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S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
29 April 2014, 22:47,
#31
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
(29 April 2014, 22:04)Hex Wrote: true Big Grin but its still food if im desperate Wink

Totally agree mate. I'm 100% there. I'll be luring them in with sandwiches and all sorts. However, when the easy pickings are gone...which will be quickly, then the need for this exercise really kicks in.
Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism - Thomas Jefferson
Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin
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3 May 2014, 22:24, (This post was last modified: 3 May 2014, 22:26 by Devonian.)
#32
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
Here my latest attempt, a bit more successful:

- wood pigeon in the back garden
- a pair of Mallard ducks in a tidal pond
- a pair of Shelduck's on the mudflats
- Sheep and Lambs!!
- A country woodie taking cover in a tree

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4 May 2014, 17:43,
#33
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
HAHA, another bunch of fails.

While out on Dartmoor, I was trying to get some pics of crows up close, and a few of wood pigeons. I keep fighting the temptation to just get an easy few pics and wonder around the outskirts of the village. My plan is to get some awesome pics up close and personal. FAILED!!!

I had an amazing stalk on a crow on Saturday. I was on Dartmoor by Haytor, but the opposite side of the road (MCavity, it was where you parked mate) and I did a beast of a stalk. Using trees as cover, down low along a cut out made my a small stream, slowly up the opposite bank, sneaking right up on the crow. My head was just obscured by a small bush, but I was able to see through a small gap and the crow was there. Less than 5 meters away! I was on it. This crow was mine! I turn the camera on. The crow flinches, but it does not fly off. It turns its head scanning around to check what made the noise (the stupid rabbit from last time disappeared at this point). But nothing. He was alert, but staying put. Very slowly I raise up the camera up. For no reason that I could figure, up and offed. WHY?!?! Did I move too slow and it was hit natural time to fly off? Did I hesitate? Did I move too quickly? Then I notice the light reflecting off my camera lens onto the leaves in front of me. The camera shine must have spooked the crow. Stupid mistake.

Love how this is a challenge I created, and I'm failing.

Having said that, really focusing on it the amount I am have caused me to get some awesome wildlife photos! Many are small birds that I took as 'compensation' for my meal-animal picture. Granted the zoom was in use for many of them, but if it wasn't a meal bird, then the zoom was allowed haha.

Out and about tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get some great pics.

Even though it's my challenge, I do feel it would be cheating to take a kill shot with my air rifle, then prop the animal back up and take a photo of it. But taking a photo then taking a kill-shot....really hard. The challenge is difficult, but the learning experience is great fun.
Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism - Thomas Jefferson
Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin
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5 May 2014, 05:03,
#34
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
we need to keep in mind that after we kill and eat the semi-wild suburban rabbits, squirrels, geese and ducks the stalking will be harder, shots will be longer and the game will be more skittish.

And

Shooting some farmer's sheep, or anything else, in the field will get you a load of buckshot in the bum.

Remember that "back in the day" the office of gamekeeper was another label for the men that hung you by your bowstring for poaching.
__________
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Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
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5 May 2014, 12:27,
#35
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
MB, that's the point of this. DEV came into a bit of a catch when he last went out, but before then, it was dry spotting.

I keep trying to get pics from out in the boonies! Dartmoor, middle of a load of fields in the middle of nowhere...places where you're lucky to spot an animal standing still, let alone shoot it....gun or camera.

The idea of this is to show people how genuinely difficult hunting really is. It's not like pop out with a gun, come back 20 mins later with loads of bunnies for the pot. More like go out, stalk a rabbit for 30 minutes, spook the local crows, and the bunnies do a runner because they've heard the crows 'warning call'.

The first lot of animals to die will be the birds walking the city areas. Then the more suburban lifestyle flocks, then it'll be farmer's flocks/herds, and last but not least, the 100% rural animals.

If we learn to stalk them now, then WTSHTF, we know we'll have the skill-set to bring back some food.

I'm going to extend this project to the end of the month. Not because I'm failing miserably (which I am haha) but because I want to see people get more rural photos, WITHOUT ZOOM!!!
Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism - Thomas Jefferson
Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin
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6 May 2014, 20:58,
#36
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
The "failure" you speak of is to be noted, filed in the memory and included in your survival planning.

Planning a hunt is wasted time and effort unless it is a community wide effort with drivers, shooters and shared kill at day's end.

But the concept of "forage hunting" is a valid exercise. It simply requires a different approach to the effort.

Over here, during our settlement era, most homesteaders went armed daily. This was not as much for protection as for foraging.

Many British/European travelers noted in their reports that any time a rural American walked through the door of his house he was carrying gun, knife and tomahawk and that they never saw a man or boy in the rural areas without those items. the gun was a farm implement as much as the sickle, hoe, shovel or plow.

It was not because they were afraid of attack, it was to take advantage of any opportunity to take food that presented itself. Bare in mind that everyone walked or rode horseback so there was more time to observe the surroundings, spot game and make a closer approach if on horseback. And that there might be miles of forest between the cleared fields.

And that over here the wild game was not "owned" by anyone, and still is not. One can post and restrict human access to their land, but any game on that land can not be hindered from movement and is not owned by the landowner.

"Hunting" was seldom a planned activity, and it was not sport. It was a valid way to put food on the table, give a bland diet variety, extend the food supply, and preserve livestock to serve as a "cash crop".

It should serve the prepper in the same context.
__________
Every person should view freedom of speech as an essential right.
Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
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7 May 2014, 10:21,
#37
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
Even with noisy Orange dog barking away, we got within 15ft of a Fallow Deer Doe yesterday evening.

Impressive eh?

Not really... we weren't stalking it, just out for our daily constitutional. Useless dog failed entirely to notice the creature laying in the long grass. The first we knew of it was when she jumped up and bounced across the meadow to get away from us. Leaving both the orange dog and me in a a state of surprise.

No cameras, no photos as this was really unexpected.

Will an entry with an orange dog in the cross hairs count???? :-)
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7 May 2014, 11:39,
#38
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
Your adventures with the Crow made me chuckle Scythe, something every shooter has done before. I respect Crows above all other fauna, they are crooks and they know it. Your not the first to be "made" by a Crow and won't be the last they have exceptional eyesight and outstanding hearing, as do most Birds, something Humans tend to forget. I don't shoot Crows anymore as I like their Mojo. There have been times when even though I thought I was perfectly camouflaged Crows refused to come to the bait, as they sensed something was wrong, smart cookies Crows are. They mate for life and work as a team if paired, and have high intelligence capable of problem solving, compared to a Crow a Pigeon is the village idiot.
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7 May 2014, 11:46,
#39
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
we have 2 pairs of wood pigeons and 2 pairs of collared doves(plus 2 of this years young) come to our back garden "feeding station" every day....their nesting in the woods at the back.
Some people that prefer to be alone arent anti-social they just have no time for drama, stupidity and false people.
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7 May 2014, 16:45,
#40
RE: S13's Skills Project. Skill 1 - Hunting
(7 May 2014, 11:39)Tartar Horde Wrote: They [crows] mate for life and work as a team if paired, and have high intelligence capable of problem solving, compared to a Crow a Pigeon is the village idiot.

Haha, very true, but even a pigeon can be spooked by the 'flash' of a person blinking, and set off and fly. I have so much respect for crows myself too.


LS, I think you're lying and I demand photos! haha.
The real fun is that when you're looking for something, it's never there to be seen.

BP, that's only 4 snacks, those birds. Get out into the woods and do a little bit of bunny stalking or something. Get back some good photos for us.
Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism - Thomas Jefferson
Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither - Benjamin Franklin
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