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 :D

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.

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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.

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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?????

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Originally Posted by SIKAHUNTER

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

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Think about it........

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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?????

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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:D No I dont think it is stalking in the sense it was ment to be conducted but it is imo, a form of hunting.

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Originally Posted by R93

Think about it........

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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?

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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:D No I dont think it is stalking in the sense it was ment to be conducted but it is imo, a form of hunting.

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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 .:thumbsup:

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.

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Originally Posted by Scribe

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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????

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I personally have never taken a trophy class deer from a machine as a shooter or pilot. No. It I do not consider it to be a trophy. I have seen my fair share of stags that would go well over the DS considered the minimum standard, left for another day and another hunter.
I have also unfortunately seen plenty hung in a chiller with their antlers both hard and soft thrown aside to be sold later.
However the fact that I do not consider that a trophy animal shot from a machine is a trophy does not mean, it is not a trophy to someone else. Each to their own I say, and if it is done legally, I do not consider it my business, even if I think they are fooling themselves.

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Originally Posted by R93

I personally have never taken a trophy class deer from a machine as a shooter or pilot. No. It I do not consider it to be a trophy. I have seen my fair share of stags that would go well over the DS considered the minimum standard, left for another day and another hunter.
I have also unfortunately seen plenty hung in a chiller with their antlers both hard and soft thrown aside to be sold later.
However the fact that I do not consider that a trophy animal shot from a machine is a trophy does not mean, it is not a trophy to someone else. Each to their own I say, and if it is done legally, I do not consider it my business, even if I think they are fooling themselves.

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A well thought out answer here 'R 93.

I am not adopting the moral high ground over this.

These are moral challenges that people do face.

Should the "Big four" be open to competing helicopter crews???

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Originally Posted by Scribe

A well thought out answer here 'R 93.

I am not adopting the moral high ground over this.

These are moral challenges that people do face.

Should the "Big four" be open to competing helicopter crews???

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No way! If participants have anything to do with machines or game parks they should not be allowed to enter for the prizes.
I always have a chuckle at how some really massive deer that would exceed 150+ kgs gutted with some puney person standing beside the thing always manage to find their way to the weigh in.
I have handled plenty of deer that size and find it a struggle sometimes just to gut them let alone friggin carry. TBH they are few and far between in the wild yet they are always at a comp. Go figure.

I would not classify the shooting of an animal as long range "shooting" I would put it in a genre of Long Range Hunting and any shooting of an animal at close range I.E in the bush as traditional hunting. Far as I am concerned shooting is punching holes in paper or smacking gongs at long distance. If anyone wishes to differ then go for it cos like Greg I ain't going to enter a handbag slinging match over it.

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Originally Posted by R93

However the fact that I do not consider that a trophy animal shot from a machine is a trophy does not mean, it is not a trophy to someone else. Each to their own I say, and if it is done legally, I do not consider it my business, even if I think they are fooling themselves.

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nailed it right there Mate.

Spoken like a true shooter

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Originally Posted by Tussock

Your hunting till you find something to shoot. Once you find something, y

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So was this a premature ejeculation :D:D

Dont think i have but Im a bit deaf and could well have missed it

I like shooting stuff. But I have to find it first. Unless I'm target shooting. Then I'm not hunting.

Hunting and shooting were the same until the internet was invented. Then forums were created so that people, who will never meet, could slag the shit out of each other...

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.

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Originally Posted by Tussock

Tell me, if a deer is shot in the woods and there is there is no photo essay on a forum, did it really die?

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& was it shot by a shooter or a hunter :D

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Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

& was it shot by a shooter or a hunter :D

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and was it shot during daylight hours or under the light ;)

I believe the answer lies in the tape measure.

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Originally Posted by sneeze

I believe the answer lies in the tape measure.

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It always comes back to the phallus with you, eh Sneeze?

Still want to stand in a corner with me?

If i'm lucky, I get to shoot a deer when I go hunting. So, I guess I do both.

As long as you dont get carried away measuring things:D

ahahaha. easily the best answer. especaily the last line. legend

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Originally Posted by Tussock

Bloody IPhone.

Your hunting till you find something to shoot. Once you find something, your shooting. Simple.

The terminology is only confused by its occasional use in pissing contests where the words meaning directly relates to the length of the cock of those arguing.

ie. "your just a shooter" (implies small penis) while "I'm a hunter" translates to I have a big penis.

These debates are restricted to pubs, huts and the Internet, as both shooting and hunting are so much fun, that when people are actually doing them they forget such insecurities.

A stalker is someone who hacks your emails and steals your jocks off the washing line.

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what about poaching then? if you can outsmart the deer AND the farmer... sheeesh...thats a whole new level of skills ;)

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Originally Posted by ARdave

what about poaching then? if you can outsmart the deer AND the farmer... sheeesh...thats a whole new level of skills ;)

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Especially if done with a spotlight ;)

You could be neither hunter or shooter ,could be trapper ? armed with only plate traps idd say trapper lmfao.

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Originally Posted by R93

As long as you dont get carried away measuring things:D

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I do to much shooting, it would be embarrassing

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Originally Posted by sneeze

I do to much shooting, it would be embarrassing

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I may have to reconsider:oh noes:

:D:D