For me, Hunting is the whole experience! Not just pulling the trigger! The walk, the search, using your own skills, not that of a cast of 1000s, a dozen dogs, electronic gadgetry and being a robot sqeezing a trigger with everything done for me. I don`t shoot the biggest male, I shoot the smaller animal that I can carry out and place in the freezer. The big Boar is great and have shot a few, but I can`t carry it out, I am not going to leave it for waste and I am not going to eat it cause the younger animal flavour will leave it for dead! So I am a different kind of hunter I guess.
On the other hand, we have a list of animals which are to be culled on sight. These include the Fox and Rabbit. They are destroying our ecology, so most people/ranchers will cull all they can when the opportunity arises. This often entails a spotlight on the ute [pickup as you say] and going out at night using the spot light to daze the animal so you can cull as many as swiftly as possible. I do this when the opportunity arises. It is extermination of a pest and not hunting! Kangaroo shooters do the same thing. It is not hunting it is culling for the meat trade...
You are right, ethics are in the eye of the beholder! I have no problem at all with high fenced ranches and if I am able to ranch in Texas, it will be high fenced. The animal must be able to escape if it feels the need too, not run from one fence to the next. I have no interest in hunting an animal as it sleeps. I will not hunt an animal that would rather graze at my feet or eat from my hand than high tail it out of there. I like the challenge, the whole package. Is much more than just pulling/squeezing a trigger. Like they say in the movies, it is an experience, it is an adventure! Just my views and I certainly don`t expect others to agree...
good hunting Mark... cheers from down here...
