Feral cat hunting

prairieviper, have you read all the way through the thread? Your question might have made sense had it been early on. At this point, however, it does not at all seem germane to the discussion.

And the issue of slob hunters has no place in this thread...

Art
 
a responsible pet (cat) owner would nueter, spay and declaw their pet - and have a collar w/bells on it. if a cat is free to roam and breed uncontrolled it's a danger to small game/birds pure and simple. they're not indigenous species to N. America. even a spayed female cat will hunt. a buddy farmer I know has a couple around his barns - he puts out feed occasionally for them and if the cats breed he whacks 'em hisself. the cats understandably 'shy away' from him!
 
Gentlemen, this is potentially one of the most serious discussions for us hunters.

Over recent years the Animal Rights Activist has paired with the conservationist and this has done us a powerful diservice as we used to be at the forefront of conservation.

The pussy is such a destructive predator and destroyer of wildlife that no serious conservationist can afford to tolerate the cat for 5 mins.

This has the capacity to split atvist from conservationist- with broader benefits for us.
 
45Marlin carbine said:
a responsible pet (cat) owner would nueter, spay and declaw their pet
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Amen to that.

While not the main thrust of the OP, the concept of responsibility here is an important subtext.

Neuter your pets, solve the problem. And with that comes the same old mantra, "20% do 80% of the work." And if a guy is a bubba he's going to be a slob in his own ways as well as in my state.

Wisconsin has always been a hunting, fishing and tourist mecca. We also suffer from sloth, over crowded parks, slob hunters and congested highways. Many of us wonder if the tourist dollar is worth the headaches. You can't stop Americans from traveling, but someone has to pay for the mess. My solutions is to jack up fees for outsiders, and I mean way up. You make a mess, you clean it up.

And now we discussing even more possibilities for irresponsible people to act in my state. Yikes.

Pretty soon Leupold is going to have the "Feline Series." A new product with the reticles set for domestic use.
 
What are the odds...I was reading these posts on my blackberry while in a cab going home...when I get home, I walk right up to the garbage cans to put them on the curb, and I hear the craziest snarling across the street, and I turn around to see 2 house cats (now "feral", I guess) fighting the nastiest cat fight I've ever seen. I had been reading this topid not 30 seconds earlier.

Made me wish for a high powered bb gun and the legal backing to take em both out.
 
prairieviper, I've been thinking a bit more about your question, "So the message is that you only obey the laws that you happen to agree with?"

To some extent, yeah, sure. If a law is the product of a great amount of public emotion, catered to by some legislative body that knows or cares little about the reality of a situation, I'm gonna ignore all but the Eleventh Commandment aspect: "Thou shalt not get caught."

I'm talking about physical reality, here; not any sort of spoiled brat, "But I wanna...!"

Example of my thinking about laws and wildlife: I began hunting on the old family place when I moved back to Austin in 1963. Lived in town at the time, drove out to the place to hunt. Killed a few deer, mostly on the smallish side.

I moved to the place in 1967, and for the first time went out one night with a spotlight. I was amazed: Fifty pairs of eyes in just one pasture! I then began a herd reduction program. The Parks & Wildlife folks would allow me one doe per fifty acres, during the season. That meant that on 230 acres I could only take four does. Nowhere near enough to get the habitat restored and the body size back up to "real deer" conditions.

So I ignored the law. Over a three-year period, I killed some thirty or so does and scraggle-horn bucks and mature spikes. By the fourth year, body weight overall was up some 20% and there were decent racks on the bucks.

A few years later, Parks & Wildlife spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in an experiment to compare antler and body sizes of deer in uncontrolled vs. controlled populations. They learned what I'd already known since I was a kid: You don't overstock the range. Doesn't matter if it's cows or deer, whether it's by man's action or nature's geometric growth progression.

I'll take reality over politics, anytime.

And a female feral feline's geometric progression is heaps, gobs and bunches of bird-killlers per year.
 
Art Eatman said:
uncontrolled vs. controlled populations.
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You just nailed the crux of this debate.

A cattleman can tell if a piece of land is stressed. And he can move cattle around to benefit the assets he has. No one, including me, is against this type of management.

However, in the upper part of my state we have flannel clad chest-thumpers that believe poaching is a rite of passage. Get yourself a million candle-power lamp, your pa's lever-action, your no-brother-good-inlaw's Jimmee, the one with the good front tire, and let's go make some noise.

Like I said, they even shoot the DNR's dummy deer.

If cats are a problem, and I'm not sure if they are or are not, then devise a plan constructed by responsible conservation management people who still have most of their toes.

We have a bubba saying in my area, "If it's brown it's down, if it flies it dies."

Are you sure you want this idiot out in the same woods in which you hike?
 
Well, it's the Wisconsin wildlife biologists who claim a feral cat kills around 100 songbirds a year, and that the population estimate is a million feral cats. Sounds like a problem, to me.

Got bubbas everywhere, which has nothing to do with populations or problems with feral cats or deer...

However, bubbas are handy little critters. You use them as stalking dogs, watching which way they go and then figuring out where will the deer go that they spook. Got me some decent bucks, that way. :D

:), Art
 
My point is that since bubbas shoot at anything--and want to shoot at anything--the safe bet would be to call a guy who has married outside of his family tree. If we let the townies hunt, there wouldn't be any game in Wisconsin. Perhaps a few Flatlanders who weren't worth chasing.

Now, I know I have used humor and irony in bringing an opposing viewpoint to this debate. But there is a very serious side to this idea of rampant hunting.

As you know, you can shoot on public land here in Wisconsin. Extreme bubbas nail up tree-stands and "claim" areas. Many serious hunters don't like public land for fear of being shot. To the multi-toed cheesehead gun fanatic, "blaze orange" is simply another food group.

To this group, "Da Turdy Point Buck" is simply another day at deer camp.

And seriously, this type of self-righteous slob hunter is going to ruin it for everyone.
 
Its contagious...

Wisconsin boarders Illinois!!! Exactly what Ive always feared....


Just my sense of humor..........
:D
 
If I had my way I'd recommend a seven day waiting period on the purchase of double-wides, the mandatory use of condoms by any purchaser therein with eleven toes
Click to expand...



+1.
you have to pass a written test to drive a car,
a practical test to carry a handgun
but no restrictions on having kids! :)

about the cats;
granted they kill alot of songbirds etc.
but they also kill alot of rodents.
I like to keep a few around the barn but will thin out the herd if needed.
 
The problem is that this thread is about feral cats, not about rampant hunting and bubbas. Some thread drift doesn't hurt, but let's don't go to hijacking the thread...
 
Art Eatman said:
The problem is that this thread is about feral cats
Click to expand...

If the OP had restricted the debate on how to style their hair I would agree with you. However, the thread uses the word "hunting."

And I have an opinion on that.

Frankly (working in a sporting goods store) we need a lot more hunter safety courses, more knowledgeable hunters--who know which direction you mount a scope--and lots more people who know what ammunition their rifles use after they've owned them for several decades.

As I've stated in another thread, many hunters ask for a box of '7mm's.' To that you have to ask if they want 7mm Mags, 7mm Express (280), 7mm08, 7mm Mauser...

Many times they get snippy and say, "Don't be a wise guy--just get me some sevens..."

The last thing that Wisconsin needs is another thing to shoot at.

You want to control cats, get a professional with plan devoid of unfunded mandates. I live here, and I don't want another in a long list of "gimmees" which jack up state, local and property taxes.

But for heaven's sake, don't ask a bubba! These inbreds would be plinking cans on Schenck's Corners if you let them, claiming they were good environmentalists and recycling aluminum...
 
Lordy! Amazing how all manner of trivia shows up on the Inet. I don't really see how killing feral cats is all that big a deal.

Back in the '70s, I bought a Ruger heavy-barrel .220 Swift. Put a Canjar single-set trigger in it, and stuck a Redfield 3x9 on top. Generally, 3/8 MOA five-shot groups with the Sierra 52-grain HPBT.

Behind the corral was a sorta swale valley about six hundred yards across. It was common for various stray cats to meander down the middle in the late afternoon. I'd go sit against a properly-leaning oak tree a couple of times a week, read a paperback and wait. And sure enough...

3,800 or 3,900 ft/sec makes for a short interval in the old boom/whop sound. :) But soul-satisfying after a day in an office job. :D
 
The issue of when a cat is a feral cat is a tough question, as many of these critters lead dual lives.

I always ask a property owner about pets as I do not want to be responsible for killing someones pet and I think most responsible shooters feel the same way.

I have been told by a farmer of problems with not so wild- wild dogs getting in amongst his sheep and once caught one in the act. His owner was devastated when he heard his dog had been shot dead as I did the right thing and rang the owner after I found a collar on a dog that I shot one night chasing sheep, but when he threatened to sue he soon shut up when the property owner instructed me to write to him with a claim related to dead sheep.

If you live in a country area it is your responsibility to keep your pets under control.
 
Art,
I'd like to ask a question of you. We're both from Texas, certainly both from south of the Mason Dixon, it's fair to assume we would both have an accent that might be obvious to others, I'm guessing we both have aversions to big cities, neither one would hesitate to shoot a feral cat or anything else if it was a viable and safe target, either one of us might be caught drinking sweet tea (iced tea, or maybe a beer in a pinch), and I don't know about you- but If I was in a pinch, I wouldn't be above living in a doublewide if it meant keeping the family out of the elements... right? Are those the things that would cause The Tourist to classify us as Bubbas? It really wouldn't bother me to see him tone down his arrogance and generalizations, how about you?

Anybody else?
 
Lawyer Daggit said:
If you live in a country area
Click to expand...

You mention a valid point, these matters take place in the country. In essence, we are to believe that this is a rural matter that urban people don't quite understand. I guess it all depends whose ox is being gored.

There were many rites of passage I lived through that rural folks would have pointed out were against the law. Well, so is violating.

Another item I might also point out, it's always funny blowing the head off some animal--until it's yours. Lawyer Daggit has just mentioned a domestic dog.

We all know what probably happened. Some beloved dog got out one night and went for a run. It started to chase cattle or sheep or horses and the farmer or cattleman heard the commotion and grabbed a rifle. In responding, he "saw" a wolf or a wild dog chasing live stock--got mad--and blew the dog's head off.

Many of you told stories of encountering wild or roaming animals and pets and smirked about what caliber they used during this manly art.

Granted, a valuable dog should have been watched. To boot, a wandering dog will do something innocent, like give chase. And it's all one big hoot until the hollowpoint goes splat.

Like I say, it all depends on one's point of view.

Well, I'm a reloader. I have light .401 caliber hollowpoint bullets, buckets of 10mm Auto brass and pounds and pounds of modern powder that should get any projectile over 1,500 FPS.

Without any research at all I could go down into the gunroom and load a round that will take any canine's head right off at the shoulders.

I'll heat up a big ol' bowl of buttered popcorn and start whacking any mutt that even touches the boundaries of my land, all death, all of the time.

*smack* ooh woo, look at him roll...!

Hey, it's just one of those "city ideas" you guys don't understand.
 
This is a very important topic that a lot of people here have weighed in on. I have learned a few things on this thread, and hopefully maybe even shared something worthwhile on this issue.
What I don't care for is some poster's egotistical attempt get on a soapbox and preach about how "Bubbas" are ruining our nation. First, its off topic and it's annoying to have a worthwhile thread hijacked. But even worse is this elitist attitude that everyone who wears flannel isn't worth the bullet it takes to put them down with, that 'townies' and ''bubbas'' (whatever those are) are ruining YOUR sport, and that the whole world wants to go to Wisconsin and ruin your woods. Yes, I would love to hunt whitetails in Buffalo County, but every state has out of staters who come in to hunt. If you ever lived out West, you might realize that you don't actually have that many out of staters compared to what we have to deal with, and unfortunately you live in an average hunting state. This was a great thread, but sometimes arrogant people get online to try to distinguish themselves from the masses. The truth is, when I hear someone railing against trailer trash, inbreds, and bubbas, the first thing that I think of is, as Shakespeare said, "Me thinks he doth protest to much".
 
Wait Tourist-you really believe that ""a wandering dog will do something innocent, like give chase. And it's all one big hoot until the hollowpoint goes splat.""? Sorry buddy, I grew up bordered on 3 sides by sheep farms, and I can tell you that a dog chasing livestock is not innocent. Your beloved fido's can and do kill more sheep than coyotes, and that is why it is legal to shoot a dog chasing livestock. And when you imagine ""the farmer or cattleman heard the commotion and... "saw" a wolf or a wild dog chasing live stock--got mad--and blew the dog's head off"" what someone who wasn't a "townie" would know is that a farmer saw someone's animal destroying his livelihood and protected his property.
 
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