of the parties ? Does it provide some compensation to the landowner for the hassles of hunters and lost cropland being preserved for gameland ? Does it make up for the hassles of the landowner for having to own blaze orange clothing even if they do no hunting nor allow any. Remember the landowner is the one who pays the taxes on the land. On the question of who does the game belong to once it jumps the fence, I’ve seen that landowner order people off the land who were unarmed but were just across the fence from people hunting adjacent land. The game belongs to whatever land it is on at the time and not to the landowner. However the landowner owns the land and he can restrict access in any way the landowner desires including total barring.

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Hunting as an elitist tradition

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In most of Europe, hunting has an elitist tradition. (No offense to European hunters, but the fact remains that the non-affluent population has virtually no chance of hunting as a frequent pastime, right?) Also in Europe, firearms ownership is generally a privilege extended by the State to the individual at the State’s discretion. I have also noted anecdotally that animal rights activists have enjoyed more success against hunting in Europe than in America.

 

I believe there is a common thread here, and I’ll even go out on a limb and suggest that there is _causality_ here. First, hunting is limited to a select group of people, the upper classes. Next, draconian gun control comes along to limit the access of the lower and middle class to firearms, to some extent under the guise of: “The only legitimate use of firearms is hunting and God knows the unwashed masses can’t do that anyway.” (Is this starting to sound familiar to anyone?)

 

Finally, with the politically insignificant hunter constituency hoisted by its own petard, the AR people come along and start on the death blows. Viola, hunting as a sport is endangered in Europe. Our European friend, Mr. Spencer, has posted to this effect in this forum before, if I’m not mistaken. America’s hunting tradition is egalitarian. The gun and the hunting license are available to all, under the management of the State but seldom at its discretion.

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Lease Hunting

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the most reprehensible and repressive things about hunting in Texas is the concept of “lease hunting,” which fosters the idea that the landowner owns the game. Game is the property of the state, and it belongs to those who pay for it, i.e., the people who buy hunting licenses. It’s a landowner’s prerogative to allow whom he likes to hunt on his property, but to permit him to charge a fee for someone to shoot native game species is nothing short of legalized theft from taxpayers and hunters.

 

It should be illegal. In most places in the East, where there is public hunting land, the concept of hunting leases is completely unheard of, and landowners do not charge hunters anything at all. The peculiar situation of Texas in having virtually no public land at all has led to a system that is corrupt, exploitative, and abusive of the rights of the majority to have access to what they pay for in taxes and license fees. It should be abolished and prevented from occurring anywhere else. These comments don’t apply to exotic species, which (like beef cattle) are raised for profit.

 

The argument that the landowner is “charging rent for the use of his property” is specious; if the game weren’t there, no one would be interested in using the property. Furthermore, this system leads to interference with proper game management. It was well into the mid-1980′s (about 1985-86, I think) before the Game Department in Texas had the authority to regulate hunting in all counties; prior to that time “statutory counties” were subject to regulation by the Board of Supervisors, most of whom were landowners with a financial stake in the selling of public property, i.e., game. This led to mismanagement on a grand scale, and the deterioration of game populations.

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High power hunting rifle bullets

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I believe that more deer are killed under 100 yards than over 100 yards in most parts of the country. This falls right into the effective range of most 12 gauge slugs and .50 caliber muzzleloaders. It’s a safety factor. Many hunting areas have too many people or buildings close by. High power rifle bullets travel too far and constitute a hazard. Shotgun slugs, muzzleloader bullets and arrows can all make a VERY clean kill if the shooter has the skill that he is expected to have before going hunting.

 

As a lifelong Virginian, the division between rifle couties and shotgun only counties has been a given since I started hunting. To the poster who alluded to the shotgun only county regulation as “alarmist” — this couldn’t be further from the truth. It has to do with topography and foliage density. In parts of Eastern VA the land is very flat, coastal plain and in the tidal marshes of the dismal swamp area, you wouln’t ever need a rifle as much as you’re in shotgun range.

 

There is also a great deal of smaller scale agriculture and more densely populated counties toward the East — it’s still permissible to hunt in those counties and the rifle prohibition makes it a safer and sounder option for hunters, farmers and everyone. There is also the Eastern tradition of drive hunting deer with dogs which seems to be more of a shotgun oriented pursuit. While it is an inconvenience and I don’t agree that as clean a kill can be made with a scattergun, it is far preferrable than a stray bullet

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Hunting Opportunity in Tidewater Area

April 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Memberships are available in a hunt club S.E. of Tappahannock in the tidewater country. Club is has a state D-Map program, and a very good relationship with the game and fish dept. Generous doe season, nice bucks too. Hunter success rate last year was 75%. Hunt on 3200 acres, whitetail, turkey, fox and small game. Land has thick pine stands, hardwood stands low hills and valleys with a few wetland areas.

 

Good roads, very nice clubhouse with full cooking facilities, sleeping dorm and full-shower bathroom. Shotguns, muzzle loaders and bow hunting allowed for big game. Can use .22s for small game. No centerfire rifles allowed in county, except for groundhogs in spring/summer. Weekend deer hunts feature drives with dogs. Meat is shared and no one who wants meat goes home empty-handed. Still hunting during weekdays and in the “still hunt” zone on weekends.

 

Friendly members, excellent safety record. Membership fee is $500. No initiation fee. Ten mandatory work hours per year and one day of dog care per year (can be waived for individuals who wish to pay additional fee). Many areas of the country are too populated to allow a longer traveling centerfire rifle cartridge to be safely used. The southern part of Wisconsin is like that as well, shotgun/muzzleloader only, but the hunting can be spectacular. If you know and understand the limitations of a shotgun slug or muzzleloader projectile, there’s no reason in the world why you cannot make a clean kill on a deer with either weapon.

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