College Student Looking For Passionate Hunter

TMS said:

@greyfox , I hope you right. It sure sounded like a baiting question. Brickburn answer covers it for me.

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What sounded like a baiting question? What does that mean? I have no ill intentions!

K-man said:

Katie, will you do us a favor when you have finished your assignment and post it here? Or at least a link to your finished work,I know I would be interested to read it. Thanks

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I will....I am thinking of making a video.

My apologies, my thinking behind the question was about Cecil. I was not trying to get an intentioned answer! Just some insight into what goes on in a subject I' am unfamiliar with.

TMS said:

@greyfox , I hope you right. It sure sounded like a baiting question. Brickburn answer covers it for me.

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Katie said:

What sounded like a baiting question? What does that mean? I have no ill intentions!

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Some that come here do have ill intentions. It wouldn't be the first time, and that is why folks question motives, because we've seen it before.

Don't take offense as none is intended. And I promise you we all hope it was truly an innocent and honest question.

Royal27 said:

Some that come here do have ill intentions. It wouldn't be the first time, and that is why folks question motives, because we've seen it before.

Don't take offense as none is intended. And I promise you we all hope it was truly an innocent and honest question.

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Thank you Royal27.

Katie, a bait question is usually a way to get hunters to turn on each. I might not agree or like some types of hunting, but someone else may see no harm done by it. Nobody likes a cheat whether in hunting, game of cards, golf. So to answer your question I dislike cheats. Now @Royal27 he's a master card dealer, his hands move quicker than the eye..

Katie,

My brother is a retired USFWS field agent. He busted operations in Alaska for illegal hunting using planes to herd bears to hunters and other illegal operations. The individuals were prosecuted, fined, and spent time in jail. Those of us that hunt the right and legal way always applaud when those doing things illegal are apprehended and prosecuted - and serve time / or incur the appropriate fines.

What bothers me is when someone does something legal and then for emotional reasons the individual or group is persecuted for it. That I don't abide and will always fight against.

John

TMS said:

Katie, a bait question is usually a way to get hunters to turn on each. I might not agree or like some types of hunting, but someone else may see no harm done by it. Nobody likes a cheat whether in hunting, game of cards, golf. So to answer your question I dislike cheats. Now @Royal27 he's a master card dealer, his hands move quicker than the eye..

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See Katie. This is what Simon was talking about. People come in here and try and get hunters to turn on each other. @TMS and I were friends before today and now that lousy jerk who couldn't track an elephant in deep snow is implying I'm a cheat!!


P.S. we also have a lot of fun here, even while discussing serious subjects. I just cant let him have the last word.

@Royal27 when last did you see @#%$@ snow in Mozambique???

TMS said:

@Royal27 when last did you see @#%$@ snow in Mozambique???

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Sure would help your tracking though. ...

Katie said:

My apologies, my thinking behind the question was about Cecil. I was not trying to get an intentioned answer! Just some insight into what goes on in a subject I' am unfamiliar with.

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Ms Katie, you seem a delight.
I would just like to suggest anyone who mentions "Cecil", as if we know his name, should immediately be asked where thier outrage was when mugabi murdered 100,000+ people. All had names.

Hello Katie, I'm just now catching up on this thread. I don't know if you have all the interviews you need or not but I'd also be willing to talk to you via phone if you'd like. Send me a pm and I'd be happy to help.

@gizmo how's your golf score card?

Lol they haven't made one that will go high enough.

TMS said:

If you were asked...why do you hunt? What would your answers be?

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My father and other relatives really did not hunt when I was young, yet I recall having a inate desire "to hunt". I really don't understand why or where this came from. I also had a fascination and love of firearms at a very young age. Influenced by "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza"? Who knows?

Dad did have a sporterized 303 British and I do recall them cutting up, a moose he had shot, in the motel room that we lived in Hinton at the time. ( Dad was a government surveyor and we moved a lot.) I think I was 4. When I was six, we moved and bought into my grandfathers mixed farm west of Ponoka. My parents did this so that I could have stable schooling. That first Christmas, Dad got a Cooey semi auto 22, with a scope. The next spring, I recall him sitting me on his lap and teaching me to shoot out the window of our pickup at gophers (ground squirrels) in our pasture. Within a year or so Dad was back surveying as the farm could not support two families. When he was home I tried to find ways to get shooting. I know I was seven when I shot his 1911 45ACP and Ivor Johnson 22 handguns.

I was pretty young when I got a Red Rider lever action BB gun. Dam thing was woefully inaccurate, lacked power and in our cold winter the plastic butt stock snapped off in the cold. Try hitting anything now!

By 10 I had a Cech 177 pellet rifle. Definitely more accurate, but not super powerful. I learned that I had to stalk very close to have any chance at reducing the gopher population in the summer, obtaining trap line bait in the winter (I had read "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" and fancied myself a trapper now). Bait was usually a house sparrow. With the patience of a kid with time on his hands, a gopher stalk consisted of observing a gopher above ground. Sneak as close as possible. Invariably the gopher would spook and go down his hole before I was in sure kill range. No problem. Rush over and locate his hole before he came back up. Hide but be in position to brain him when he stuck is head out. Average kill range was 3-5 feet. Usually plugged them a second or third time to be sure. My City grandfather was visiting and didn't believe I could get a gopher. He offered a quarter if I brought him a tail. About an hour later I made him cough up a quarter. Magpies were next to impossible, except I learned that in May after the chicks have fletched, but are unable to fly much, I could prowl the willow bottom and stalk the nesting trees. Head shots would knock the birds down for finishing. In this way I could fill a pickle jar full of magpie legs. The local grain elevators would pay a nickel per pair of legs.

Age 12 I cajoled my Dad to take me grouse hunting. His 22 knocked down a couple of grouse. I was a real hunter now !

I had saved some money and with a cash birthday gift, at age 14 I went shopping for my own 22. I can't recall how much money I had, but I could probably afford a Cooey single shot, but I lusted after the Cooey 600, a bolt action tube fed repeating 22. $60, way out of my price range. My City Grandfather was with me. He had farmed in the area before moving to Calgary. He had been chatting with the "Norm" of Norm Nelson Hardware. Turns out they knew each other quite well. Norm asked what I was looking for. I told him my dream gun was the 600, but I was $20 short or so. Norm asked my grandfather if I was a good kid. I guess he liked the answer because he set me up with a line of credit, let me take the rifle home that day and he threw in some 22 shorts. Life was sweet. I recall my mother coming home from town, my brother and sister got cash allowances, I often got 22 shell allowances. The neighbors had a fantastic gopher patch. Cool.

In High School, I saved my money and bought a 30-06 and eventually a scope. I had shot some grouse, a duck or two. I got Dad (we had moved to Calgary) to take me deer hunting. This consisted of me taking fruitless hikes through the forested hills well Dad slept in the vehicle. I loved it still. I was hunting and I had a rifle in my hands. I was a hunter. Essentially being self taught hunters, my friend and I stumbled around and when I was 20, I finally killed my first big game, an antelope buck. More critters have followed.

In July 2005, I had a severe back injury, where one second I was fine (albeit with back pain) and the next second I could not put pressure on my left leg without a sharp stabbing pain and soon (seconds) I could not feel the floor with my left foot. Later that evening, I could not move my left leg, among other issues. The next day, emergency spinal surgery. I left the hospital 2 weeks later an invalid. I could not walk without a walker. It took me days of exercise before I could do a hamstring curl. It would have been easy to feel sorry for myself, sit on my butt, get fatter and never walk again. But I had a goal, hunting season. With the help of a friend, and using a cane to walk, we found a whitetail buck that wasn't too smart. I had made it. I used that cane for nearly two years, including when I hunted the illusive Aberta mountain turkey. Or that was my experience, dam birds liked nothing but to be on the mountains. Tough walking, but on about day 6 I got a jake.

I have had to hunt with trekking poles. They have allowed me to more easily walk on frozen cultivated fields or rough terrain. I have been to Africa.

As I sit here today, I am 19 days past my second back surgery, getting better everyday. I have a lengthy rehab ahead of me, but hunting is my carrot. Hunting again in Africa is my own personal pinata. I will hunt as long as I can.

This is long winded, but why do I hunt? I struggle to answer that. In some ways, I really do not know. On the other hand, it is like I was born to hunt. It is an inate drive that I can't explain where it came from. Hiking is fine, but it is better with a firearm at hand. Hiking with a firearm with the intention to locate legal game and to use the firearm as it was intended to be used, to collect food for my family, now that just makes nature sweeter. Hunting puts me in weather that non- hunters can't contemplate why a person would voluntarily submit themselves to. Hunting puts me in position to observe animals interacting with each other and non-hunters maybe see that only on a nature show, but I have breathed the same air and endured the same terrain and weather. Hunting causes me to value life. Killing a animal is not the end. The work after is often harder than the kill. Again my non-hunting coworkers don't understand, why stay out until midnight retrieving your deer in -25c weather? Butchering in an unheated garage in -20c. Why do it? I have learned to ID plants and animals at great distances and even at highway speeds, I can spot animals that most will never see. I think my life is richer. As someone said, "I hunt to have hunted". One of my most memorable hunts, I never killed anything, but I saw lots of elk, huge elk. I saw them mating and fighting. I guarantee you, if I did not hunt, I would have had no cause to be there, but my life and memories are enriched by the experience.

I could rattle on, but I think this is enough.

AB2506 said:

My father and other relatives really did not hunt when I was young, yet I recall having a inate desire "to hunt". I really don't understand why or where this came from. I also had a fascination and love of firearms at a very young age. Influenced by "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza"? Who knows?

As I sit here today, I am 19 days past my second back surgery, getting better everyday. I have a lengthy rehab ahead of me, but hunting is my carrot. Hunting again in Africa is my own personal pinata. I will hunt as long as I can.


I could rattle on, but I think this is enough.

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Very well written Sir and Good luck with your rehab!

I this has to be the best article I have read on AH. Fantastic! I was 26 when I had to have 5 vertebrae fused and 9.5 hour operation, was told by first 2 specialist, that I would be in a wheelchair in 6 months. Hunting was my passion and gave me motivation as well to keep going. Nearly 20 years later, still hunting flat out.

Red Leg said:

LOL. We need to talk.

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Man I d say so.....WOW

Passion for hunting is my middle name, as with most of us here I would imagine. We are not the blood thirsty killers social media and anti hunting groups would have you believe. You can PM me and I would be happy to talk to you.

TMS said:

If you were asked...why do you hunt? What would your answers be?

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To feel alive with nature, to test my mental and physical strength, to do and see things most people only see on TV or magazines. To soak in the beauty of wherever I may be in the world and to see it's people and how they live. And that's the short version.

Sandman0921,

I very much enjoyed reading your response.

I found it beautiful that you said hunting makes you complete. Completeness is different for everyone. Doing something in nature brings me closer in it, such as mushroom id and yoga. I also get closer to nature when I grow and harvest my own plants and vegetables. So I understand the hunting and being a part of nature. Its not any different in that regard in to the same feelings that all humans seek...wholeness, completeness.

TED TALK and Mr. Rinella: I watched the TED talk you posted and I think "wow. if these activists did some research or talking to the locals, they wouldn't have ruined lion conservation". They blindly pressured the government into bad decision. As Mr. Legarth says, taking a lion's life but we need all kinds of people. Without legal trophy hunting, it seems this leads to more unethical practices. Mr. Rinellas quote that he cares more about the population than the individual, and that reveals a conservation minded person.

Mrs. Rupp Article: After reading the article, I am a little concerned now with the blind emotional pressures to ban hunting.

Game Changer: This is available on ebook at my library, so I am going to dig into that!

After learning from the posters, I notice things in other articles. For example, I read a recent article that Zambia will resuming big cat hunting in 2016-2017 and I did not have an upset response. I was kinda relieved after learning how it helps conservation. and I thought "Okay, this has to be done and it will be done responsibly"

Further, I read a quote in another article that said trophy hunting and hunting for meat are different activties. But now I know better, they are related! they are the same thing! and see the ignorant statement that person made.


Thank you Sandman0291