lamping with lurchers

[babbyc1000]

hmmm now this is going to be another one of those philosophical arguments.
 
here goes... i dont like hunting with dogs. i dont mean using a dog to flush an animal out to be shot, i mean letting the dog kill it. heres my opinion on the whole of hunting. i cannot see how anyone has a "right" to kill an animal, full stop. that does not mean i dont kill them, in fact it is far from it. however i do everything in my power to ensure that anything i shoot is killed quickly and humanely with little or no suffering.
 
now i only shoot for 2 reasons - meat for the freezer and pest control. yes i do enjoy shooting, but i will only shoot something for those 2 reasons. theres been a few nights ive been shooting pigeons and a fox was sitting 20ft to my left, but he wasnt doing anything so no point shooting him. rabbits, pigeon, pheasant, duck go in the freezer. we rent our land out to a sheep farmer, so crows always get shot. foxes and dogs that attack sheep are fair game too. this doesnt mean if i see a dog worrying the sheep ill release my rottweilers and let them tear it apart, to me thats just not right - its following its natural instinct to hunt, why should it suffer by being torn apart? so ill grab my gun (as i did last night when there was a dog running around) and kill it, to protect the sheep. i dont enjoy that aspect of shooting, but it has to be done.
 
now you say that it doesnt take much effort to pull a trigger karl. do you shoot? :undecided: last night the easy option would have been to release my dogs, theyre more than capable of taking anything (or anyone!) down. i could have sat in the house and called them after an hour or so, or walked up and down the lane with a torch in one hand and cigarette in the other, seeing how they were getting on. but no i grabbed my gun. that meant that i had to get out into the middle of a muddy field, lamp in one hand, gun in the other, stay there for 20 minutes til i could see the dog, decide if i was in range for the shotgun, select the right type of shell, then try to hit the dog when it was running. believe me theres more work to it than you think!:Banghead:

[karl(101010)]

Wot i meant was i could easly go out lamping on the back of the toyota hilux with the 222cal and shoot 5 to 10 foxes in a nite with hardy any effort at all but on the other hand i could set of out with the two lurchers and lamp and walk many acre of land and race 4 or 5 foxes only to kill 2 or 3 and comeing back to the shooting side it IS alot easyer to pull the trigger than walk many miles over rough terrain,hills ect.I hardy ever use the gun im a dog man and always will be but when the oppertunity arrises like the sheep are lambing and there are young getting killed :frown the easyest way is to shoot them rather than courseing them up and down feilds even if your walking round the feilds with the gun its still the easyer option with the bigger guns stalking or anything like that hardy ever comes into play (you spot a fox in the lamp get within 70yards sometimes alot further away then lift the gun focus the crosshairs and bang contest over.)Its only MY opinion but it IS easy to pull the trigger compaired to many other methods.

[karl(101010)]

This is the sire to my bull greyhound and he is the hardest dog i have ever seen loves eating rottwilers

[babbyc1000]

hmmm well disagree on that one then - i told you this is going to be a philosophical argument!!!
 
well i only use a .22lr so it is stalking, plus id never go out on the back of a pickup as im only covering 40 acres or so of my own land, theres not much point!!
 
ah now karl i think i can see were our differences lie, to you its a sport, to me its a necessity. you are happy enough to go out after foxes all night and get only two or three because youve had a good time, whereas i dont enjoy it, and apart from quick kills being important as ive said already i would much rather take out 2 or 3 foxes in half an hour with the rifle if need be!
 
i do disagree with what you say about shooting being easier. yes it is more productive with kills, but at the same time there is an awful lot of work involved in it. the biggest difference is that I am the one doing the killing, not the dog. its me that has to decide on ranges, whether to take the shot or not, etc. and as for using large calibre rifles, most people i know that hunt foxes use .22lr or the magnum version, so youre hardly sitting in the same position waiting for the fox to arrive!
 
well lets just agree to disagree, theres too many ins and outs in this one. i will say though that i dont agree with the law, i never agree with any aspect of hunting being banned, however theres some methods that i wouldnt do myself. anyway all this talking is getting me in the mood to go after some crows now.... ;o)
 
good luck mate!

[karl(101010)]

Thanks buddyc1000 i understand where you are comeing from but like i said that was just my opinion everybody has ther own.i fink you are right about the SPORT and the NECESSITY bit. happy hunting good luck mate!