Target shooter becoming a Hunter?

[cyprant]

I am a target shooter. I enjoy shooting USPSA, Steel Challenge, and IDPA. I am also working a 22LR rifle build for a sub MOA paper punching.

I bow hunted deer when I was a kid but never had the opportunity to shoot a deer. I have only intentionally killed one animal in my life. When I was 15 I found my step dads blow gun and he showed me how to use it. I got pretty good at hitting tennis balls even to the point that I would roll them down the drive way and hit them on the move out to maybe 10 yards or so.

A few days after I started messing around with it, I was cleaning the blowgun and a rabbit ran across the driveway. It stopped about 20 yards away and I decided to take a shot at it. I really didn't think I would be able to hit it but I was young and dumb and decided to give it a go. I shot it while it was broad side to me eating some food from the garden. He dropped down about an inch and never moved again... at first I thought I just shot over it and it squatted like a deer, but as I approached it to retrieve my dart, he never moved. At first I was proud of my marksmanship, but as I picked his warm, lifeless body from the ground, I began feeling horrible. Sadly, The animal went to waste. I still remember those 30 seconds of my life like it was 5 minutes ago. I haven't gone hunting or picked up a blow gun since.

I am starting to get the itch to do some coyote hunting, but I'm not sure why. I really think its about the challenge of shooting a fast moving target at long distances. I don't really like the idea of killing an animal, Especially one that I am not going to eat. I have such a bad taste in my mouth from the rabbit that I am afraid to try hunting again.

I'd like some advice or maybe just hear your thoughts on this? Can I enjoy hunting and let go of my prior bad feelings or am I just not a hunter at heart?

BTW, I support managing wildlife by hunting and I feel feeding your family with an animal you harvest from the wild is a wonderful thing. I have nothing against other people killing game, just not sure it for me(Even though it looks really fun).

Help me find my inner predator!

 

[Hookeye]

These targets are made of flesh and blood, so C zone hits are gonna suck.

I'd suggest hunting other stuff, getting a few kills under your belt, experience possibly some minor variables, to see how you react.

Moving targets at long distance may sound challenging, but I bet of substantial risk in upset considering your post.

You don't shoot animals. You kill them.

Even a hated coyote deserves a good shot and quick death.

With that, IMHO even a misplaced bullet or arrow is probably of a much faster demise than what Mother Nature usually hands out (disease, starvation and conflict).

Remember this show?

I was LIVID in how the kid was not forced to finish what he started.
http://youtu.be/PLXGy5N7x0g

 

[Hookeye]

I remember my first kill, a groundhog. I was 12 and pretty sad, but she had some soybeans in her mouth, we were there to help a farmer with substantial crop damage. My dad was so happy with the shot he about beat me to death congratulatory slapping me on the back. Was 125 yards with a 660 Remington .222 3-9X Weaver AO, 55 gr Hornady (dad's handload), a bit of a low hit but killed her instantly.

I also remember coming home from Kindergarten and seeing my "pet" cow hung in the barn, head in a bucket, hide was off and they were quartering it up. Rather honked off I went to my Grammy and demanded to know why they did that to my cow.............

Pretty simple answers- we're farmers, it's what we do for a living, sell animals and crops for people to eat. We even eat some of our own stuff. You like meat? That's where it comes from. So.....................don't waste it.

Made sense= no problem.

Hated the mean old pigs we had. Loved eating porkchops

Many years later, and after literally hundreds of sporting animal kills, I took a nice buck, biggest yet. OK, I kinda took a breather and decided to go after a doe on a snowy day (muzzeloader season). I'd killed maybe 40 deer up to that point.

3 does come in, crisp, almost painfully cold, am in a 40 acre hardwoods (pretty rolling area).........60 yard shot quartering to me, and I lined up my Hawken. Was in a treestand, cocked the gun quietly, with pressure on the trigger, eased it off while holding hammer back............they never heard a thing, and one could hear a pin drop at that distance.

BOOM!

And she was down where she stood, on her left side, she stretched out a front leg and was stone dead. Just like that. Perfect shot.

I went to her, not big but not too small, was just over 100# dressed, and I felt like total sh*t. Eyes welling up................horrible. There was no damn sport in what I just did. Hell I had a big nasty tasting buck in my freezer (she however was delicious). I didn't really need to kill her. But I did.

So after sitting on a log and just watching her for 15 minutes or more, I cleaned her and drug her through the snow to the Jeep trail and loaded her in my K5.

Dunno why I felt all weirded out, but for a long time after that I wouldn't shoot a doe, unless it was with a bow. Had no problem shoving broadheads through them Gun antlerless? No way, for quite a few years.

Did buy a doe tag last yr in hopes of testing my new to me .35 Rem rifle. Had the hammer back on my Colt Python, on a 100# doe, but my video camera battery failed just before I was to shoot, so I let her go.

I think most of us change as we get older.

Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.

While hunting is killing, not all killing is hunting.



You might better handle hunting now. You won't know until you get out and do it.

 

[Wheezy50]

Managing the predator population is a perfectly good reason to take up hunting coyotes. I wouldn't feel bad for a second about not eating what you kill in this circumstance. Yes, they do deserve a quick, clean, ethical kill. Which you seem to understand just fine. Look at what your doing as HELPING the cottontail rabbit population. Your HELPING rabbit hunters, chicken farmers, etc.

Unless you plan to hunt out west, or have some especially open terrain to hunt here in IN, the shots you take probably will not be incredibly long. I'm not a "pro" coyote hunter by any means, but I have called in and/or killed a few. The majority of shots end up being inside 100yds.

If you feel you need to use the game there is always skinning/tanning the hide. I hear this is a lot of work for the price of fur but I don't know what they go for.

 

[jmil]

I ll be honest Ive been a hunter for many years I've recently had a huge problem with squirrels chewing into the eves of my home I was using the red ryder apporch but i found out that they dont care so uot came the 22 down came the tree rat and then the bad feelings my point is hunting an animal is a different feeling than simply shooting one.. ...it doesn't make for a bad hunter it makes for a good human just my

 

[Hookeye]

The truck delivering vegan magazines and anti hunting literature to the hippie store runs over critters.

Directly or indirectly.......a person's existence means animals will die.

Some folks accept that, others try to except it.

Everybody has blood on their hands.



Love it when the animal rightists go to a big new mall............never wondering what happened to all the trees, plants and ANIMALS that used to live there before development.

 

[Hookeye]

IMHO one shoulders more responsibility when choosing to become a hunter.
Most times things go well, but on rare occasion they might not.
It is not something to take lightly.
It is not an easy task, or else everybody would be doing it.
Consequently, being a good predator is something of which to be proud.

 

[cyprant]

I appreciate the replies.

I agree that going out hunting to take an animal will feel much different than what I did as a kid just shooting it to see if I could.

What do people do with coyotes after they hunt them? I have heard of selling their pelts, but I know not every one skins or mounts them...

Feeling better already and I think I just need to go give it a try.

 

[Hookeye]

Coyotes make a rutted up old buck smell like Chanel No.5

Wanna skin one? Call a friend. One guys skins a bit while the other is out of the garage puking in the driveway, change roles every 15 minutes.