Thread: Defending hunters

Originally Posted by Scouser

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer,
Two, and the reason I put something on this thread, is i class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’, unlike the yank prick in question!!!!

I would not hunt a targeted species ‘under gunned’ (223/243) against a Lion, never mind a bow,
if I was an egotistical prick and was using a bow, I would make sure 100% that it would be a ‘kill shot’

then, and this is the real reason for my total distaste of this persons character….i would not squat behind the lion with my bow and big cheesy grin
so anyone/everyone would ‘assume’ I had killed it…….that is the aspect that fucks me off the most, if the story had not got out, he would have ‘claimed’ that kill

I fired and missed a spiker last year, I went up a hill to search for it or a blood trail, could not find anything,
went back with my mates dog 3 hours later just to make sure, as I said earlier, I class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’…..

Thanks for the honest reply. I have done more hunting than you although probably a lot less than others on here. While I also consider myself a ethical hunter I have had wounded animals that I haven't found and also, like you, shot at animals that have "dissapeared", presumably missed but possibly wounded. Like you, I have whenever possible spent hours looking for the lost animal.

Hunting isn't an exact science, if it was then it would just be shooting dairy cows in a paddock. For the hunt to be "fair chase" the animal must have a relaistic chance of escape and that often means a wounded animal can escape as well.

So wounded animals are a undeniable fact of life (as you found with your spiker). Stats for gamebird shooting can be as many as 25% hit but not recovered birds. As ethical hunters we spend our lifetimes getting better at the sport so that we can reduce that percentage but we can never reduce it to zero.

Now onto bow hunting. You may argue that it's undergunned but the fact that the human race survives today proves that this method can put food on the table and bring down the biggest animals on the planet. Bow hunting is different to rifle hunting in that there is no hydrostatic shock when the animal is hit. Animals die of blood loss rather than the shot of being shot so bow shot animals generally don't drop on the spot and normally require tracking.

Standard practise for any wounded animal is not to chase it immediatly after it's shot. Best practise is to give it at least 10min for the shock to set in and it to seeze up. If you chase it before then while it's full of adrenalin then it will run further than if you left it. I would also point out that this is a huge man eating wounded lion so sensible caution would say you don't go running into the bush after it without a plan. I would also point out that they did follow up this animal and not just go home and drink beer becasue thats easier.

So shooting it with a bow then having to track it and follow up and kill it would be fairly normal for these types of hunts. You may say this is unethical but our ancestors didn't think so and PETA would say the same about duck hunting today.

I don't see that this dentist bloke has done anything worse than what we all have done during our hunting career. Personally I don't consider an animal that I have paid for a valid trophy but I also don't feel the need to criticize and judge the dentist bloke.

I see in todays news that Zimbabwe has reopened lion hunting so I guess they are a sensible lot over in Africa.