Where do you draw the line in sportsmanship?

I really like jmbg29's line. That really follows my way of thinking. Personally, I use camo, calls, rattling antlers, scents, and I do my scouting in the summer (if I have time). Oh, and I use my brain sometimes too :) And Runt, don't even get me starting on people who go "camping".
 
This topic is Too hot to touch! Yow!!!

"No matter what I say will be wrong!

And IF! I reverse myself the Drill Seargent will only beat me Harder!"
 
Hey Art,

But I offered a deal: I would buy a gunstock and mount my telephoto-lensed camera on it. I would have a set of crosshairs affixed inside, so they would show on the print
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You ought to think about patenting that idea. A person could "hunt" year round with that and know exactly where each shot would have hit on that particular animal in that particular scenario. I think a lot of people, especially new hunters, target practice on paper with a nice solid bench and then over estimate their abilities in the field. It would be a lot of fun to have a camera with cross hairs mounted to a rifle stock. May not be a real good idea if you are going to use it to practice hunting Grizzlies though :D :D
 
Yeah, good rig. It's a start, anyway. If the trigger's as good as my Canjar...

Separate from my original deal, I can tell you that high-magnification and hand-held can be a real problem unless the shutter speed is pretty high. For quality prints without any blur, you can't beat a good tripod.

:), Art
 
Unsportsmanlike(?) Hunting

:) I very much agree with you guys. Personally, I don't even hunt with dogs, but have no objection to that unless done in what I call a "jackass" manner. The jackass system is when you use lots of fast pick-up trucks, everybody has a CB or portable radio, and drive fast and furious on a frequently crisscrossed road system to almost run the deer to death with your dogs and PU's. Then shoot the animal from your PU hood as it slowly struggles up the last embankment.
The change in how some people hunt is just one more indication of how a lot of thinking has changed, on ALL issues.
People used to be proud of HOW they did things; nowadays, many do not believe in ethics or morals, but only in "having the edge" or "winning is the ONLY thing that matters". People get caught up in this misguided way of seeing life, until one day they may realize they really have no value system. We see the dishonest greed at Enron, Arthur Andersen, Worldcom, and others as evidence of that. Those kind of people weaken our country more than Al Quida and other terroists ever will.
Some "sportsmen" even pay to shoot "as released from pen" game.
Be calm in your knowledge that if you ever must depend on your hunting skills, you will have them. The "paper tiger" sportsmen will be begging the real hunters for something to eat.
 
I do use rifle/shotgun style stock when photo hunting with really big lenses.....solenoid trigger. Takes a really ugly and high cheekpiece to get good solid mount and forend is dropped a lot to clear lense bells and sun shades.

Works well tho. Just have to remember to NOT lead the game.

Sam
 
One thing I've always contemplated.... is it sportsmanlike if you bag a deer/duck/squirrel/turkey by simply opening the back door and lining up your rifle sights?
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If the little beggar of a squirrel you're aiming at has your green peaches or a WHOLE EAR of your almost ripe corn with him-darn skippy it's sportsmanlike!!!
 
Slightly off topic, but related. In my country we have had a discussion about "catch and release" fishing lately. There is no tradition for it here. Most people seem to consider it to be unethical. Either you fish or you don't fish. If you fish, you kill it and eat it. Fishing and hunting is OK, playing with the food is not. Not everyone agrees of course, I know of one guy who posted pictures of himself on his website, posing with a catch of salmon, dead and gutted. He received hate mail from all over the place, including a couple of American "sports" fishermen who thought it was "barbaric" to kill the pretty fish... :rolleyes:
All things are relative, I guess. I think jmbg29 pretty much covered it.

Art, if you had made that camera-bet with a TFL'er, the two of you would have spent the next seven years discussing whether the "shot" was a clean kill or not, considering range, lead and all sorts of other stuff. What is better for deer-sized game, Kodak or Fuji? What shutter speed has the most "knock down" potential... It would make the 9mm/.45 debate pale in comparison. :)
 
The only thing on your list, runt, that I personally have questioned is doe estrus. The bucks can make themselves avoid food for survival, but a doe? The bucks can't help but trot on over to it. IMO, that's like hanging a poster of Heather Graham in a bikini at a auto shop and expecting guys not to look. The poor bucks think that they're getting all ready for a big date and "BOOM!", down they go. I just don't think that males of our species ought to be pulling that kind of cruel joke on males of another.
 
That's just the way life goes, rock_jock. I've seen more than one guy get all excited and lose his head over a tail.

If you shoot a decent buck ahead of the rut, he doesn't pass along his genes. If you shoot him after the rut, he's gaunted down and poor eating. Very much after the rut, and his horns are gone. I reckon we just do the best we can to keep the herd going, which is really the highest ethic of all.

U.T., obviously Kodak ASA 400 color print; 1/500 @ f8 or f5.6. That's what the majority of my outdoor telephoto shots are, anyway.

Art
 
Kilgor II

I don't know about yours, but my God prefers a Remington Model 700 BDL...:D :D I meant the comma in my earlier post to be equivalent to "and". I can see how the phrasing would make it a bit confusing though.:p
 
A lot of hunting in a lot of parts of America is pest control. Would you rather see people bait deer, or have families being killed in auto v. car collisions on a more frequent basis.

I think that most depts. of wildlife do a pretty good job of balancing the need to eradicate a certain portion of the herd with ethical/sportsmanship concerns.

Re: Colorado, and some other Western states. The problems have occurred when the voters have decided that we shouldn't hunt cougars, or bear in the spring, or over bait, etc. People vote based on emotion, whereas the game managers are more apt to be guided by science.
 
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