Hunter Ed

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I completed the required Hunter Education course for Oregon and passed the test.
I'll be getting my 2018-2019 Oregon hunting license when they become available.

I've never been a hunter, but thought I'd give it a try.
I do fly-fish (or used to), and Oregon has a combined hunting/fishing package that lets you do both plus dig for shellfish, so I thought I'd do that. Hope to post more in the Hunting subforum someday soon.
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Re: Hunter Ed

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Eris wrote:Good luck! I've never been hunting myself, and I wouldn't know how to go about it without someone to guide me.
Thanks, Eris. Yeah, I'm sure there is a steep learning curve. But, what the hell?
Too late in life to harbor dreams of becoming a Mighty Hunter,
but an acceptably adequate one works for me fine. Soon I'll have a schedule change at work (4 days on 3 days off) that will make long weekend getaways easy to manage.
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Re: Hunter Ed

5
HuckleberryFun wrote:
Eris wrote:Good luck! I've never been hunting myself, and I wouldn't know how to go about it without someone to guide me.
Thanks, Eris. Yeah, I'm sure there is a steep learning curve. But, what the hell?
Too late in life to harbor dreams of becoming a Mighty Hunter,
but an acceptably adequate one works for me fine. Soon I'll have a schedule change at work (4 days on 3 days off) that will make long weekend getaways easy to manage.
There are plenty of shows and videos to give you some pointers, but like most things, you learn by doing. The main thing I’ve learned over the years is to enjoy the process; if you take an animal, that’s great, but being outside in nature is reward enough for me. Getting into the woods before dawn, seeing the stars before the sun comes up, watching and listening to the forest stir and wake up, learning animals’ habits... that’s what makes it fun. I’ve been out countless times and not even shot, but I would never count those days as failures.
Do you believe in unlikelihoods?

Re: Hunter Ed

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I'm not a hunter but I do fish whenever we're in the Bahamas. Down there, lots of guys come for the bonefishing and bonefish flats. I don't get it, because it's catch and release, though Bahamians eat bonefish, but these guys can't. If you don't eat what you catch, I don't get the point. We always do. Fresh fish, caught that day, is awesome!
I gotta say, I've never known a hunter who didn't eat what they hunted, and I'm OK with that. I don't know if the Black Bear hunters here in NJ eat the bear, but I hope they do. I just hate the thought of killing an animal just to kill it.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Hunter Ed

7
The best way to learn how to hunt is to spend a lot of time in the woods studying animal habits. Small game hunting or just hiking in the woods leading up to deer hunting can give you insight into where the deer are and what their habits are, plus you can practice stalking when you come across fresh sign. Walking real slow and taking frequent pauses is difficult to master at first, but the first time you get within close range to a deer whether you are hunting or not is quite thrilling. Proper clothing is important too, I like wool, it absorbs light rather then reflect it.

Re: Hunter Ed

8
start with this if you want to hunt bear http://www.drnordbergondeerhunting.com/ ... _Bear.html

http://outdoorchannel.com/article.aspx?id=44686

http://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/pdf/bear_recipeguide.pdf

http://www.themeateater.com/2014/6-blac ... d-how-tos/

For those that do not understand catch and release fishing... the rule is "if you KILL it, you grill it"

If you want to learn to hunt or go hunting.. but have never killed or field dressed or butchered an animal, skinned an animal you might want to buy a couple live chickens or a goose or a few pigeons (Squab a very fancy and upscale served only in the finest restaurants gourmet dish is probably just a park pigeon that got unlucky.. certainly a domestic pigeon at any rate) or if you are after fur, not feather, a live suckling pig, maybe a calf, and see if you can handle the killing and handling the carcass and butchering.. lot of books/ you tube/ online guides on making a dead animal meat, dealing with the whole concept that something living died so you could eat and live is not something everybody finds they can handle, and there is no shame in that.. we, as a species, have been domesticated to a degree ourselves and no more hunt or find our own food than a barnyard cow or the family pet dog. ( don't believe me? look at any of these "I found this poor stray dog in horrible condition and saved it's life " stories on the internet.. think of the implications of that, once descended from a wolf, homeless soul dying on the street unable to feed or care for itself properly. )

Better to slaughter a suckling pig , up close and personal , really confront the killing part.. at home or in a safe place with friends or even an experienced person to help you thru it, or to take over and take the meat if you find that you cannot handle the necessary processing or.. and this happens.. eat meat you have killed yourself.. some folks can't kill a chicken... no shame in that as long as you know somebody who can species survival speaking... I've seen folks make a beautiful clean humane shot and kill a deer all happy and excited .. until they get to the carcass.. and those dead open eyes or the utter stillness.. or the death throes .. or the spasms .. or the wild look of fear as it takes it last breath .. just being close and confronting what you have done.. takes all the pleasure of feeding you family and even sends folks running walking crying thru the woods in deep remorse and regret.

The thing to keep in mind here is that there is a circle of life . and we have already killed way to many predators and destroyed way too much habitat .. prey animals , the herd , are under serious stress, somebody has to make the cycle work and thin the herd, cull the excess so there is enough food and space to allow for healthy animals living a normal life with only the normal stressors that they have adapted to over millennia and that has only been out of balance the last couple hundred years. Protect the species that need protecting and play your part in the natural cycle of prey and predator as every other species of life ( except domesticated animals.. don't get me started.. 10,000 pounds of milk from a single cow in a year) on this planet naturally does.

Re: Hunter Ed

10
Well done, Sarge! (no pun intended).

In Game of Thrones, when we meet Tywin Lannister, played by the exquisitely talented Charles Dance, he's skinning and gutting a deer he shot (presumably with a bow), while hunting. I don't know if it's as realistic as it looks, but it takes a strong stomach.

While landing something big, like a mahi-mahi dolphin fish, or a barracuda is both work and a lot of fun, I don't fish to catch and release, but only do it when you can't eat what you've caught, like puffer-fish, under size-fish, or 'cuda where they have access to coral reefs (there's a bacteria that they can get).

Don't know anything about stalking deer, but what was once a rare and beautiful sight is now a pest in New Jersey, where we have a larger deer population than is estimated we had at the revolution. We have to use deer / rabbit repellent because they like to lunch and munch on our expensive shrubbery. One year, they ate all the flowers off the hydrangea, the irises, the daffodils and some others I don't remember the names of. My point being we see them all the time and the families have a circuit they follow across, I guess, about a mile in diameter. Different families have territories like packs of dogs. I guess, like dogs, the stags mark their boundaries. Of course, being NJ 'burbs you can't hunt or shoot them, because even the patches of forest, and there are many on undeveloped land, are too close to houses for hunting here.

We also get wild turkey, the occasional fox and I've on VERY rare occasions seen coyotes. When we lived further west on what passes for a mountain here, and had LOTS of woods, you could hunt there. Even the black bear showed up there from time to time, to the neighbors' consternation. But that was over 20 years ago and I had no interest in guns then.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Hunter Ed

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Thanks... I have a urge to balance the whole circle of life thing just a little bit

Because the following story is also part of the circle of life.. and IMHO.. everybody should have an experience that just imprints it's self on you mind that brings it all together.

I was driving thru the rising dawn one morning ... not far from my place... the fog was just breaking and the sun was reflecting off 300 Billion 745 million 258 Thousand and 123 dew drops and a cow was calving in the middle of that dew glistening field... it took your breath away.. I had to stop and watch.. and just as I stood up against the fence .. the fog curled free from a small hillock opposite me, the other side of the birthing... and on it stood a Giant Angus Bull, all puffed out, head held high.. as if to say.. Yeah.. I did that.. come no closer ... you can see all the glory you need to see from where you stand...

That too is part of the circle

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