Thread: Hunting vs Shooting

Interesting thread Greg, did my comment in the spotlighting deer thread inspire it?

For me personally and it is only an opinion, hunting is the satisfaction of out witting the animal in its own environment.
For me nothing beats seeing animals in the bush,whether I shoot them or not is nether here nor there unless the freezer is empty.
But the freezer is rarely empty. Usually a mate will want to go for a lamp on such and such a property for some steak.
Lamping(or spotlighting) do I enjoy it? hell yes I love seeing 10 or 20 deer over a night( or even 1 !) and passing them over till I find a spiker(at the land owners request ) in a nice findable position. But to me its not "hunting"
The walk we went on not that long ago Greg where we got a deer each was a great day out,"traditional tops hunting" dont get me wrong I enjoyed having a mate along,the walk ,the view(mostly the view dont get much of that bush stalking) But if we had gone 200m down from the wagon in the bush and got a deer there where it is heavily 1080d and spotlighted and pig hunted with dogs I would have felt that little bit better.
With a suitable weapon and good conditions that spot over the gully where the "others" were would be in range from where I got that stag. Would that be hunting? Yea it would be in my mind. If you could take that shot with 90 % certainty then yea. you v beaten the wind and there vision, walked 3 hours to get in position, another two to three hours to recover and another 2 3 hours out.
If I had the gear and skills to do that(and I dont) I would take huge satisfaction from eating that steak/salami/sausages and the hunt itself.
I have shot a lot of deer in the lamp and still do shoot the occasional one, But if that was all I ever did and called it hunting(big game) Id hope someone would give me a dam good slapping.