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Checking in as a guy who grew up in Michigan surrounded by whitetail deer hunting but never partook in it. It just never appealed to me. Always seeing them hanging in my relatives garages, I never really liked venison, sitting in the cold rear end woods/snow from sun up to sundown, etc. I was always outside. I loved camping, hiking, shooting. I just didn't like the idea of deer hunting. When I was around 20 my step dad oddly tore his bicep reaching for something and suddenly his bow hunting days were over. For his 50th birthday we got him a German shorthair pointer to get into bird hunting. Remi was a great dog. She hated every girlfriend I ever brought home and you couldn't say the word "ball" without devoting an hour if playing fetch with her. My parents had to put her down last year at 15 years old.  I eventually got into it after they got a dog (around 20 y/o) and now at 35, I live in Seattle, have a vizsla myself (Stanley) and enjoy casual bird hunting.   I'm a fan of upland hunting. It involves hiking, skilled shooting, working with a dog, and meat I enjoy eating. I enjoy it. Out here in Washington we mostly focus on pheasant and grouse but we've also got chukkars. The first time I hunted out in Washington was wild. Being used to the thick forests of Michigan hunting ruffed grouse, and hunting peasants in desert sage of eastern Washington was a crazy change. The sage rubs on your gear and you smell better after hunting than you started.  My hunting buddy laughs because he and his dog are infinitely more blood thirsty than my dog and I. I don't shoot unless I know there's a good chance I'm downing the bird. I don't like wounding birds or being unable to find them. My first trip with my hunting partner is a good example of our differences in hunting styles. We were hunting blue grouse here in Washington. Throughout the day he probably fired 20 rounds and got 2-3 birds out of the 5-10 we saw. He and his dog were scratched to poo poo from running through thick underbrush and briars. Lots of misses and lots of impossible shots. I fired one round and dropped one bird. It was the only clean shot I had all day and I made it count. He still teases me for being a soft hearted hunter but I'm not the one who got so blood thirsty that I once shot out the rear tire of my own truck because a bird flew that direction. His dog jumped through a barbed wire fence chasing a pheasant and tore a good chunk of skin. His dog jumped out of a window after a pigeon and destroyed his back after falling two stories, requiring extensive surgery and years of rehabilitation. He still hunts like a bulldozer even with a titanium rear end. I'm sure he could do it without rear legs.  They're fun to hunt together and I really enjoy getting out. It's another hobby for me that gets me outside but it's not my life. I might get out a half dozen times a season. I've let a lot of birds see a another day. Most people are usually shocked when they find out I hunt. Hell, I still use the first shotgun I've ever bought myself when I turned 18, a Remington 870 express magnum 12g. Verman fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 07:54
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 02:45 |
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alnilam posted:
I'll say this, that story makes him sounds worse than he is. He's a very safe hunter, he's very aggressive on birds but he's safe and I trust him. He's got a ton more hunting experience than I do, not that it's always a measure of safety, but he knows what he's doing. I've hunted with people who were going to kill someone eventually. I've been swept so many times by friends of friends that I'm really cautious about who I hunt with. How he shot his tire out was due to the truck being uphill from us through some thick brush. He was on the uphill side so when the bird went up, he shot uphill at it. He was blocking my shot so I didn't go for it. We both thought we were in a different location than we were, well away from the truck and didn't realize he even hit the tire until we got back to camp and noticed it went flat. We changed the spare and it looked like he just rubbed some sharp rocks on the sidewall. When he eventually got the tire changed, he found lead shot inside. It wasn't a pinnacle moment of achievement but it's laughable now. One of those stories that we'll tell forever. Like the other time I had a ruffed grouse go up in front of 5 of us in upper peninsula of Michigan, turn 180° back towards our shooting line and fly straight into my face. I think the bird was trying to take the hunters out one by one. Its wings hit my face as it banked and flew away. Thankfully nobody shot at it. Pham Nuwen posted:Hey, is this just south of Highway 26, north of the Saddle Mountains, between Vantage and Royal City? Yes it is. It was all burned, leading to a pretty poo poo hunt.
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Jul 22, 2020 21:36
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to be frank your hunting buddy sounds kind of like a dangerous rear end who might accidentally shoot someone some day. Hunting and guns are deadly serious business and he shouldn't be careless to the point of shooting his truck, or casually taking wounding shots.
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wesleywillis posted:I've got an opportunity to go pheasant hunting somewhat soon. What part of the country are you hunting in? I hunt pheasants and grouse out here in Washington state, mostly on the eastern side of the state where the terrain is often pretty open rolling farmland or dry desert. The birds to tend to gravitate towards the trees/brush/water so I've made some tight shots as well. I've always used my 12g with a modified choke. In my experience for what I hunt, I prefer to have a tighter pattern for when that bird gets away from us, or flushes before the dogs even get to it. You have to be an accurate shot up close but for what I hunt, shots are rarely happening within 10 yards, especially if the birds have been hunted already and are easily spooked. With dogs, you might get a better sense of where the birds are and be able to prepare your shot as you approach. Without dogs, you might end up stepping on birds if they're holding still early in the season. I'll say, even when I hunt grouse in tighter forest, I still use my modified choke because its what I'm used to so I never notice it being an issue. As for shot size, I started using lead 7 shot when I moved out here and just found it wouldn't knock the birds down. I shot a lot of birds, some kept flying and others knocked down and took off running. Once I switched to 6, I had much more success dropping them on the spot. I know some guys out here use 5, especially if they have to use non toxic shells. Either of these would be my guns of choice, probably leaning towards the sxs 12 O/U 20g fixed full and mod 2x SxS 12g both with full and I/mod Verman fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Oct 22, 2020 |
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Oct 22, 2020 00:31
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Canadianjerkey posted:Thank you all for such a warm welcome! In my opinion, thats not a bad approach. Start with small game and work your way up. Learn to clean and break down a smaller animal like a bird, squirrel or rabbit before you go out trying to field dress a full size deer for the first time. Growing up in Michigan, most kids got into hunting through their parents and were exposed to deer hunting as a youth. They likely had a deer in hanging in their garage at some point and went on youth hunts before their teen years. As a kid, I was never really interested in deer and its carried on through the years even to now in my mid 30s. I don't know what it is, maybe because I'm not a big fan of venison, and I have nothing against it by any means but I have no desire to hunt big game which is why I stick to upland birds. I just tend to enjoy the style and season of upland hunting. This is where mentorship can really help but making new friends as an adult can be weird, especially in hobbies that involve firearms and killing animals. A lot of people/hunters can be shy about inviting new people to hunt with them, or showing them a nice piece of hunting area that they like to hunt. I am picky about who I hike with, but I'm incredibly picky about who I hunt with, and for good reason. I've met a few people from SA for various reasons; cycling, dirt biking, airsoft, going to the shooting range, hiking/mountaineering etc and most of them were really cool but some were instantly obvious they weren't a good fit. If its something that really involves safety I like to casually meet them first before we get into whatever dangerous thing we're about to do just to make sure they're a cool normal person that I can establish trust with, and that applies to non SA people as well. I've met people for beers/food and just talked hunting or whatever you're meeting about. For mountaineering/hiking/hunting/dirt biking, either of us could end up in a survival scenario and need to rely on the other person for assistance so establishing trust is pretty important. Based off that interaction you can determine if you want to continue to make plans. I think I literally just described dating but thats always been my approach anyway. Some people are way more open while others may be more closed but it never hurts to ask or DM.
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Oct 26, 2020 23:55
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Knocked down a pheasant today. My dog was hunting really well all day but we must have stumbled onto two spooked birds because they flew before my dog could even get within 20 feet. We barely even saw them. The next spot we were nearly done and my buddy was pushing into the edge of a pond with some cattails when one flew up. He took three shots and missed, I took two ... Barely got the bird with the first shot but then blasted it with the second causing it to flip in the air. I saw it drop in this desert scrub sage and walked straight to it. It took us an hour to find it. My dog had difficulty finding it as it landed and burrowed into a sage hole. I basically stepped on it when I heard it flutter. 
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Nov 1, 2020 04:14
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I went up with a buddy for late season blue grouse in the snow. He's been wanting to get up to this location in the winter for a long time to see if the grouse are up there this time of year. The last time we were up there, we saw a cinnamon bear and a cub and I got the only grouse we saw with one shot. Yesterday we saw a ton of rabbit tracks and one grouse track but no birds. Either way it was a nice day in the mountains and my dog is dead tired do that's always a success.   
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Dec 15, 2020 00:47
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Outrail posted:That pretty impressive, how many people can say they caught a fish while biking? Probably this guy 
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Dec 15, 2020 17:10
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 02:45 |
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GEEKABALL posted:Hey Visla buddy, post more doofy dog. Oh nice. I see a lot of Vizlas around my area as pets but I don't see many hunting when I go. This is Stanley. He's a bit of a clown, still very much a puppy and an old man at 6 years old, and way more personality than a dog should probably have. He points butterflies beautifully. He enjoys hunting but due to my lack of training (and not getting on birds early enough) he knows mostly what to do but lacks the finishing touches of a true hunting dog. Its my fault as bird hunting is one of my many hobbies and its not my most passionate so I mostly do it just to get outside in the fall and get him working his instincts.     I aggravated a herniated disc in my lower back last week so my hunting season might be over before it even starts.
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Sep 2, 2021 01:42
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