Teak- Now that was a very well written and informative response. You addressed the issues without the need to refer to the non-hunting population as lemmings or dough-butted which may be where some of that “perception” comes from. thank you.

Today’s “hunter” is a middle aged overweight guy with a paunch who can barely climb into a tree stand with his six pack. That’s not hunting. Tracking and stalking your prey through woods is hunting. I have respect for hunters. I don’t respect fat sadists in tree stands.

Hunting is what I do like golf is what some people do. I do not appoligize for hunting; I do not need to. Spiders do not play fair with their prey; they are on the upper part of that food chain. Humans are on the very top of the food chain. Some do not like being in that position and their guilt supports their critisism of hunters. Hunting is as natural as eating itself. Some people enjoy their work and early man sometimes enjoyed hunting for food. Some early humans found other work to enjoy and that is OK too.

Cheaters in any activity give critisism ammunition to those who, for whatever reason, do not approve of that activity.Hunting is no different. Hunters get a bad rap for the same reason that people who drive SUV’s get a bad rap; some people just want to control other people and force them to do things the way they choose. It’s just human nature….like hunting!
Mike

Why do they get a bad rap? Have you seen their outfits? The hats alone are enough to make you gag. And no body type looks good in camo overalls. Dreadful!

I have hunted all of my life. Since 1974 I have only hunted with a bow and arrow. I have served on several advisory committees as well as on the board of directors for the Archery Trade Association for many years, worked with conservation groups on a national level, and attended functions put on by the Congressional Sportsman Foundation in Washington.

The reason I stopped hunting with a gun was to avoid the once a year hunter that got to enjoy his weekend away from the family to play like a real hunter. Somewhere along the line, deer hunting became a social event for what would normally be non hunters. Know one hated to see that more than the true hunter with a passion for conservation. Hunters have always been recognized as killers by some of society. That has been an unfair label for the most part. Driving down the highway with your trophy hanging out of your trunk with blood all over the bumper is not what a true hunter would do.

How could you expect a non hunter to feel about you if you did such a thing? Some self proclaimed once a year hunters don’t think like a true hunter. They do stupid things. You can often find them in the grocery store in groups a few days before opening day buying the food and the beer for the trip. Some start sighting in their new gun shortly after the season starts on opening day, ruining others chance of having a successful hunt.

I could go on and on. In short, the hunter is shafted by the want a be hunter. We all get thrown into the same group by non hunter and animal rights groups. There are a lot of hunters that hate to see some of these things going on as much as the anti hunter does. It’s a shame but it has happened that way. It’s almost as bad a racial profiling.

I could never hunt myself. I have bad eyes and would probably be a danger to myself and others.

However, having been in a car when it hit a deer and having recently narrowly avoided hitting one with my car. (Its scary and not pretty) I have no problem with the legal hunters. Matter of fact, please do it in the control of urban deer populations because its scary otherwise.

To Dave Misham, By classifing todays tree-stand hunters in an unflattering light, you feed the steryotype that is just not true. Before a smart tree stand hunter ever hangs a stand, they scout the area for sign. Just willy-nilly hanging a stand anywhere most likely will not produce a harvest.
Ancient Indians used to hunt from trees or other elevated areas also, does that make them wrong in your opinion? Using the noggin that God gave you to give you an advantage when hunting is just plain common sense.
To all the others out there who complain about hunters, consider this. If someone in your family’s past history had not hunted, odds are you would not be here today.

Because they are hunters, and the non-hunting population doesn’t understand the difference between trophy hunting, blood-hunting for the rush of the activity (an exercise of machismo, which can be deliberately cruel), and hunting for conservation/food/fun purposes.

There is also a great deal of distinction between people for whom hunting is a way of life, and the two-weekends a year “deer warrior”, for whom such paeons such as “Turdy Point Buck” and “The Second Week of Deer Camp” play on the radio in November. There are a lot of people out there (hunters and non-hunters) who don’t realize these songs are parodies. It’s hard to take the guy down the street seriously as a thoughtful,responsible fellow when the media face of hunting is Ted Nugent, every convenience store in the world has Gas-Ammo-Beer below its orange “Welcome Hunters” banner, and as a non-hunter, a person cannot tell the difference.

The “deer gets revenge” story is newsworthy, simply because that was one deer out of the 100,000 taken down, and yes, people forget what antlers are for. The overwhelming majority of deer hunters do so safely and sanely, so they are not news. Excluding a few vocal PETA people,and people who believe wilderness starts at I-270, most Midwesterners have no great moral objection to hunters or hunting even if they aren’t one; such is not the case elsewhere in the country, where the ranks of hunters are falling. By the way, the deer harvest in Missouri has quadrupled in 25 years– so much for deer hunting as a dying sport.

I guess I only see hunters who play by the rules getting a bad rap in urban areas, where non-hunter pseudo-sophisticates don’t understand the rules of nature, and why hunting is essential. Now, hunters who don’t play by the rules– well, they deserve the ribbing/reeducation/scorn from their fellow hunters, but because it is coming from the ‘in-group’ it’s not the same as if bunny and bambi-huggers were after them.

Thanks to Dave Michem for providing us an excellent example of the stereotype that led to this discussion. At the risk of stirring the pot, I must admit that when I think of a hunter stalking their prey, the first image that pops into my head is Elmer Fudd.

I admit to taking a perverse delight in stories like the Sedalia story — other than my revulsion at the thought of the animal’s suffering — just as I rejoice when the bull nails the matador or tramples the idiots in Pamplona.

We have not needed to hunt to secure food for at least the last 100 years or so, unless you live in remotest Africa (or maybe outstate Missouri), so the reason people hunt is simple: they get a charge out of shooting animals. That does not make them evil, but let’s not dignify it by calling it “sport.” And please spare me the “we have to thin the herd” crap. Nobody goes hunting for that reason. And even if they did, if we’d stop destroying their habitat, we wouldn’t need to thin the herd. Nature regulates itself, until humans wreck the equation, as we invariably do.

I have always said, deer hunting will be sport when the deer can shoot back.