Thread: Carrying firearm on doc track

I think the "caught anything?" question is because too the non hunter, it probably feels harsh to ask if you have killed anything. A Russian girl I dated years back used to ask if I had killed someone? turned out, as I understand it, that they have a different distinction between something and someone.

A track I used to use alot would quite often have deer visible from it, In my younger days Id happily shoot from it, until one trip where I was forced to rethink that. It had been a hard trip and no deer seen over 3 days, On the walk out we spotted a hind and yearling 350 meters away across the valley. So My friends lay down and each got ready to shoot. I went down the track too the corner to check no one was close and then signalled for them to shoot and they each got a deer, but as we prepared to climb over we realised one was still alive and due to the terrain in would take us an hour to get too them. So another shot was fired to finish it off. After the shot a guy hailed us from just around the track corner id just checked. We replied, and he came on round. He was very decent and apologised for yelling, but said he was a bit nervous as he had had his arm shot off. And yep he was missing an arm. Shit I felt bad, we all did. After that I no longer shot deer from close too walking tracks.

But you cant win sometimes. A mate and I shot 3 deer on a snow covered hillside. The carcases lay over about a hectare and just as we finished butchering we were surprised to see a party of 20+ trampers walk over a ridge half a k away. They were not friendly and we could not work out why, until we got some distance from our kill site and looked back, Blood on snow over a hectare looks quite shocking in reality.

These incidents made me realise that yep non hunters can be ignorant at times, But unintentionally, so can we, in what we take for granted and as normal to us.
The worst, most insulting comment I have had on occasion, is raised hands and or "dont shoot" But always its just people who dont know and a cheery hello and dont worry etc are the only way to deal with any interaction.