Thread: Food For Thought

I pondered a question for a while this roar, wear full camo and try not be seen or trust myself to see others before they see me, or go full blaze and stand out, I went with the fluro option in the end. Have been lucky to not run into any other hunters apart from my own party at camp etc.I Have never been quite as worried/scared this year as previously years hunting. Not a nice feeling walking out to track ends into clearings wondering if someone has a rifle pointed at you .... Have recently purchased a new head lamp a H14.2R and it has a flashing mode so have been activating that before dark to try and stay 'safer'.

Which brings me to the important part of my yarn.
Was in a hut a week back when a NZDA member told me something that I was quite amazed to hear and then it all made sense. In Europe and also in America they have set seasons for hunting where they only shoot the 'bucks' and have a set 'bag' with tags etc for limits. I can't remember the finer details but was surprised to learn that Europe hasnt had a 'mis-sighted for an animal' related hunting incident in decades. Which the guy I spoke to put down to the fact that in these places the hunters hunt for a 'trophy', so therefore identify the sex of the animal and its 'score'. Where as in NZ I hunt for meat first and for-most. Obviously a system like they have in these places is never gonna work in NZ but I just thought it was interesting and something to think about.

So what I was wondering is what do people do in order to stay safe, i.e be seen, do people identify say the age of the animal before pulling a trigger or just identify it as a deer ? And also what do you think we could be doing better as a society ?

Cheers