it's below zero and i'm sitting in my chair watching another chitty hunting show. this one had a hunter with a bunch of technology shooting (and missing) a sheep.
1 know that i was born of a different age, but i can't help but wonder where technology starts and hunting stops.
I appreciate alot of the modern gadgets like night vision, thermal vision carbon fiber super duper mangalums etc. I really do, but where does it all get us to. a bit ago there was a web that advertised that you could sit at home in your chair and watch on camera some unfortunate beast at a feeder while you shot him with a remote controlled gun - is this the future of hunting. or is it sneaking up on the animal with a spear wearing a loincloth.
the long range shooter certainly has his skill, but what of the skill of the animal? does that not count for something?
we have scopes that compensate for everything save wet pants, things that promise us that we never come home empty, but is that really what we want hunting to come to??
of course, all these modern gizmos make us more sucsesful but at what cost? our ego, our bank account, or what.
I guess that the questions must be answered by each individual hunter, in his heart and soul and to be able to answer his own questions.
For me, i think that i will continue to play wtth technology have fun with it and hunt with my old single shot rifles. double barreled shotguns and just maybe i'll go duck hunting with my new 3 barreled creationi.

Well stated Butch.

35 years ago when I started archery with my first compound bow, the old timers said "That's not hunt'n, you want to hunt, use a long bow".

Then several years later, an ex-marine uncle of mine told me, "If you want to really want to shoot long, use a 4 power Red Field".

Now a days with this techno-geek crowd they need to have the newest and best. We all have been guilty of this a time or 20. Just look at any range and marvel that all the modern crap that people buy.

In the end, without the basics and fundamentals you'll miss all the same.

What difference does it make how much tech we use for hunting?

Isn't the whole idea is for the individual to enjoy himself?

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
What difference does it make how much tech we use for hunting?

Isn't the whole idea is for the individual to enjoy himself?

I agree completely. That said, part of the process of maturation as a hunter is the discovery of those very limits. At some point, we find that we prefer certain constraints.

"I appreciate alot of the modern gadgets like night vision, thermal vision carbon fiber super duper mangalums etc. I really do, but where does it all get us to".



Well obviously all those gadgets didn't help him any. If anything it kept him from hitting a sheep that appeared to be not that far away. I can just hear the guide saying "just aim straight at him and shoot"!

I agree that I wonder sometimes what all the toys really do for the hunt but realistically the young ones at least who use it don't know of any other way.

I also can see what Saeed says, it's what ever makes you happy but how much fun would buffalo hunting be if you just sat on the top of a ridge and picked them off from a distance? To me it would loose the essence that makes people want to keep coming back.

Many sports suffer the same problem, I'm a long time bowhunter,I use a recurve so getting close means a lot to me. The compound shooters are willing to shoot twice as far and I sometimes question their motives.

Fishing has all the electronic gadgets that just about hook the fish for you and muzzleloader hunting has gone perhaps the farthest of all away from its roots.

I guess as long as people hunt in a manner that isn't completely non sporting I'm not sure anything can be said about it.

On my range we have the South African CHASSA shoots, which are good hunting practice. Some good optics are virtually necessary to feature. Next door there is the 6BRR bench-rest crowd. Their achievements are impressive but it's almost not necessary for them to touch their firearms. The late, great Col Jeff Cooper once commented of bench-rest words to the effect that it was all very nice but the technology virtually removed the need for skill at arms.

Skill at arms is important to me, and contributes immeasurably to my enjoying myself.

Perhaps the best hi-tech stuff should be mounted on ARs and given to the APUs.

quote:

Originally posted by Barry Groulx:
On my range we have the South African CHASSA shoots, which are good hunting practice. Some good optics are virtually necessary to feature. Next door there is the 6BRR bench-rest crowd. Their achievements are impressive but it's almost not necessary for them to touch their firearms. The late, great Col Jeff Cooper once commented of bench-rest words to the effect that it was all very nice but the technology virtually removed the need for skill at arms.

Skill at arms is important to me, and contributes immeasurably to my enjoying myself.

Perhaps the best hi-tech stuff should be mounted on ARs and given to the APUs.

Jeff Cooper was wrong.

I don't care how much tech does one use, the man behind the rifle still counts.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
What difference does it make how much tech we use for hunting?

Isn't the whole idea is for the individual to enjoy himself?

Agreed, but only up to the point where a clean, humane kill is no longer the probable outcome.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by Barry Groulx:
On my range we have the South African CHASSA shoots, which are good hunting practice. Some good optics are virtually necessary to feature. Next door there is the 6BRR bench-rest crowd. Their achievements are impressive but it's almost not necessary for them to touch their firearms. The late, great Col Jeff Cooper once commented of bench-rest words to the effect that it was all very nice but the technology virtually removed the need for skill at arms.

Skill at arms is important to me, and contributes immeasurably to my enjoying myself.

Perhaps the best hi-tech stuff should be mounted on ARs and given to the APUs.

Jeff Cooper was wrong.

I don't care how much tech does one use, the man behind the rifle still counts.

I think that was Jeff Cooper's point, the technology removes the skill at arms, meaning he was against the technology.

Yes.

He was quite happy using a Colt 45, and still decried technology!

Makes sense!

The only problem I have with technology is when its used like the folks using modern muzzleloader that are at no disadvantage to a modern rifle with a scope and are yet given a special hunting season.

It was always my understanding that a bow season or muzzle loader special season opened before the rifle season was because these hunters were at a disadvantage to the cartridge rifle hunter. As far as I know there is only one state that allows only flintlock with iron sights muzzle loaders during the muzzle loader season and that is a season called "PRIMATIVE WEAPONS SEASON" and is the proper criteria for a special season because of a technology disadvantage.
The modern so-called muzzle loaders are at no disadvantage to say a lever action 30-30 with irons and in my opinion should not be allowed a special season. In most states this is simply used to gain three hunting seasons but New Mexico's game law stopped that. When you buy your out of state license each year you have to declare which weapon season you will be hunting, BOW,MUZZLE LOADER or RIFLE. I don't know if that rule applies to local hunters though.
...................................................................

I am playing devils advocate here, because I see your point. But, in the end, it is a sport and ones chosen method and equipment is sometimes as much a part of the enjoyment of the hunt as the hunt itself.

Is this question a parallel to the old argument that "hunting under a feeder isn't really hunting! You gotta go spot and stalk or you are not really hunting!"

Or, baited hunt or hunting with dogs, or any method that I deem inappropriate isn't really hunting because I say so?

Sitting in a office chair, dragging the mouse to place the crosshairs on the deer under the feeder is the farthest I have seen technology stretch this argument. (If it was legal, which they eventually deemed that it wasn't) If this was possible, maybe there is a hunter out there who can only hunt this way? Maybe he is disabled or ill and this gives him the only opportunity to experience a hunt?

If it is legal, leave the ethics to the individual.

Clickin a mouse to shoot a dear is no more hunting than clicking on porn and saying you "got some"

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:
I am playing devils advocate here, because I see your point. But, in the end, it is a sport and ones chosen method and equipment is sometimes as much a part of the enjoyment of the hunt as the hunt itself.

Is this question a parallel to the old argument that "hunting under a feeder isn't really hunting! You gotta go spot and stalk or you are not really hunting!"

Or, baited hunt or hunting with dogs, or any method that I deem inappropriate isn't really hunting because I say so?

Sitting in a office chair, dragging the mouse to place the crosshairs on the deer under the feeder is the farthest I have seen technology stretch this argument. (If it was legal, which they eventually deemed that it wasn't) If this was possible, maybe there is a hunter out there who can only hunt this way? Maybe he is disabled or ill and this gives him the only opportunity to experience a hunt?

If it is legal, leave the ethics to the individual.

Wendell, I agree with every word of your post above. However none of it is germane to having a special season for a particular weapon that doesn't justify a special season because of the way it is loaded unless makes using that rifle a handicap compared to a modern rifle.

Hunting under a feeder is available to anyone holding a hunting license including a scoped IN-line muzzle loader but the special season with that in-line, is not available to the guy with an iron sighted single shot cartridge rifle. Both a one shot and reload, hence no handicap for the inline muzzleloader!

....................Just my opinion!

Our quarry in the hunting fields are dumb animals.

To be true sportsmen, we must and do handicap ourselves.

If we did not do so, the game would be annihilated.

Hunting is not warfare.

I wonder if there is any data on success rates over the last few decades and what that would show. Probably one of the most effective pieces of new technology here in the states is the 4 wheeler, not that it always makes it easier to get game, but it does make it quicker to haul out two instead of one in one day. I suppose drones for scouting are next. Not my style of adventure.

I hate technology. Except for accurate custom rifles, great glass, rangefinders ...