And I practice to 60 yards with my compound. Would not shoot at an animal at that range no matter how good I think I am. But this is a discussion board. Enjoyed discussing it with y'all.

Hell, you haven't done any real hunting until you've choked a deer out after jumping on him naked from a tree.

Absolutely not. I'd love a good clean kill at 75 yards. But those don't always become available. Yes the margin for error increases with distance. But it is not a "risk" for some people. There are folks that look at 500 yards like everyone else looks at 100, because they can hit what they want, every time, no matter conditions at 500 yards.

As long as a person knows their limitations, and they stay within them, who is it for anyone else to say what they are doing is ethical, or not?

Someone who knows what they are talking about.

It seems to me that what many are really talking about is "what is sporting," rather than ethics.

I agree the media seems to be pushing it more lately but the boredom / challenge factor does make since. I've seen a lot of mule deer and whitetail hunts on you tube at extreme ranges, i don't know if this is to impress or a look at me kinda thing. I hunt the piney woods in Texas, I don't ever get a chance to shoot at long distance.

Yeah, well I know what I'm talking about also. So that negates that statement.

Just hunt and shoot what YOU feel is RIGHT


this horse is now dead

Ok

Guess I'll go start a .204 for deer thread then

Why screw around? Let's argue about .17 Remington for elk. I am certain that you can kill an elk with the .17, it's just a matter of getting him to lie still so you can stick your muzzle in his ear.

It's a good thing hunting will be cranking up in a week and a half. Maybe all this will stop.


Wait a minute...what was I thinking??

I see risk as not so much as measurement of distance. Risk of the Shot lies with the ability of the hunter, the terrain, the gear, and ultimately the honesty he has with his/her. Self if that is a risky shot. Some guys that's 100yds some guys that's 700yds.

do you ever get tired of being the victim

This reminds me of something that came up during the height of the Iraq war. A few individuals skilled in electronics and internet technology had a bright idea... They took a semi-auto rifle with a scope, and set it up in a mount with servo-motors to control windage and elevation by remote-control, and a web camera hooked up to the scope. Another servo controlled the trigger. The idea was to sell time on this weapon in Iraq to individuals in the US, over the internet. Some of you may remember this, from when it was being discussed in the 1990's.

There were objections to this proposal, and some controversy. After the dust settled and the discussion was over, the entire idea had been "shot down" by a majority who understood why this was a very wrong idea, leaving a few individuals still puzzled as to why anyone would object to it in the first place. - It seemed so unfair to deprive them of this opportunity.

Many others, most especially troops on the ground there, readily understood how inhuman and inhumane the entire idea was. They did not just object... They were absolutely disgusted, down deep.

Now, let us take a look at the relevant part of Boon and Crockett's statement on long-range hunting, and see if we can see any parallels there:



If simply killing a game animal is the only real point in the manly sport of big game hunting, then what would be wrong with setting up a semi-auto rifle near a game trail with servo motors for remote-control, and a webcam hooked up to the scope so individuals could kill those game animals at home, sitting around in their underwear in front of a computer with a beer in hand? - What would be wrong about that? Would the person who paid to avail themselves of that service be a sportsman? Would it be "OK" if they were highly skilled at this kind of shooting? If not, then why not?

So, now we have some person who is so far away from the game animal that the animal would have no chance to detect their presence, much less be aware of any danger if they were to jump up and down and wave their arms prior to taking the shot. Skilled or not, when that person then snipes at the game animal, is he being a sportsman? - Boone and Crockett says, "No." - As do thousands of sportsmen and women around the world.

Reading this, there are many, a majority I would daresay who immediately get the overarching point here - a thing called sportsmanship - but there are a few who feel that it would be unfair to deprive them of that opportunity to snipe a game animal. - After all, they are so skilled!

This is not intended in any way to disparage the sport of long-range shooting, or the skill required to do this difficult thing successfully. Many hunters have been tempted to take a long shot on occasion, and for a sportsman this is no easy matter to consider. A sportsman will feel a strong obligation to get close enough to reduce the chances for "Murphy" to intervene to an absolute minimum.

People who deliberately seek long shots at game, though? - Or who make up "the dog ate my homework" excuses to justify deliberately seeking to do so, and actively encourage others to do the same?

They may be many things - but these game snipers are not sportsmen. I am naming no names here, but if anyone feels that the shoe fits then by all means - wear it.

We express our opinions here... This is my opinion, and I feel no shame in stepping forward to express it. It is incumbent among sportsmen to elevate this fine pursuit, and not stand idly by while it is degraded by a small minority who feel that they have some special "right" - to behave in an unsportsmanlike manner in the field.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that taking away from my prey, the ability to use its senses to detect danger is somehow unsportsmanlike and demeans the hunter/prey relationship.
I'd call that smart, no matter the method.

As far as long range game shooting goes, a person needs to know his gear and skill level and be comfortable with the conditions at the time of the shot. There are a lot of things to consider before blankety stating that long range hunters are unsportsmanlike.
My personal limit is inside of 500 yds under ideal conditions and typically out west were shooting across obstacles, like a canyon, would preclude me from getting close to the game. If I'm hunting a feeder (talk about sportsmanlike) I get closer so the hunter/ prey relationship does not get misaligned and the universe falls apart.

As long as I got steaks and burger in the freezer and jalepeno/cheddar sausage in the larder, my hunter/prey relationship is perfectly calibrated.

I just read all ten pages, learned a lot, but confused how this ended up in the Rifles, Shotguns, and Handguns Forum.

"There is no such thing as long range "hunting". Hunting is the collective number physical acts and skills of tracking and seeing and stalking your animal to a position from where there will be NO doubt as to where your bullet will strike it. Long range target shooting at a live animal is nothing but an unethical, despicable sport engaged in by unethical individuals. The shooter may hit it or he may not. Knowing where he will hit it is impossible. An animal gut shot beyond 250-300 yards simply trots or even walks away giving no indication if being hit and the nature of the beast is that the target shooter who stayed far away for the shot will also be too lazy and non-care like to walk out and track the animal.

It is already difficult to put a bullet into the heart at 300 yards. Nothing will convince me that this is anything else but unethical conduct performed by patently lazy and uncaring individuals that should not call themselves hunters. It is not possible to express the disgust I experience when I read the brag pages of these people."


"It is better to have hunted an animal and not shot it than to have shot at an animal and not have hunted it.¨ - Bruce Truter, professional hunter, South Africa


"Shooting at long range reduces your odds of a clean, humane kill. And the desire for a clean kill is fairly universal… whether you’re deeply committed to the ethics of the clean kill, you’re deeply opposed to missing, or if you hate the idea of following a tough blood trail for hours through rugged country.

But there are folks who are going to do it anyway, because when the moment comes, they are in that moment. They’re not thinking as much about failure as they are about success. It’s something deeply ingrained in our psyche, I think… that momentary lapse of reason where we push aside doubt and go forward with blind certainty, even when we should (and do) know better. Few hunters have the self-awareness to recognize it when it comes, and fewer still have the discipline to restrain themselves if they do."


"I have a problem with big-game hunters over-extending range in order to bag a trophy deer, elk, or whatever. I do believe the big-game sport hunter needs to curb their range limits, so as not to wound game in the process.

While 600-, 800-, and 1,000-yard shots are very spectacular, I believe they need to be reserved for varmints and paper targets. Long-range shots on game are very workable, but long-range in this case should not exceed the dead-on killing limit of the cartridge and the shooter. In other words, give the animal you’re hunting a break by working toward a clean, humane kill.

At 400 to 1,000 yards, you know as well as I do that anything can happen to that bullet en route to the target, and the game animal will pay the price for a less than well-thought-out move on the hunter’s part.

Some time ago, I watched a television program in which hunters were shooting elk from one mountain across to another. That, my friends, is no longer hunting, but an exercise in the use of advanced ranging equipment, rifles, and big cartridges. At best, it is simply shooting and little more."


"Safari Club International has announced that long range shooting at game animals is unsportsmanlike because it deprives the animal of its survival instincts by sight, scent and hearing."

Is this dead horse your beating still hitched to the post?

Sportsmanship? Dead to some, perhaps. - That much is obvious.

This may surprise you - but you are not the only reader or poster here. Everyone here gets to express their opinion, and to read what they care to read, not just you.

It is not all about you at THF.

Am I a sportsman for hunting over a feeder sitting in a box blind 100 yards away? How about a bow hunter elevated 25 feet in a tree? Both of those go pretty much undetected by deer. Certainly is true in the case of the box blind.

Really? Had no idea. I'll wait patiently for any more pearls of wisdom from you, the generate from your own little world.

What about the use of camouflage? Seems pretty unsporting too. So do the use of calls.

Gonna smack this horse one more time....

I can agree that intentionally increasing the distance to shoot big game is a dick move, and that is an opinion I hold, but disagree that persons shooting big game past 300 are lazy, uncaring or unethical.
"Those that can't do are usually the first to cry foul." There's a quote for ya.

I see a lot of quotation marks in your post. Are you running out of original material?

I've seen several video's where the first and even the second shot were misses, the boy shooting the elk at 1000 yards in particular. When the first shot is going that wild they have proven to me they don't particularly care where they hit the animal as long as they hit it. That bull in the video mentioned walked completely out of sight into the timber with no mention of how far they had to trail it.

If chuck hawks didn't say it, Charles doesn't believe it.