I have done it wrong all of these years.

Lol, I also enjoy stalking, but here in TN with our oak leaf covered woods, it's rarely practical without damp conditions. You'll learn what a stand or blind is if you hunt here very often.

 

I dunno about the ground being better for dressing out...I kinda like using the tractor.





I always thought quiet was better, so I hike a ways to get to my stands. Maybe in a couple more years I'll be looking for an electric bike. While I don't cammo my face, when it's cold I often wear a facemask while in the stand and I've yet to see it have a negative effect on deer. There's also a shooting tripod on my pack that I use frequently, it really comes in handy for the longer shots we sometimes encounter in western KS. I also carry it for every coyote hunt.

 

I think, that with a “, so called, “ hunter, one who quite possibly has only fired a very few rounds through his/her rifle, using anything that helps them put the game down as quickly & humanely as possible, may actually be the epitome of respect for the animal.

I do agree wholeheartedly that intentionally gut shooting a hog (or any other animal) doesn’t help any hunter’s public image. That is, the epitome of disrespect, for the animal.

Sam

 

What I see some of y'all are missing is that the reason most of those hunting TV shows are getting made is that those hunters are being sponsored by the products that they are demoing in the field. I haven't watching too many in the last couple of years, but I don't think I have ever heard folks say you are doing it wrong if you don't use this product or that product, though often I have heard/seen it stated or implied that you are missing out of supposed huge advantages if you don't use said products.

What I found particularly interesting is how the tv hunter will proclaim a product to be amazing and super beneficial to hunter success and yet as soon as that hunter is no longer being sponsored by that brand, the hunter apparently no longer needs all that super beneficial help that was being provided by that brand/product. About 10 years ago, I was looking for new boots and was watching hunting vids and this deer hunter was talking about these great boots he just got from XYZ Brand. He talked about how comfortable they were in warm, cold, and wet weather. I watched a bunch of his videos and noticed he didn't always wear these great new boots. He often wore this other pair that had a noticeable stain on the left boot. Well, those were his preferred hunting boots. He was wearing them before he got sponsored by XYZ Brand boot company and when XYZ Brand stopped sponsoring him, he went back to his old, stained boots...which led me to believe that maybe XYZ Brand boots weren't really all that great, LOL. They certainly weren't better, in his unsponsored opinion, than the boots he had found previously.

So when you watch these shows. If a person gets sponsored with a given product and the sponsorship stops, but the sponsorship isn't replaced with a new product, see if the person continues to use the previously sponsored product or not. If so, maybe it is a decent product. If not, then maybe it really isn't all that great after all.

It is always interesting and sometimes amusing to learn people's values and how if you aren't hunting the way they think you should be hunting with the gear they think you should be hunting with, for the reasons they think you should be hunting, and behaving in a way that they think you should be hunting (or any subset or combination thereof), you aren't doing it right and you aren't really a hunter.

I think SHOOT1SAM may be right in that a lot of hunters are hunting in the manner described because they need all the help they can get. They may be inexperienced or have other physical issues.

Captcurt, I see where you use a rifle, scope, blind, chair and shooting sticks while sitting over a feeder as well. Does that make you a "so-called hunter" as well? I am not sure where you are drawing the line. Was it the lead sled? Was it the obvious inexperience (buck fever trigger yank or rested barrel)? Or, was it the post kill relief and excitement that disqualified the person from being a "real hunter?"

I will be honest with you. I can't don't like the whooping and hollering either. I usually find it annoying, but I can't see how that possible somehow demotes a person from consideration of being a hunter.

 

I sometimes use a rifle with a scope, a pistol with and without scope, and compound bow. Thinking very seriously of getting another recurve. I don't own shooting sticks, I use blinds, ladderstands and climbers and when the landowner wants does thinned I use a feeder. Usually I know which deer I am needing to take out before season with 4 or 5 cameras out. Just glad that I learned to hunt in the good old days before it was legal to bait. We scouted, found trails and scrapes and actually hunted the deer. Now when the deer leave the fields and the acorns fall I can still find them. The "so-called hunters" that I was referring to are ones who pay $10,000 to sit in a blind over a feeder and shoot a monster buck that they have had no interaction with. Relying completely on the landowner or guide.

 

I’m a big

“leather Personnel carrier” “gut where it falls” “my grandad used to hunt in blue jeans and a flannel so do I really need to care about Camo?”

sorta guy.

 

I have a friend who is a videographer for some of these TV shows. What you see 90% of the time on 90% of the shows, is not the actual “hunt”. If you pay attention at all, you can usually pick up in this.

I remember a few years ago watching a VERY prominent TV hunter. During the show, he got “busted” by a deer. Claimed it winded him. Unfortunately, his editing crew screwed up and showed the deer standing there, blowing, and running away. But they also showed the shadow of a person’s two arms making a big waving action like they were signaling a plane from a desert island. Never watched that show again.

Something interesting that I found out a few years ago was going for a walk when the leaves had fallen. If you aren’t hunting a high pressure area, the deer don’t really run away. If you think about it, it makes sense. Their predators stalk them and then chase when or pounce when they get closer. Like us sneaking through the woods. But if you make a lot of noise, the deer don’t tend to get spooked as easily. They know you’re there. They can hear you. They can see you. You aren’t trying to hide. I killed a nice buck 2 years ago doing this exact thing.

If you’re putting deer on the ground, you ain’t doin it wrong.

 

Some of you old farts need to realize that deer and birds have got a lot, lot tougher over the last 50 years. I started hunting deer 50 years ago with a Brno .243 topped with a Zeiss Jena (old East German) 4x scope with the German #1 post and rail reticule. A lot of deer fell to that rifle scope combination including some very big fallow bucks. Now you need a super fast wiz bang round and a huge all singing all dancing scope that is capable of shooting deer into the next county.
I used to shoot a lot of wood pigeons and used 1oz Eley Impax cartridges. Now you need supersonic 3" magnums to have any chance at all.
Don't get me started on all the specialist gear people need to reload a bit of hunting ammo .
Celebrity hunters. .
So many hunters with, all the gear and no idea.

 

Me too....Steve gets it right.

 

Meh.

Kinda like watching fishing shows.

I love me some fishing, but can't stand to watch fishing shows. Too much talking, and too much of that covering inconsequentials. And everybody knows the shows are edited from endless hours of fishing (and not fishing, like boating from place to place in between shots) to produce a half hour episode (plus commercials) that makes it look like they're doing nothing but hauling fish in hand over fist.

If you don't want deer to know you're there, then the biggest thing you can do is keep your mouth shut and quit moving around so much. Deer only have about 20/100 vision anyway.

 

That's what I thought. But then I realized that it was just me that got a lot less tough over the last 50 years.

 

When I first started turkey hunting back in the 90's the old timer that owned the property had already been killing turkeys for years with a .410 single shot.
He failed to realize that he needed a Turkey specific, camo'd out, 12 gauge with $5 per shell 3.5 inch Magnum Turkey loads and a super duper Bearded Gobbler choke tube. Lol

 

I'm sure the electric bike would be nice, but I could never get to my stand unless it floats through the 3-12" of water and easily goes over wind fall trees. I will continue to walk to my stands, blinds, or natural cover I use while hunting. I don't paint my face, but I do make sure I don't smell like I just left a tavern.

Field dressing is different from state to state. I have hunted in WI, IL, IA, SD, & SC.
SC is the only state that I have hunted that doesn't allow field dressing in the woods. I have always gutted deer where they fell (or close to it).

 

Rosy retrospection is a beautiful thing as in the concept of 'need.'

Some are y'all are talking about what you need and don't and referencing gear from 50 years ago like it was primitive or something. Some of the stuff you are talking about would have been what my father would have considered highfalutin fancy store bought stuff like those fancy plaid jackets y'all keep talking about. Why would you need that when your mama or Nana could sew together worn out scraps from hand-me-downs into a quilted jacket? Even 50 years ago, most of the hunters were using fancy motorized conveyances to go hunt. Not my pop in east Texas during the Depression and early years of WWII. He went on foot or he took the family horse if his father hadn't taken it to town. He shot plenty of deer, rabbits, raccoons, and 'possums with his .22. He was expected to bring home meat. If he got a deer, it wasn't necessarily the only deer he shot, but he did the best he could. However many miles he may have walked out to go hunt would be the same amount he would walk back with his kill(s) and if he got a deer, he would walk back home to get the horse or borrow the neighbor's horse, grab a lantern, and go back to find his deer, load it up on the horse if it was small or drag it with the horse back to the house. If the horse was borrowed, then the neighbor got a cut of the venison.

So, does anybody 'need' any of this fancy stuff we have today? Naw. But even my father had to use store bought ammo in his .22. His grand dad in Mississippi didn't have that sort of luxury, but he didn't die of starvation, either.

Selective putting down of hunters for taking advantage of what is available to them today under the guise of 'need' is just plain silly. Anybody making such a complaint is just as guilty of the same transgressions. Now, if you are hiking out to your hunting area and stripping down to a loin cloth and running down deer and killing with your bare hands, then you have got some room to argue about people with their fancy gear and the concept of need, but that better not be no store bought loin cloth.

 

You would never get that thing close to many of the places that I hunt. I can't get my little Yamaha Bear Tracker to most of them. Not sure that a mule would help.

 

Agree, it's strictly for my backyard hunts. But due to our terrain/woods, it's usually a short drag if at all to get them to where a tractor or UTV can pick them up. Cool part about being in a predominately AG area.

When hunting the WIHAs (walk in hunting areas) I dress on the spot or close to it and use a game cart to get them out.

 

I’d rather not spend 3 days in ICU after getting my ass kicked by the deer, then another 3 in the psych ward for being crazy, and get ticketed for no license.

Your points are valid. But so much of what is pushed today are just gimmicks. And some of it is designed to make “hunters” simply “harvesters”.

If you hunt to for sustenance, or a living like @caribou does, then (almost) all bets are off in my opinion. I consider myself a semi-privileged hunter. But because I am a hunter first, I’m a more successful harvester. But no blinds, electronic optics (though I would use them for hog eradication at night), motorized buggies, crossbows, scent elimination products, fancy camo, or the like. And you will never catch me on a horse. Horses have brains. I prefer my brain to be the one making the decisions.

My primary hunting rifle is ~60 years old. My bow is newer but it’s the first new bow I ever bought. A 2005 Matthews. The $10 garage sale Browning I bought split a limb. And I have a recurve. My hunting knife was my grandfather’s old 3 blade Camillus. I’ve sat in a tree when it was 20 degrees outside with a 15mph wind. I’ve dragged deer for miles through the hills. I did it this year though it was with a dolly. I have done it by hand. I am a hunter because I put the time in to learn to get close. I didn’t buy my success. But I’m no caribou. And I know it.

 

If you don't buy a license, that is on you, LOL.

 

You and me both. I'm not the young man I used to be .

 

In Ohio, we have to use orange paint on our faces.

 

Nope. SC does allow field dressing. You just can't leave the entrails on the ground (or throw them into the water). That could get you a littering citation. Burying them (2 to 3 feet deep) or dumping at the local land fill (provided they accept animal carcasses) is perfectly acceptable.

https://www.dnr.sc.gov/news/2017/oct/oct6_deer.html#:~:text=Sportsmen%20hunting%20on%20Wildlife%20Management,in%20a%20citation%20for%20littering.