tahunua001
New member
hello all,
this is a rant about a personal pet peeve of mine, but I'll try to segue it into an actual topic for discussion. I have not been hunting long by most people's standards, about 15 years broken by a period of military service where hunting wasn't an option. however I find it interesting the generalizations, myths, and flat out lies that I've heard regarding hunting as a whole, most I've heard from fine online forums just like this one. here are just a few that I've seen.
1: person X would not hunt using a certain method for ethical reasons, even though it's legal. therefore, person Y is an unethical hunter for using that method. FALSE
ethics are subjective and unique to each individual. ethics can also be affected by environment. one example is that in larger metropolitan areas, it is not considered unethical to hire several unpaid interns and have them compete for a single paid opening, in smaller cities, internships are generally well paid and usually are for the purpose of "test driving" an individual to decide whether they are a good fit for a company. a large stock broker would probably laugh at the notion of hiring interns one at a time to see how they performed and a small insurance firm would likely face public scrutiny for having a large number of unpaid interns running around vying for a single opening(especially considering legal implications from laws such as HIPAA). just because one person has never been in the situation of have to take a long distance shot at an animal does not mean that another is unethical for doing so, in some areas, that's standard operating procedure.
2:magazines that hold more than 5 rounds are illegal to hunt with in most states.
False. I actually spent much of the afternoon yesterday scrolling through various state hunting regulations to see if this was even remotely true. of 30 states I looked at, 27 offered no limitation on magazine capacity for rifles and of the 3 that do, only 2 limit to 5 rounds. I grew tired of researching so my list is incomplete, but I did find that the majority of states, at least 28 of 50 allow hunting with 10 round or higher capacity rifles.
3:.223/5.56mm is illegal to hunt with in most states.
again false. of the 30 states I looked at, 26 allowed hunting with anything larger than 22lr, including 223 remington as rimfire was specified. again the majority of states allow use of 223.
4:I had some goober try to tell me once that 300 winchester magnum is the greatest deer cartridge of all time. this is more of a topic of semantics than anything, but I've killed deer deader than dead with 9mm, 243, 6.5 grendel, and seen it done with 22lr and 223. I've also seen deer shot with magnums ranging from 7mm rem mag to 300 weatherby mag get up and "fly away". at this point, I really don't think there is a "greatest deer cartridge ever made". there is a rifle you know how to use and one you don't know how to use. if you don't know the limitations of your cartridge(or devastating effects of an overkill cartridge) you're not bringing a lot of meat home.
5: Does taste better than bucks. I've eaten a few deer in my lifetime. I've eaten some truly disgusting old muledeer that should have died of natural causes long before we got him and I've eaten some poor little fawns that were barely out of spots. however I have never seen a correlation between male and female tasting differently. I believe that age, and diet play a much larger role. my first buck was a young, but large 6x5 whitetail which I shot out of a stubble field, he likely spent his winters raiding the nearby hay barns and his summers in wheat, pea, and garbanzo bean fields, he was the most delicious buck I can remember eating. I was recently gifted some white tail deer meat from a friend that was emptying his freezer to make room for this season's haul, it was also a large buck from what I'm told and was also shot out of a wheat field. it also tastes quite good. I have also eaten meat from while tailed does shot on a piece of land we call "the breaks" pictured below which tasted pretty gamey and foul. this is also a territory mostly inhabited by muledeer which I pretty much refuse to hunt because of the taste I associate with them. however my brother in law shot a large muley buck out of a wheat field in a small area which shouldn't even have muleys on it and that deer tastes just fine. judging by this data I am willing to wager an educated hypothesis that gender is far less relevant to the taste of an animal than the diet that it enjoys.
some state specific myths
6: Rattlesnakes are protected species in Idaho and may not be killed on sight.
false, as per IDFG a single person can kill and possess a total of 4 rattlesnakes with no permits, tags, etc.
7: Texas does not allow hunting with M1 garands because they have a 5 round capacity.
false, TX was one of the states I researched, they have no standing capacity limitations for rifles.
these are just the most recent ones in my mind. what are your favorite hunting myths?
this is a rant about a personal pet peeve of mine, but I'll try to segue it into an actual topic for discussion. I have not been hunting long by most people's standards, about 15 years broken by a period of military service where hunting wasn't an option. however I find it interesting the generalizations, myths, and flat out lies that I've heard regarding hunting as a whole, most I've heard from fine online forums just like this one. here are just a few that I've seen.
1: person X would not hunt using a certain method for ethical reasons, even though it's legal. therefore, person Y is an unethical hunter for using that method. FALSE
ethics are subjective and unique to each individual. ethics can also be affected by environment. one example is that in larger metropolitan areas, it is not considered unethical to hire several unpaid interns and have them compete for a single paid opening, in smaller cities, internships are generally well paid and usually are for the purpose of "test driving" an individual to decide whether they are a good fit for a company. a large stock broker would probably laugh at the notion of hiring interns one at a time to see how they performed and a small insurance firm would likely face public scrutiny for having a large number of unpaid interns running around vying for a single opening(especially considering legal implications from laws such as HIPAA). just because one person has never been in the situation of have to take a long distance shot at an animal does not mean that another is unethical for doing so, in some areas, that's standard operating procedure.
2:magazines that hold more than 5 rounds are illegal to hunt with in most states.
False. I actually spent much of the afternoon yesterday scrolling through various state hunting regulations to see if this was even remotely true. of 30 states I looked at, 27 offered no limitation on magazine capacity for rifles and of the 3 that do, only 2 limit to 5 rounds. I grew tired of researching so my list is incomplete, but I did find that the majority of states, at least 28 of 50 allow hunting with 10 round or higher capacity rifles.
3:.223/5.56mm is illegal to hunt with in most states.
again false. of the 30 states I looked at, 26 allowed hunting with anything larger than 22lr, including 223 remington as rimfire was specified. again the majority of states allow use of 223.
4:I had some goober try to tell me once that 300 winchester magnum is the greatest deer cartridge of all time. this is more of a topic of semantics than anything, but I've killed deer deader than dead with 9mm, 243, 6.5 grendel, and seen it done with 22lr and 223. I've also seen deer shot with magnums ranging from 7mm rem mag to 300 weatherby mag get up and "fly away". at this point, I really don't think there is a "greatest deer cartridge ever made". there is a rifle you know how to use and one you don't know how to use. if you don't know the limitations of your cartridge(or devastating effects of an overkill cartridge) you're not bringing a lot of meat home.
5: Does taste better than bucks. I've eaten a few deer in my lifetime. I've eaten some truly disgusting old muledeer that should have died of natural causes long before we got him and I've eaten some poor little fawns that were barely out of spots. however I have never seen a correlation between male and female tasting differently. I believe that age, and diet play a much larger role. my first buck was a young, but large 6x5 whitetail which I shot out of a stubble field, he likely spent his winters raiding the nearby hay barns and his summers in wheat, pea, and garbanzo bean fields, he was the most delicious buck I can remember eating. I was recently gifted some white tail deer meat from a friend that was emptying his freezer to make room for this season's haul, it was also a large buck from what I'm told and was also shot out of a wheat field. it also tastes quite good. I have also eaten meat from while tailed does shot on a piece of land we call "the breaks" pictured below which tasted pretty gamey and foul. this is also a territory mostly inhabited by muledeer which I pretty much refuse to hunt because of the taste I associate with them. however my brother in law shot a large muley buck out of a wheat field in a small area which shouldn't even have muleys on it and that deer tastes just fine. judging by this data I am willing to wager an educated hypothesis that gender is far less relevant to the taste of an animal than the diet that it enjoys.
some state specific myths
6: Rattlesnakes are protected species in Idaho and may not be killed on sight.
false, as per IDFG a single person can kill and possess a total of 4 rattlesnakes with no permits, tags, etc.
7: Texas does not allow hunting with M1 garands because they have a 5 round capacity.
false, TX was one of the states I researched, they have no standing capacity limitations for rifles.
these are just the most recent ones in my mind. what are your favorite hunting myths?
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