{"id":15604,"date":"2019-07-16T14:57:43","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T14:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/empty-cases.com\/blog\/?p=15604"},"modified":"2019-07-16T14:57:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T14:57:43","slug":"how-to-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empty-cases.com\/blog\/how-to-hunt\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember back in high school when you had a crush on that girl? It was easy to look and lust from across the room, but when she got close, things got real\u2013intense. Your mouth got dry, your knees got weak, and those words you\u2019d been planning to whisper gently simply seemed unspeakable.\u00a0Hunting is similar. Watching the object of your affection from across a canyon can be enticing, but nowhere near as exciting as when the distance is shortened. In fact, if you get close enough, your mouth will get dry, your knees will get weak, and you just might jerk that trigger you\u2019ve been planning on pressing.<\/p>\n

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In the old days bowhunting with a recurve meant exciting close encounters. If hunters use their feet instead of fps, that’s an exhilaration that can still be found.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is one of the reasons bowhunting became so popular. Once a hunter experienced that close encounter<\/em>, it was the beginning of an addiction. As hunters, we thrive on that adrenalin spike; a rush\u2013if you will\u2013delivered by the absence of distance between us and what we want.<\/em>\u00a0Of course, being humans, hunters have an adversity to not getting what they want. To increase our odds, we began contriving ways to make it easier. Almost every advancement in archery, muzzleloading, and firearms, was purposely engineered to increase our effective range\u2013the distance between us and what we wanted. Compound bows, sabots, rangefinders, ballistic programs, and the modern precision rifle, all work to replace footwork with fps.<\/p>\n

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The latest gear can help you make a more precise shot, and that’s great. It cannot and will not make you a better hunter.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I get it, I really do, I’ve succumbed to the lure of being able to take any animal I want as long as I can see it. That desire has left me trying to find other locations and animals to hunt, in an effort to find hunts that can replicate the excitement I first became addicted to while bowhunting. Excitement I still experience while whitetail hunting in the hills of West Virginia, where the action can happen at breath-smelling distance.\u00a0It finally dawned on me that the \u201crush\u201d comes from the closeness, not the location or the critter. This is one reason dangerous game hunting\u2013once experienced\u2013becomes such an addiction. Because of the importance and necessity of a sure shot, dangerous game hunting is done at close range.<\/p>\n

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This mule deer was stalked to within 100 yards, from over a mile away. Ultimately he spooked right before the shot and had to be taken at distance. We hunted and shot him well. Success was delivered through a combination of good hunting and shooting skills.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s not my job to dictate how you hunt. As I\u2019ve said before<\/a>, Arguing the ethics of how a hunter legally<\/em><\/strong> kills, is \u2013 at least to me \u2013 a lot like arguing the ethics of how someone has sex. If it\u2019s legal, and you\u2019re not on either end of the activity, it\u2019s really none of your damn business. What I would like to do is offer you a way you might enjoy the hunt more.\u00a0When you\u2019re shooting at an animal at great distance, the challenge is clear and easily defined, it\u2019s simply a ballistic problem, solvable with math. When you have to use stealth and predator skills to cover that same distance, there are many more factors that must be managed, notably, that high school-like \u2013 pretty girl is coming your way \u2013 adrenalin.<\/p>\n

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Because it is conducted at very close range, dangerous game hunting is an exhilarating experience. That “close excitement” can carry over to the hunt for other animals.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By all means buy that compound bow, use those sabots in your muzzleloader, get a rangefinder you can trust, and invest in that ballistically efficient cartridge housed in a modern tack-driving rifle. You\u2019ll be equipped to take just about any shot that presents itself.\u00a0What I would suggest however, is that when you go to the field, do so in a manner that will maximize your experience, not the distance of the shot. Do you want to be a shooter or a better hunter? You\u2019ll make more memories with footsteps than you will with a rangefinder.<\/em><\/p>\n

The primary tool of the hunter should always be their feet, not fps. Buy good boots!<\/p>\n

Watch and subscribe:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n