Question to hunters...

[maas]

i refuse to vote.

.....i guess i hunt for sport because the way i look at it i will not go hungry if i don't shoot a buck. i do eat all game that i take and i only take the game i need.
.....i have hunted to eat before. i used to go bird hunting in Oregon. when we went we took enough meat for the first two days after that if you had a poor hunt your stomach knew it. we planned to stay for 8 days of hunting but there have been times when we got snowed in and stayed for 16. hunting chucker in a white out what could be more fun

 

[bclark1]

this implies they're mutually exclusive. i enjoy the sport of hunting, but i won't be classified as hunting for sport, because i will always only kill what i intend to use. in terms of deer, i've yet to get a wall hanger out of it, because i've let the bucks walk on by so far. even if someone else gets them before i see them next year, i'll still just hope otherwise and take the doe. the processor i go to sells the skins to local indians, who make stuff out of it. effective use i'd say. i think even in terms of exotic game, you should plan on at least eating the meat of what you shoot, if you can't use more than that.

 

[jhgreasemonkey]

Both.

 

[armedandsafe]

Both. I've fed the family when cash poor and I've sat watching a sleeping deer until he got up and wandered off. The getting-out is what draws me out to the field. The eating of my kill is what makes me shoot. If I'm going to kill it, I'm going to eat it. I do draw the line on that at crows, magpies and mice.

Pops

 

[Scorch]

I kind of agree with a few others here. I hunt for sport (amusement, R&R, fun, whatever), but eat every game animal I shoot (I had to say it that way because I hunt varmints extensively). As far as hunting for food, I can buy beef and chicken a lot cheaper than I can kill game animals, but I do enjoy hunting a lot more than shopping. I have known a few people who claimed it was cheaper, but by the time they added up all the costs, they had a hard time justifying that opinion.

For most of us, hunting is atavistic, it is self-sufficient, it is a statement of independence, and it is good practice for if you ever really have to hunt to survive, but I don't know anyone who can subsistence hunt anymore. Possibly folks in Alaska or Canada, but most of us have to travel, buy licenses, ammo, supplies for the trip, hotels, meals, etc. That all gets pretty expensive, and I can buy good beef for $3/lb. Last deer hunting trip I took, I spent $300 just on gas and license and supplies for a week, and I got a buck that dressed at 140 lbs, wrapped 80 lbs of meat. If you do the math, that was pretty close to $4/lb meat. I can buy Angus beef for that much.

 

[Death from Afar]

I might add that although I might shoot 80 rabbits in an afternoon I would never eat one as:

1/ RCD disease is in the population here and its risk to humans is unknown
2/ The 8$@#@*&!! pest control boards use cyanide and 1080 poison on rabbits and it stays in the food chain for a long long time. *rant over*