doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shooting Skills relative to Hunting Skills

Another thread here (very interesting) on preserve shooting etc shows that there seem to be two camps in the minds of many posters - Shooters and Hunters.

The latter gain most pleasure from the hunt and the dog work and the shot is a bonus.

The former get their challenge from testing themselves against difficult, fast birds and enjoy the dogs, the hunt, the guns and the social side as a bonus.

As with much in life, there is crossover. some 'Hunters' like the occasional day being challenged by a good number of difficult birds and some 'Shooters' sppreciate the odd day away from the formal shoting set-up; perhaps ferreting, foreshore wildfowling, or shooting over dogs on a bit of rough scrub-land in anticipation of the odd rabbit, pheasant or pigeon.

If I examine my own shooting life I admit to enjoying both. Testing your nerve against large numbers of wind-blown partridges coming off a hill in a gale, trying to pick your bird, swing, connect, re-load repeat before it is all over is a rush that stays with you - even when you fail in spectacular fashion!

Waiting on an inland flooded gravel pit in anticipation of the arrival of malard, teal, widgeon and perhaps even a skein of Canada geese is a meditative experience all of its own. You may get a shot, you may get a flurry of shooting, you may just smoke acigar and watch the sky get red, then black.

Decoying wood pigeon presents really wild birds, coaxed into shot with care and skill - and each time you shoot a bird it will be from a different angle and speed from the last.

Stalking rabbits of a summer evening with a .22 rim-fire is pure joy - warm breeze, long shadows and bunnies feeding.

Hunting pheasants and partridges over dogs - deep ditches, tall hedges - maybe a woodcock, the staple of English shooting.

For me it must be Sporting, it must be challenging and it must have an element of unpredictability and the possibility of failure.

I just came back from my fifth hunt in Italy (Umbria) after wild boar - my companion got a right and left with a solid slug loaded Beretta 20 bore. He was ecstatic.

I saw neither hide nor hair of living porker for the fifth year running - I had a wonderful day all the same.

I love it all but to be totally honest, I want to be in a position to try my old guns and my (lack of ?) skill with them on testing quarry. Otherwise, it is not shooting, it is walking the dog.

- but what are you? Hunters or Shooters?

just curoius, were you near Marchiano (sp?), -- Villa Emma? I stayed there and there was a boar hunting ground adjacent. Much yelling, dove calling and dogs involved -- it was great.

I'm a hunter that uses a gun. I've done both the driven and the rough shooting. To tell you the truth driven doesn't do it for me. Yes the birds are usually quite hard to hit but, I was raised poor and to have someone else do all the hard work of moving the birds just doesn't sit right with me. I hope others enjoy it, it's just not for me. When it's time to sit down at the table I enjoy the meal much more when I feel that I have worked for my game.

PJ

I was up near Folignio in some little village. my girlfriend's cousin took me out with alocal boar hunting club called 'Porki's'!

They are a real farmer's outfit - most of them are about 5ft tall and their dogs are sewn up with string.

Wonderfully hospitable, very odd, barely organised, beautiful scenery and a real experience. It has become an annual event for me.

I'm hoping my luck in seeing a piggy coincides with my next visit when I want to take that 1897 hammer Paradox I mentioned earlier over there.

Well, for sure, I'm a hunter, but I'm also a shooter to some extent and enjoy competitive shooting as well.

Yes, there are hunters and shooters and hybrids - there are also killers and I think they are becoming the predominant morphotype in big game "hunting"

Brent

Hunter/Collector. I enjoy the hunt and the guns, the guns more than a straight shooter.

I just came back from a weekend in southern VT where I did 2 days of waterfowl in the early morning followed by woodcock and grouse after that.

I loved it all, waiting in the boat with the dog for the ducks to come in, fighting the upland underbrush, the points, the shots and even the bird plucking.

While doing it all I enjoyed contemplating the two guns I brought, each chosen for a specific task. I admired the work and balance of the Chas. Hellis 2" 12 bore that I carried for the afternoon hunts and I wondered about the upgraded Stevens 5000 that was knocking around the boat with me in the morning. Who went through the expense of adding upgraded wood, ivory beads and a Red Head pad on this gun? It all made for a great weekend.

On the other hand my guide had just gotten his Beretta 686 back from the Beretta shop in MD and while doing a repair they must have put the forend in a vise and really crunched the wood. He didn't seem upset, said the gun was working well and that's all that mattered. Hunter.

Brent, I also have problems with the "killers". My opinion on the subject is that very very few people who grew up hunting fit in the "killer" category. To me most of them seem to be people that are new to hunting and/or just want to get something from it that most hunter don't want or need. i.e. their name in the "book", to fit in with a crowd that they just have to be in, or they were introduced to hunting incorrectly. Some of these can be fixed, unfortunately some can't.

Dig,

Excellent post. I'm with you. I enjoy each type of shooting on its merits. The challenges are different but they can be very enjoyable in their own way. I have done very little driven shooting or preserve shooting, but what I have done has been fun and I would do it again

I followed the preserve vs. wild thread with interest. In a way, it reminded me of the "collector" vs. "shooter" thread from a year or so ago. In that thread, many viewed the the collector with some disdain (much like the preserve shooter). No one wanted to be tagged with the "collector" badge. Poster afeter poster attested how they were shooters, by God, and wouldn't own a gun just to have it just for the sake of owning it (and/or shooting it rarely.) Of course the reality that a lot of us the board have several more guns than we could reasonably argue we needed from a pure practicality standpoint did not figure prominently in the thread. (I know, I know, having a separate back-up, wet-weather loaner gun in 16 gauge choked for late season pheasant is purely a practical consideration, or so I tell my wife).

I'm rambling here, but my point is - 'to each his own.' It is a lot easier to look down on an occasional preserve shoot when you can step out your back porch and chase roosters. It is another to be somewhere you can't easily do that. Ditto for some of the hunting methods in other parts of the country or world. I think we need to be careful in how we view tradtions in other part of the world just because they are not the ones we grew up with.

Good shooting,
Ken

Hunter or shooter?

Like most of us a bit of both, though for me the accent is towards the hunter. If I was forced to give up all of it bar one, that one would be coastal 'fowling for geese. Flighting woodpigeon would be last but one.

I do enjoy a driven day, but it's very expensive so I have to limit myself. The shooting can be great fun but I take most pleasure in the social occasion...the "tradition".

Finally; I'm dog obsessed. I get real joy out of working my Labs and Springers.

The mix this season will be.....
2 days driven
3 days wildfowling
Probably 20 days flighting pigeon
Some (?) moonflighting duck.
And wait for it...38 days booked with the dogs, and a lot more to come.

Eug

DIG

It is often said that there are really three categories of sportsmen in the field...

Hunters

Shooters

Dog men

As we move through life, we may move from one category to another. I am certain that I have moved through at least two of these categories myself.

I have given up big game hunting and most waterfowling to spend 60 to 90 days a year after upland birds with my setters. I travel thousands of miles every year and shoot as many as eight species of birds over my dogs.

I guess that I could be labeled a 'Dog Man'.