After over 44 years of active hunting, life looks a lot less complicated:

I love to hunt, the outdoors, spotting, tracking, stalking (my favorite), around the fire at night with the sore bones & muscles from the day's exertions, digging out a thorn I hadn't felt, recapping the day and planning the next, laughing over the inevitable screwups by myself, a tracker or even the PH...

Yeah, I got it bad...

But I don't love the killing. I love the effort to get close and place that first shot for a quick end to it all.

I enjoy being close finally close to the animal itself (well most of them...one Texas heart shot baboon my son shot comes to mind!), the congrats by the crew, a well prepared picture and most of all, I enjoy the dinner that night knowing I helped in some small way to provide the camp with a great tenderloin or steak.

Taking a life isn't a small matter for my mind and heart to dismiss easily. I just hope it never will be...

But, man, do I love to hunt!
Any thoughts?

I think the signature of my post sums it up rather well!

Trade in your gun for a camera. It requires the same skills and you aviod the kill. It's also a LOT cheaper as there are no trophy fees and daily fees are cheaper as well.

When I do it cleanly, I actually like the kill the best. Killing is the reason I hunt. Otherwise a nature walk and photos would serve the same purpose.

Killing an animal is the culmination of a hunt and provides the emotional, psychological and physical reaction I seek from hunting. I love all the comraderie, camp life, exercise and being outdoors that goes with hunting and even trips that don't result in a killing shot are fun. However, my ultimate satisfaction comes from the kill. Without the kill I never experiance the same satisfaction from the effort and feel I have failed a bit. I am a predator and kill game animals and varmints for food and/or fun without remorse. In the same manner as any other predator on the planet. I thank the Lord for blessing me with that feeling and the opportunity to pursue my passion each time I hunt.

Although not as extreme as it once was, I have not lost my blood lust in 38 year of exercising dominion over God's creatures as proof by the small elation I felt this moring when I killed a squirrel raiding my pecan tree. If I lose that predatory spirit I will quit hunting and take up photography.

Perry

RHSim, I know exactly how you feel. I also love hunting, but am saddened by the kill. My favourite part is finding a suitable spot, camoflaging myself, and sitting as still as I can for as long as I can. I have a sense of sinking into my surroundings, and it becomes a time for personal reflection and meditation. Make no mistake, if a shot presents itself, I take it, but it isn't my favourite part.

I'm also a photographer, and practise wildlife photography in the off season, but it's not hunting. To paraphrase Oretega y Gasset, "the hunter must kill to have hunted"

No matter how harsh the kill may be in hunting, it doesn't hold a candle to what happens in a slaughter house, and we all participate in that.

Maybe I will give up hunting someday, but not today!

RHSim, I suggest you join the Sierra Club and take up bird-watching.

I agree with PWN375. Killing is the point, everything else secondary.

shakari,

I like the native american approach: acknowledging that a sacrifice has been made, respecting the life that was taken and enjoying the spoils.

Predators like lions & wolves prefer to hunt in groups (prides/packs). We as humans, at least in Africa, by law, do the same with our PH, trackers, and the client. It's a team effort to put us as hunters in position to make the kill.

Leopards enjoy the solitary bloodlust. Real killing machines.

I do enjoy studying the effect of my shot(s), for placement, damage and how the prey animal reacted once I make the shot. It's an ongoing learning process to make the perfect shot. Killing is only a small part of the reward for the effort in th process of hunting.

That makes two of us....... a friend of mine always apologises to the animal for taking his life which is kinda nice....

I'm also very keen to see what happened to the bullet, where it went and what it did - also very interested in any other bullets or projectiles that might get found. A couple of times my skinners have found old musket balls lodged in various parts of animals.... mostly in Buff.

PWN375 & interboat,

If killing is the only satisfaction you get, then it is my opinion that you both are missing the whole process of hunting: Planning, travel, handloading, load testing, practice, arrival in camp, spotting, stalking, that rush of excitement right before the shot, even the chase if the first shot wasn't on the mark. The kill is the climax to all the effort, the last moment in a most times long effort. Killing isn't all there is to this greatest of all challenges. Best way to explain it: I love the process of hunting and enjoy a quick kill. I get a great deal of satisfaction from killing as efficiently as possible.

What's that line in the movie "Chill Factor": "I'm a professional and this won't hurt a bit...I'm an amatuer, and this is going to hurt like hell!".

Rick

I can't say that I enjoy the actual killing and have often felt saddened when approaching a kill but it seems that the whole experience would not be the same had I only gotten close enough for a good photo. I quess what I do now is only kill sparringly when I find something I really want. The blood lust of my youth seems to have disappeared with age or maybe maturity.

Mark

shakari/Mark,

Maybe I'm more of a romantic than I realised, the effort of conquest is very satisfying once the goal has been accomplished.

Acknowledging the death is what seperates us from the savages and uncivilized. Same in war...let the other soldier die for his country, but acknowledge the death and move on...

RHS,

Your feelings about hunting and killing are not wrong and mine are not right...they are merely how two different men enjoy their sport. My position and feelings do not make me morally superior to you, nor do your's make you superior to me. I have deer hunted with men who have not killed a deer in over 20 years. Even if they are crappy hunters you gotta figure in that length of time they would get one chance. Therefore, they must be passing on killing shots and just enjoying the hunt as they wish. Their reluctance to kill doesn't mean THEY should stop hunting and I hope they don't as I have always enjoyed their company. I hope all of us continue to hunt however and whyever we wish so we can keep the tradition and privilege alive.

Perry

PWN375,

Well put and agreed!

I guess as I have matured, the kill has become less important, although I do remember very well in my youth judging my hunting success by how many and what I killed. Most times it was the more the better. But like I mentioned when I started this thread, after 44 years on the hunt, the kill has taken a back seat to the effort involved, which for hunting Africa, is a hell of an effort for more than just me. I see the PH's as the real hunters, for the most part, most of these guys (and a few gals) really know what they are doing...although I don't necessarily like having to follow their lead all the time.

And I can relate well to having friends who seem to go year after year without success, but seem to have a hell of a good time...

Mark,

Maybe this maturity thing has a lot to do with it...one of my favorite lines used to be: "I can be just as immature as the next guy." and mean it!

Thanks again for your insight and planning for the buff/leopard/PG hunt my son & I are trying to put together...Ill keep in touch as the process moves forward.

Talk about wanting something, taking that Limpopo Bushbuck this last trip was my biggest thrill to date...every time I look at that mount I relive that hunt over and over again...one quick offhand shot with my favorite rifle and then the 5 or so minutes of high anxiety before we found him dead in some thick ground cover about 50 ft. away, gotta love those trackers!

PWN375,

I also agree. I can't demand that a man look at things the same way I do.

That said I also believe that RHSim's outlook is common if not universal. Evidence left behind by primitive man confirms that animals were revered as much more than mere sources of meat. Whenever I take the life of an animal I also have a bittersweeet sensation. It is the mark of a successful hunt, and for that I am happy, but I also am fully aware that I have taken a life.

To clarify, I went back and reread my original post. It was not my intent to make this a moral issue! Pictures are great, as long as it is someone else taking them...

Give me a break guys! Today is my birthday (52nd) and I'm just having a moment of reflection here...

Here's hoping we all have a lot more years and means to enjoy the hunting of animals we dream of and make quick kills!

This a good post.
Is very strange but I must admit that from a time to now I am enjoying A LOT watching animals running around, specially deers. Don't misunderstand me, I love to hunt them, but since I own a property I spent long days in the field watching and learning....a doe..has transform from a simple "thing" into a very valuable animal, trophies the same, nearly any animal needs at least 7 years to became a trophy, that's a lot of time, so I believe they deserve to be hunted the right way and not just shot.

BTW, as soon as I can I will buy a good camera for take pictures to birds, every day I enjoy more and more birdwatching, specially those rare little birds that live in the thick bushes...I'm becoming a little "soft" with the years??

L

While I do enjoy the kill, I do feel remorse. I do thank God for the animal that I killed. If it is a moose, sheep, or caribou, I surely am thankful for all the healthy meat that has been provided. I now enjoy more than ever, having someone else with me that can make the shot and kill. It is becoming more of a joy to be a "part" of the kill for me. I still enjoy pulling the trigger, but as long as I am with the person that does, I feel just as much part of it. Just being out and in touch with nature is the most important aspect to me.

One of the rewards of hunting is being able to feast on the meat afterwards, and that can't happen without the kill. I derive great satisfaction from engaging fully in the process from field to table: preparation, planning, hunting, shooting, tracking (if needed), field dressing, butchering, cooking, and eating.

I don't think I've got the saying exactly right: but "you don't hunt to kill; you kill because you've hunted." Something along those lines.

Cable 68:

The quote that you are looking fro is from the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega Y Gasset, and it is a sentiment that I agree 100-percent with.

"One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.

If one were to present the sportsman with the death of the animal as a gift he would refuse it. What he is after is having to win it, to conquer the surly brute through his own effort and skill with all the extras that this carries with it: the immersion in the countryside, the healthfulness of the exercise, the distraction from his job.

In all of this, the moral problem of hunting has not been resolved. We have not reached ethical perfection in hunting. One never achieves perfection in anything, and perhaps it exists precisely so that one can never achieve it. Its purpose is to orient our conduct and to allow us to measure the progress accomplished. In this sense, the advancement achieved in the ethics of hunting is undeniable. Therefore it is necessary to oppose photographic hunting, which is not progress but rather a digression and a prudery of hideous moral style.

Every authentic refinement must leave intact the authenticity of the hunt, its essential structure, which is a matter of a confrontation between two unequal species. The real care that man must exercise is not in pretending to make the beast equal to him, because that is a stupid utopian, beatific farce, but rather in avoiding more and more the excess of his superiority. Hunting is the free play of an inferior species in the face of a superior species. That is where one must make some refinement. Man must give the animal a "handicap," in order to place him as close as possible to his own level. The essence of sportive hunting is not raising the animal to the level of man, but something much more spiritual than that: a conscious and almost religious humbling of man which limits his superiority and lowers him toward the animal.

I have said "religious," and the word does not seem excessive to me. A fascinating mystery of nature is manifested in the universal fact of hunting: the inexorable hierarchy among living beings. Every animal is in a relationship of superiority or inferiority with regard to every other. Strict equality is exceedingly improbable and anomalous.

Life is a terrible conflict, a grandiose and atrocious confluence. Hunting submerges man deliberately in that formidable mystery and therefore contains something of religious rite and emotion in which homage is paid to what is divine, transcendent, in the laws of nature."

From Meditations on Hunting by José Ortega y Gasset

Man, I thought I was being reflective...this guy is way out there. From what I can grasp of this it makes good sense.

RHSim:

Happy Birthday! I'm with you. I've been hunting for over thirty years, since I was 12, and have also begun to dislike the actual killing. I bow hunt several months of the year, and usually spend 20-30 days a year hunting with a firearm of some sort on my hands. I love the planning, the anticipation, the training for high-altitude hunting, the comeraderie of camp (when I'm not hunting alone, as I usually do). I love the skinning, the cutting and wrapping and then eating the meat all the rest of the year. But the actual causing-death part is something that in the last few years I have begun to view as a necessary but unpleasant part of the hunt. When the death is quick, it doesn't bother me as much, but the sight of an accidentally spine-shot deer trying to crawl away on it's front legs, the sound of it's bawling, turns my stomach. I do my level best to avoid situations that might result in a bad hit, and pass up many marginal shots as a result. I have sons and nephews whose hunting education is my responsibility and try to impress on them that it is irresponsible for a hunter to not do his best to aim straight and kill quickly.

RHSiM, don't worry about the flames. I too still have a feeling of regret when I stand over a fallen animal. It makes me more driven to make sure that it does not go to waste. The animals we hunt are beautiful. I am not sure I would have that feeling of regret standing over a hyena, for example! If you read the posts in the Hunting reports forum, plenty of people report this feeling.
Peter.

I am in my late 60's. I have had a firearm since age 5 and to date I have never lost the blood lust...I just love to pull the trigger period.
Now having said that....in 99% of the cases I would be just as happy when the photos were over and the antlers / horns removed that the critter would just get back up and run off again.
In Africa etc. I eat what we kill and enjoy it but...I have never enjoyed the gutting, skinning, prep of the meat etc. etc.
I want to shoot it! I want to watch it drop dead! If it is an important animal then I want photos etc. Once done...get up and go and let me hunt you again.
Maybe that is why I enjoy shooting jack rabbits and prairie dogs at the ranch...nothing to pick up nor skin nor eat and I am making ranch improvements with each shot.
Each to his own.
I hope I am pulling the trigger on something when I keel over myself. Oh...I am not ready to go just yet as I am hunting deer at the ranch all Thanksgiving week with the kids and grandkids.
Happy Thanksgiving (and pass the ammo please) to all of you!
Better tomorrows,

I enjoy the whole process. I still have a hard time sleeping the night before a hunt. When it gets down to killing time I revert to training and instinct. Afterward I often feel a twinge of regret, but then get on with the gutting and skinning.

I was feeling pretty mellow and in control of my hunting emotions until I was introduced to chasing hogs near Uvalde, Texas with Dingo/Plott/Pit Bull dogs. When the coursing dogs have the boar at bay, the hold dog has an iron bite on his left cheek and I dive onto the back with a well sharpened bayonette in my right hand; well, that casts a whole new light on things. You plunge the knife in the chest wall and try to cut the great vessels in one smooth motion. The hog is struggling mightily, the dogs are going bat shit nuts and the hot blood gushes out over your hand so you have to really hang on to the handle. After several seconds the animal dies right under you. There is no way to avoid the gritty reality of what just happened.The first few times you feel exhultant and shaken at the same time. The trick is too not turn away from the reality, and also to not start to really enjoy the feel of the hot blood and the heart stopping. In between lies the excitement of the hunt and some fine eating.

The hunt (and soldiering) are the last connections to my youth.

lawndart

Gentlemen, The part I enjoy most is the hunt/stalk to get in close, without letting the animal know I'm even in the bush. I also enjoy the meat, when prepared properly, and the preperation is another of my favorites. I enjoy the memories of the hunt, that it brings to mind when I look at the mounted head, or horns, or the back hide rug. I enjoy the handloading, and care of a fine rifle, before, and after the hunt. I enjoy the banter around the camp fire at night, and an early morning coffee before the hunt starts for the day. I enjoy a perfectly placed shot that kill the animal as quickly, and as painlessly as is possible.

However, I would like to ask those who enjoy all the things I've mentioned above, how do you get to enjoy any of them if you don't kill the animal? I find it a bit hard to cape, gut, and Bar-B-Q a live animal!

Where I, personally, draw the line is killing anything with a knife, as long as I have a choice. That, to "ME", seems a little too much like murder, though I understand dead is dead, no matter how the killing is done, but it simply isn't for me. Others may hunt, and kill as it suits them!

I find topics like this very interesting. I am always amazed at the different ways that people think and feel about their hunting. As for the killing, I do not understand how you could hunt and dislike the kill. I do not think I would get out of bed to hunt most mornings if I felt this way. For me, the high really starts when you first see the animal and does not go away until a while after the kill. I love the killing and I love the feeling of blood drying on my skin up to my elbows. Anyway, to each their own!

I don't often kill an animal myself nowadays - (maybe two or three a year on average). My clients do the killing but I enjoy every stalk at least as much as they do......

The fact they they are the one pulling the trigger doesn't detract from the hunt for me at all.

I love all aspects of the hunt, but without a kill, I feel a certain emptiness and lack of completeness. I can hunt and enjoy myself if I don't kill anything, but I always hope to kill and I have a "better" time if I am successful.



I won't tell you how to enjoy your hunt, if you will extend to me the same courtesy.

I enjoy the "hunting" part of hunting more than the "killing" part of hunting, but the truth is, I'm indifferent about killing animals. They're all going to die anyway -- it's just a question of when -- and especially in Africa, all wildlife, even lions, dies a violent, and often prolonged death.

Any killing that I do will be quicker and more merciful than any sort of death that nature is inevitably going to hand out, and since the animals I'm interested in taking are old and have passed on their genetics countless times anyway, my act of killing essentially means nothing. The meat gets utilized, the horns and hides get utilized, and even bait meat is not wasted. The animals that feed on it would kill to eat anyway, no matter what.

I quit fretting over the killing part of hunting a long time ago..........

AD

TWIMC,

Hey, if you don't want to kill anything, go on a photo safari. Any if you don't want to kill anything, why are there these endless drivels about why a 404 Jeffery is better than a 416 Rem., the double is better, no worse, than a bolt-action, your 34" buffalo is a real trophy, that you had to walk 127 miles for, which I wouldn't walk across the road for, blah, blah, blah.

Hey Allen,

After hunting with MS, I thought everyone had to wear black gloves!

I like everything about hunting, including the killing. Killing is THE necessary part--not sufficient in and of itself, but necessary.

That doesn't mean that I don't feel some sadness at the loss of life, and in particular because I'm the one who caused it. But I do not feel regret or remorse.

I respect the animal I have killed as a worthy quarry, but I don't mourn his passing.

quote:

Where I, personally, draw the line is killing anything with a knife, as long as I have a choice. That, to "ME", seems a little too much like murder

I am still a little conflicted by using a knife. It does increase the risk to me (got creased by a boar tusk once). When I am a little more mobile I hope to put a Zulu or Masai type spear point/blade on a 4' haft with a small cross piece and try for a treed mountain lion. The cross piece of course is to keep the lion from sliding down the spear enough to shred my scalp .

RHSim

A little late perhaps, but -

Touching the animal ie., getting way up close requires (unfortunately) "the kill". Ideally I'd enjoy having to succeed at the whole process, with the end result being the animal has to live in my back yard (so to speak), at least for some mutually agreeable length of time. Maybe, since I am "imaginating" this, paintballs or some other way of playing 'tag, you're it' would be involved. Oohing and awwing aren't practical with a mere picture when you want to feel the skin/horn/whatever "trophy" means to oneself?

Creation groans, my friend...

B

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:
[
I am still a little conflicted by using a knife. It does increase the risk to me (got creased by a boar tusk once).

<<<Snip

It sure describes "DANGEROUS GAME" inn a new light, for sure!

quote:

When I am a little more mobile I hope to put a Zulu or Masai type spear point/blade on a 4' haft with a small cross piece and try for a treed mountain lion. The cross piece of course is to keep the lion from sliding down the spear enough to shred my scalp .

I believe the spear you are thinking of is called an "ASAGAI". With the cross bar modification. A treed Couger?????? I once went up a tree to steal a baby squirrel from the nest of a pet female squirrel. She went up the tree with me, and passed me to climb above the nest. When I reached for the nest, she jumped on top of my head, and took up a clawing, and biteing campaign in ernest! I hit every branch on that tree while falling to the ground 20 ft below! that broke me of climbing into a tree with an animal, bigger than 10 ounces!

Not meaning to hijack the thread but FWIW:

The Zulu's have two types of spear/asagai. The fighting version has a short, thick wooden shaft with a long wide blade and is always held in the hand and used as a stabbing spear - usually in conjunction with a shield which also has a knobkerrie attached as a back up weapon and a hunting version which has a longer & thinner wooden shaft which is attached to a metal shaft which then turns into a short thin blade...... and is obviously thrown. Both types are very sharp but have very different purposes.

The fighting version is largely ceremonial nowadays -

quote:

from the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega Y Gasset, and it is a sentiment that I agree 100-percent with.

"One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.

If one were to present the sportsman with the death of the animal as a gift he would refuse it. What he is after is having to win it, to conquer the surly brute through his own effort and skill with all the extras that this carries with it: the immersion in the countryside, the healthfulness of the exercise, the distraction from his job.

Thanks l-n-b. One of my favorite quotes, and I also agree 100%.

I do not "enjoy" killing, and always think about the life I have taken. I don't know if "sad" is the right word, but I feel something for the animal that died at my hands. Death is a part of life, however, and I understand that.

That said, EVERY part of the hunt is important to me and contributes equally to why I hunt and why I love hunting so. Right from leaving home to "the plate". Everything.

Cheers,
Canuck

quote:

The Zulu's have two types of spear/asagai. The fighting version has a short, thick wooden shaft with a long wide blade and is always held in the hand and used as a stabbing spear - usually in conjunction with a shield which also has a knobkerrie attached as a back up weapon and a hunting version which has a longer & thinner wooden shaft which is attached to a metal shaft which then turns into a short thin blade...... and is obviously thrown. Both types are very sharp but have very different purposes.

Thanks Shakari,

The fighting version is what I am thinking of. When a mountain lion is treed it invariably jumps out of the tree to the downhill direction. "All" I have to do is screw up some courage and climb up the tree on the downhill side. If I can get the cat swatting at me, all the better.

Lawndart

I guess in theory the Masai spear would probably be a better option than the Zulu one as it's longer and has an even longer & wider blade......

I seem to remember Capstick wrote something about hunting a jaguar with something like this? - maybe someone out there will remember a little more than I do......