Thread: Hunting vs Shooting

Im not sure if this has been covered before & I don't want to start a bun fight but what do guys think is the difference ?

I just did some Googling & came up with.

Hunting.
The activity or sport of pursuing game.
The act of conducting a search for something: house hunting.
The pursuit and killing or capture of game and wild animals, regarded as a sport.
The activity of hunting wild animals or game, esp. for food or sport.

Shooting, this was a little harder
The sport or pastime of shooting with a gun.
To discharge (a weapon).
The act of discharging a weapon or letting fly a missile.

I figure that shooting is like shooting at targets, paper, steel etc, that are fixed or only move in a certain way, "running boar" clay birds etc.

Hunting is where you are actively looking for an animal to shoot, that is able to move, escape, under their own free will.

I have seen & heard where people consider spotlighting, long range hunting etc as "just shooting"

I consider it to be hunting as you set out with the purpose of returning home with the meat/trophy.

Every type of hunting has it's own skill sets, whether it is roaring in a Stag or chasing pigs with dogs, to be sucessful you need to know what you are doing.

Where I used to live I could walk 5-10mins & get a pig that was wrecking the paddocks, during the day it was hunting, with a light it was shooting ???
Can't see the difference, to be fair during the day was a lot easier & you could generally get more of the mob as they took off after the first shot.
Either way I had to go & look for them, even if it was only to look out the Kitchen window to see if it was worth the effort

you can hunt without a weapon...whereas shooting without a weapon gets a bit tricky

Hunting is looking for and the pursuit of...

Shooting is shooting..

You can hunt without shooting..

You can shoot without hunting but if you do you won't have any protein to take home..

therefore.... if you come home with nothing you may still have been hunting, but if you come home with something you haven't just been shooting..

The scale of looking/pursuit is irrelevant..... 6000ft on shanks vs. spotlighting off a truck... or snoozing with binos, rangefinder and LR rifle..

I don't think its very complicated at all..

The debate is similar in fishing... floating a worm (not really fishing) v. dry fly.. and mostly generated by elitist self important twits who want to make themselves feel good about their thing..

Depends on perspective. If you have been consumed by the pursuit of an animal, taken time to get to know thier habits and habitats, and been rewarded with success. Then I think you are less likely to find satisfaction in simply walking out the back door and shooting something just because its there. That is the difference between hunting and shooting for me.

Originally Posted by Wildman

Depends on perspective. If you have been consumed by the pursuit of an animal, taken time to get to know thier habits and habitats, and been rewarded with success. Then I think you are less likely to find satisfaction in simply walking out the back door and shooting something just because its there. That is the difference between hunting and shooting for me.

Thats one mans opinion, just happens to be pretty much the same as mine. Shooting on the farm is about the same as spotlighting to me, no reward other than something to put in the freezer and maybe a little more grass for the stock , Id rather shoot steel. Putting in some effort and finding game on public land is far more enjoyable and satisfying and often comes with the company of good mates.

This is likely to get very interesting Kiwi Greg but a good subject to explore. I am aligned to Wildman's attitude. I take no real pleasure from walking up the back and putting a deer in the freezer but after slogging my arse off in the bush from daylight to dark with no result to show for it I can have a grin from ear to ear like a bloody cheshire cat. It may be an over simplification but the difference for me is that the first is just shooting and the second is a hunting experience.

Where does stalking fit into this picture......I see that a large number of members call themselves Deer Stalkers...But do they stalk anymore.

Is taking a deer at 1000 metres Deer Stalking?????

Originally Posted by SIKAHUNTER

you can hunt without a weapon...whereas shooting without a weapon gets a bit tricky

Think about it........

Originally Posted by Scribe

Where does stalking fit into this picture......I see that a large number of members call themselves Deer Stalkers...But do they stalk anymore.

Is taking a deer at 1000 metres Deer Stalking?????

If ya seen it from 2000m and leopard crawled undetected to a 1000m and took your shot what do you reckon?

Na I am just being a dick No I dont think it is stalking in the sense it was ment to be conducted but it is imo, a form of hunting.

Originally Posted by R93

Think about it........

R93 it is your fault that I am now quietly chuckling to myself thinking about the subtle difference changing the word tricky to sticky would make.

Your onto it Rushy, but he is right if you want to call it a weapon.

Defined by objective.

Hunting to provide and sport of hunting to provide who cares how it's done.

Shooting either to shoot something during Hunting or to shooting by definition the sport of.......

Your objective/sport is to shoot. Ie targets

Objective to hunt/provide and gather.

Make sense?

Originally Posted by R93

If ya seen it from 2000m and leopard crawled undetected to a 1000m and took your shot what do you reckon?

Na I am just being a dick No I dont think it is stalking in the sense it was ment to be conducted but it is imo, a form of hunting.

.

If modern toys allow us to kill beyond the range of a deers sight, smell, and hearing is it still a stalk????

You and I have faced this question before 'R 93' whereas most on here I bet have not.

Is a trophy taken from a helicopter still a trophy???

Does morality have a place in the modern day hunters armoury at all????

Who care's ,im a hunter that would be my answer ,i stalk ,walk ,glass ,shoot deer at the end of the barrel out to medium to LR ,if your putting meat on the table idd say your a hunter first ,how you approach each hunt defines only that hunt - and not your bag of skill's , put it this way if i roar a stag to my position would that make me a stalker or a shooter ?? .Who cares .

Do we really need to put it into a box? I personally don't care what you call it so long as you are safe and are enjoying yourself.

Those people (I am imagining that story someone put up here about a yank boxer or wrestler or something totally ripping up a bank with some super high caliber boom stick without even hitting a goat) who talk themselves up, bullshit 'til the cows come home...I'm sure any decent person with their head screwed on can see through the story. I normally just bite my tounge and try to think of myself as the better person.

I hope I am making some sort of sense. If someone says they are a deer stalker but in actual fact they just shot one in a pen, anyone can figure out that they are full of it. Why waste time pointing out what a dick that guy is; he probably already does a good enough job advertising it himself.