OK, enough is enough, I have tried to be civil and polite. Guys that just want dead deer hunt in groups and conduct deer drives. I know it is a historical way to hunt in many areas but it is frowned upon and mostly illegal where I hunt so that is where my view is coming from. If it's legal where yoiu are and you do it by the law thats fine with me and I will back you 100%. Deer KILLERS drive deer with large groups of people thrashing and banging through the woods to push the deer to others to KILL. Hunters HUNT and go one on one with the gane as sportsmen have done for eons. And as far as shooting some one elses deer, if's it's not legal without another tag in your pocket NOW or a "gift" deer is not legal where you HUNT, don't try to justify and rationalize your CRIME by explaining that you will get another tag in a little while anyway. There are laws we all must follow, they change throughout our areas, thats fine, follow the ones you have where you are and don't try to justify your indescrestions with illogical statements. As I said enough is enough, we either obey the law as it is we are or we don't, and if we don't, we are ciminals and I for one hope any that anyone who knowingly breaks the laws we have to preserve our great sport of hunting gets CAUGHT and punished. We as hunters and sportsmen don't need these bozo's runinig it for the rest of us!!!....<><.... :grin:
In polite discussion MSP, what we think of as sport hunting and "rules of the chase" have only been in existance for the last 100 years or so, hardly eons. Regulations concerning hunting as we know them only came about as a result of the vast destruction of game animals at the hands of both market hunters and individuals who lived off the land. Prior to that there were no regulations and people hunted as they pleased and landowners would allow.
Native Americans prior to horses and guns drove buffalo off cliffs. This was a group effort, some members taking brush and forming "funnel" others driving a small group of buffs into it, Of course the end was long fall. I'm sure this method was more than exiciting and surely not for the faint of heart. Was it sporting? Was it fair chase?
Market hunters used what are called punt guns, generally with 2" or 3" bores and holding about 2 pounds of lead shot. Thing was tied to a boat. Practice was to float out predawn and fire the thing off at a sleeping flock. As many as 50-75 birds at a time were killed, unknown numbers wounded and unrecovered. This practice nearly wiped out migrating duck populations and resulted it federal regulation of duck hunting and limitations of 3 rounds in a shoulder fired weapon. Punts were illegalized and now exist only in private collections and museums. Prior to the federal regulation of migratory bird hunting, I wonder what the reaction to the idea of "fair chase" woud heve been. More than a few men made their living this way, I'm sure the new regulation was not met warmly.
Here in the south, hunting deer in swamps on horse back is a dying practice. Thankfully Georgia has seen fit to place some regulations that protect landowners and this sport as well. There are many down here that don't see hunting from horseback "sporting" untill they try it. Then you hear a different tune.
I don't consider hunting at long range "sporting" or "fair chase", but then I don't live where shots at 200 yards and more are common. I'd prolly think different of it were that the case.
Our notions of hunting, sportmanship, fair chase are shaped by the culture we live in and may or may not have anything to do with deeper realities of human survival or life in different cultures.
Driving deer has been part of the culture of hunting in many areas of the nation and you can be sure there are rules of fair chase that go along with that in those areas. As has been revealed, in some localities, it is fair chase to shoot deer that other party members will tag and in other places one man one deer is the rule. You can be sure that the rule reflects a combination of past practice, past needs of growth managment, past population sizes and current managment needs. But as well, what we think of as sporting in one area may not be so in another. Don't be too hard on them guys driving deer, it is hard work and each deer they take is earned just like those us lazier souls who plod ever so slowly through the woods in pursuit of our dinner is earned
