Thread: Wtf

You can follow the seven rules, yet incorrectly i.d your target.

No you can't cos identify your target is rule number 4.

I don't see how people can mistake their target unless someone is wearing an animal suit. If you can't identify an organ or head shot to cleanly kill it, you shouldn't shoot period.

I was parked up in a clearing one day, I hear something making noise so I stalk in to check it out. All I first see is the back of some dudes head moving then disappearing behind a bush. I 100% ID'd my target as a goat, and wondered wtf goats were doing in this area. I could have fired through the bush at movement alone with my semi auto, but that's just dumb. I waited for it to move out past the bush so I could get a front quarter organ shot (being a hunter and all). Alas it was no goat, just some dude wearing blaze. I hadn't even shouldered my rifle.

People need to check their enthusiasm and assume everything in the bush is another hunter. At one stage early on in my hunting, I had run into more people in the bush than game.

Originally Posted by tararua

No you can't cos identify your target is rule number 4.

I don't see how people can mistake their target unless someone is wearing an animal suit. If you can't identify an organ or head shot to cleanly kill it, you shouldn't shoot period.

Not quite. This has been studied many times and it has been shown that people often 'see' what they expect/want to see. That is why there is the suggestion we should all stop and think to ourselves, "Is this a person?"

Analogous to crashing a motor vehicle. If you concentrate on what you might hit the odds are that you will hit it. If you concentrate on the safe spaces your outcome is likely to improve.