Archive for the 'Hunting' Category

Outdoor Life.

Lone Star lawmakers recently added aoudads to the list of animals hunters can shoot from helicopters in Texas as part of a management tool to aid in the ongoing fight against the invasive sheep.

Senate Bill 1245, which passed both state legislative chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, will go into effect Sept. 1. The bill expands Texas’ aerial wildlife management permit system, which previously only listed feral hogs and coyotes, to include aoudad. Aerial culling efforts have helped Texas with its burgeoning feral swine population. A 2019 USDA study found that helicopter hog hunting, also called “porkchopping,” has successfully reduced hog numbers by at least 31 percent.

Gross. Well, whatever. That’s just my reaction. Do as you wish – I see value in hunting hogs any way you can.

As for Aoudad, I think I’d rather stalk them.

Source.

The hotly-debated hunting matter of how far is too far for ethical rifle shots came up again Friday at a Wyoming legislative committee, where lawmakers were in a quandary on how to regulate the issue.

Members of the Legislature’s Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee noted that extremely long-range hunting shots are a growing concern, as they relate to hunting ethics.

But they questioned whether there’s any practical way to regulate the practice without trying to legislate ethics and morals.

The topic “keeps coming up over and over,” but it’s difficult for regulations to stay ahead of the rapid pace of firearms and optics technology, committee member Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said.

In one much talked-about instance, a hunter in Fremont County shot an antelope from nearly 2,000 yards away.

Some hunters argue that any shot beyond about 600 yards is just too far.

Committee co-chairman Rep. Andrew Byron, R-Jackson, said he’s been hearing concerns from the hunters among his constituents.

“It is definitely affecting Western Wyoming,” Byron said.

He noted that he heard a story about a hunter who was preparing to take a 400-yard shot at a big game animal, only to have another hunter blast it from much farther back.

I wouldn’t worry about regulating ethics and morals. All laws are legislated morality.

2000 yards is simply too far to take an ethical shot in my opinion. You’re risking pain and suffering of the game animal and that’s just not a moral thing to do. It’s a shame that hunters can’t self regulate, but also a testimony to a sad state of affairs where hunters want to be the next “stud” who took game from a greater distance than the last record. It seems to me sort of like golfers getting out and wanting to put little white balls in holes in the middle of a field. Men worry a great deal over what I consider to be a stupid game.

Erik Cortina has said that he wouldn’t take a shot on a game animal at further than 600 yards, and anyone else shooting out there isn’t Erik Cortina, plain and simple.

Again, it’s a crying shame that hunters don’t have the morals to self regulate.

Source.

As Florida moves forward with plans to reinstate a regulated black bear hunt for the first time since 2015, opponents of the hunt from around the world are mobilizing an unconventional tactic — applying for the lottery hunt en masse. If these anti-hunters draw a tag, they’ll hold onto it, effectively preventing a legal, well-intended bear hunter from drawing. Their goal is to flood the lottery and, theoretically, reduce the number of bears harvested.

“Never in my life did I think I’d be a hunter,” Chuck O’Neal, president of Speak Up Wekiva, a grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the Wekiva River and its watershed, told Naples Daily News. “Now that we have a constitutional right to hunt, I might as well take advantage of that.”

The obvious answer for these idiots is to restrict tags to people who had a hunting license the previous year.

This is an updated version of a prior article at OL.

I usually aim for a high shoulder shot. This article does a good job of differentiating between quartering-away shots, quartering-to shots, frontal shots, and especially the difference between bow shots and rifle shots.

Source.

Another Texas city is feeling the wrath of an invasive and highly destructive species. The City of Kyle, located just about 20 miles south of downtown Austin is dealing with an “increased presence” of feral hogs. On Tuesday, officials said the Kyle Parks and Recreation Department is actively working within its feral hog trapping contract to devise the best strategy for the removal of the wild pigs. “The city is also exploring additional proactive solutions to mitigate the impact of feral hogs on public land as well as our local ecosystems,” officials said in a statement.

How nice. They are under a contract for trapping. Using this.

So here’s yet another prediction for you. I am a hog hunter and I have studied the hog problem for a long time now. Sounders don’t stay together like the wildlife biologists say they do. You can’t trap them all – I don’t care what the university-trained wildlife biologists are telling you. Boars often run alone because they fight each other when they are together. Sows may be with a lot of other sows, or they may run with one or two. Feral hogs are not like human family units. Please don’t anthropomorphize them. You’re making a mistake and also showing how ignorant you are of hog behavior. This isn’t like Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. Even the sows fight each other from time to time.

The city won’t fix this problem by trying to trap them. There aren’t enough traps. The trappers are too expensive. You don’t have the money for all of this. If you do this, it must be combined with lethal removal, i.e., hunting. No, not hunting by paid police shooters. There aren’t enough of them. Besides, they need to be locking down the border anyway.

I mean getting hunters after them. $5 per head won’t be enough to get the right amount of interest. You may have to wait for children to get gored by boars with tusks. And your city council is going to have to revisit that whole issue of firearms being discharged within city limits. I know you have such an ordinance because all cities do.

This problem will get fixed, but only when enough people get hurt, enough ranches get destroyed, and city council gets replaced with new members.

Jim does a nice job with this analysis.

For the record, I never shoot my heavier recoiling guns extremely tight to the shoulder. In fact, my 444 Marlin shoots better for me when held just a tiny bit loose.

Concerning the notion of semiautomatic rifle accuracy, I suspect as more hunters begin to use them, the barrels will get better and more like the gun he was using. And yes, they’re capable of sub-MOA performance.

I just can’t stand all of the yak-yak-yak on most podcasts, especially when he waxes on about needing a Capuchino machine in his shower. But I did listen to enough of this to know that Dr. Ronald Kendall is a smart man, and he thinks he has identified the cause of the reduction in population of the Bobwhite Quail. Eyeworms. And he thinks he has a solution. If you want to skip the yak-yak-yak, you can fast forward to around 15 minutes.

Here is an article about it, and here is his website: Wildlife Toxicology Laboratory.

I mentioned that I recently went quail hunting in S.C. It was at the plantation of Jackson Walling, with R&D Quail Farm contracted to supply the quail and guide the hunt with dogs.

He has around 50,000 quail at any one time. He once raised Pheasant but doesn’t anymore. I didn’t know it, but Pheasant are violent birds. If you raise Pheasant, they will all kill each other unless you put blinders on them and allow them only to see peripherally.

The old .270 Winchester ranks near the top, or at the top. His list is interesting, and it would never have occurred to me to choose a small caliber like that to hunt deer.

I will also say that I spent some of the evening studying the 280 Ackley Improved and I like what I see. It’s basically much like the 270 Win except about 20 grains heavier bullet weight.

What’s your favorite, and why?

Readers may have noticed that I’ve been out a bit lately. I’ve been busy on hunting trips.

The deer was an 8-pointer taken at Groton Plantation with a 6.5 Creedmoor. He was shot straight through the chest. He pivoted directly towards me and I knew it was take the shot or lose the chance on him forever. The hog was taken at Groton with .444 Marlin. He had tusks. I can’t say enough for the power of the .444 Marlin. If you ever wonder if you’re bringing enough cartridge for the game, you don’t have to wonder with the .444 Marlin. Recoil is a thing, but only when you’re sighting in the gun. When harvesting game, recoil is irrelevant. It may as well be a 22LR. You don’t feel a thing. Maybe next year I’ll use a 45-70 with a Marlin rifle to see how that compares and contrasts.

I would in fact recommend Hornady 265 grain jacketed, bonded flat point versus the Hornady Lever Revolution. I just like it better.

You know how sometimes a hog will roll over and the legs look like he’s swimming? That doesn’t happen when you’re using .444 Marlin. It’s a quick, ethical kill.

There is nothing more fun than southeastern quail hunting. The dog handler was extremely good, and the dogs were great.

“Trooper, Star, get over here and get on them birds. Trooper, find birds. Trooper, hunt birds. Trooper, you’re a lying dog. There’s no birds over here. Trooper, come here and get on birds. Trooper is staying. Trooper is locked up on point. He’s right, they’ve coveyed up. Whoa Trooper, hunters, get over here, Trooper and Star are both locked up on point. Hunters, get over here. Good shot, nice shot. Trooper, dead bird. Trooper, go get that bird.”

At which point I saw Trooper swim into a swamp and get my bird, and on to the next single, or pair, or covey, for two and a half miles. I harvested a total of a dozen quail.

If you have a problem son, or a son or grandson who is bored, or into trouble, there is no greater antidote than something like this. Who wouldn’t like to see deer, hogs, snapping turtles, lizards, turkeys and quail? And see fantastic sunrises in the morning as a testament to the creation God gave us as a token of His esteem? I saw turkey at virtually every sit, and a lizard visited me in every stand I sat.

In my last sit I saw six does and a 4-pointer and 6-pointer. As a disciplined deer hunter I had to let them walk. That 6-pointer had good genetics and was chasing does. I’ve seen 6-pointers that didn’t do that even during the rut, but this boy will be a nice 8-pointer next year, and if I don’t take him next year maybe he’ll be a 10-pointer the following year.

This is the perfect solution to the feminized, communist education camps we call schools. In schools the state believes they own the children. During hunting, you can make it clear that men can do men things and it’s okay. No one owns them. And it’s okay to study the difference between 6.5 Creedmoor and .444 Marlin. And it’s okay to harvest deer with your favorite AR-10, or a bolt action, or a lever action, or any rifle that works for you.

So, fathers and grandfathers, get busy. This is what you should be doing with your boys. They may have to shoot a 20 rather than 12 gauge.