Fall, fishing or hunting?

[sandfly]

both more hunting since I need meat for the winter months. FF is just a side thing to do between the hunting.

 

[DaveS]

The only question is, Who waits until fall to start hunting?

 

[cvlimestoner]

I'll be in a tree stand every chance I get. Love the sport, love the meat.

 

[TLoomis]

Back before college, I would find myself bowhunting after school 9 times out of 10. Now that I am in college, don't have a vehicle with me, and don't have a place to butcher a deer, I don't do much hunting (unfortunately).

On the plus side, State College couldn't be in a better location for troot fishin, so I'm on the stream pretty frequently.

 

[mike_richardson]

FALL/WINTER=DEER HUNTING
WINTER (AFTER CHRISTMAS)-OPENING DAY OF TROUT- TROUTFISHING
FIRST DAY OF TROUT TO JUNE 1ST = TURKEY HUNTING
SUMMER-OCCASIONAL TROUT FISHING/SHOOTING MY BOW SCOUTING

I don't like the crowds and hammering stockies arent my thing anymore. Spring turkey took over this void and I am an addict now.
Fall I switch gears to deer hunting. and Summer is laid back, spend a lot of family time.

I also am impossible to get from a tree or the woods in general in hunting season. If I get my buck in archery I am typically found in Erie on the first day of buck.

 

[GenCon]

Wow, sounds like we have alot of good hunters here. For me I am 54 yrs. old now. I will keep doing both until I can't climb into a tree stand any more. But I do love being in a tree on a chilly Fall morning.Watching the woods come alive is not only a pleasure but I feel an honor. Nothing like it.

GenCon

 

[pcray1231]

I come from a family of hardcore hunters who occasionally fish. Somehow I turned out as a hardcore fisherman who occasionally hunts.

But yes, I do hunt. Less so than I used to. Part of it is where I live, it's hard to do much hunting locally. And due to distance and family, it's hard to put in the required time to get real serious about it.

But I make it to camp every year to hunt deer with the rifle. That's the only "must do" hunting each year.

Sometimes, if I get to do any scouting for deer rather than count on family to do that, then the deer scouting is combined with hunting for whatever's in season. Fall turkey, bear, and grouse are the most typical for that. If something's in season, I'm carrying a gun, and might even put a little effort into it. I've been known to do an occasional spring turkey outing as well, usually as a side-note to a fishing trip. Hunt in morning, take quick nap, fish late afternoon-evening. Locations, though, are chosen by the fishing part, and I hunt where is convenient for that.

We don't do the small game thing anymore. When I was in HS, we had a pair of beagles, as did uncles and so forth, and we hunted bunnies multiple times per week. On the weekends we'd get em together and make a pack of them. I miss that. It was a lot of fun. But the bunnies got less common and the family all moved to different areas. I'm 4 hours from the nearest family, and not in a position to keep a dog.

 

[Mountainbrookie]

More often than not I hunt during archery season and the rifle deer seasons but I do a lot of fishing in between and on Sundays during those particular seasons.

It's interesting to see the responses here. Hunting and fishing are often categorized together and often if one enjoys one of these 'sports' they do the other. Fishing seems to have a more diversified group as far as personal beliefs go.

FWIW I don't agree with the notion that fishing is not a blood sport. Fish obviously do bleed and any that are saved for the table are no different than a deer, pheasant, or turkey in my opinion.

 

[Pontus]

Yeah, but the difference is in being able to ethically catch and release a fish on fly gear knowing that you likely did not harm the fish. Very different than hunting where a "catch" always results in a dead animal.

 

[Mountainbrookie]

There is plenty of catch and release in hunting as in letting animals go that you don't want to take. Having them dead to rights and letting them walk is actually less stressful to an animal than fighting a fish for your own enjoyment and then letting it go. It could be argued that catch and release fishing is nothing but a way to torment fish for no reason other than our own amusement.

To those who would look down on hunting because it's a blood sport and argue that fishing isn't the same (it is) keep feeding the ammunition to PETA. They'll be coming after you next for the reasons I stated above.

 

[Pontus]

Most of the hunting I do is duck, geese, dove, and squirrel, where you're unlikely to let an animal go if you have a shot at it. I'm coming up on my second season of deer hunting, and most of that is on a farm where the owner wants you to take any deer that you see. Of course letting an animal walk is less stressful than catch and release fishing, but it would be like fishing without a hook (which I hear shakey's wife likes to do). You got the first part, fooling the fish with a fly or getting a deer to come into shooting range for you, but you haven't completed it. If you didn't get the fish to hand, you didn't catch it. If you don't shoot, you're nature watching, not hunting.

Fishing is similar, but you can't argue its the same. You can have a great day fishing and not kill any fish. If you don't kill anything while hunting, it was either an unsuccessful day or a great day nature watching. Besides, everything we do is degrees of "less bad." And if you're an animal rights activist, you would say catch and release fishing is less bad than hunting.

 

[Mountainbrookie]

Actually a case could be made that catch and keep fishing is "less bad" than catch and release. The fish are caught for a purpose and used as opposed to being 'played with' for personal enjoyment which there is no guarantee that the fish will not be made to suffer or die despite the best intentions.

:-D

 

[Pontus]

That case can be made, but you have to consider that pulling a fish out for good gives that fish no chance to spawn. There are many rivers and streams that get fished heavily and have great populations. If everyone kept every fish they caught, a lot of those rivers would no longer maintain fishable populations. I think past examples of over fishing from salmon runs to shad runs to certain cuthroat species and even saltwater species have proven that catch and release is less bad than catch and keep. No one has ever said damn they really damaged the fishery by making it catch and release. Maybe in a case where the fish become stunted from overpopulation, and then some stress related mortalities would be welcome.

And let's be real here. Most of the fishing we do here is for transplanted or exotic fish. They were put where they were solely for personal enjoyment and often favored in policy over native fish species that aren't "sporting." I love brown trout, and I'm happy that there are reproducing populations in America, but they're a European fish that exists in the states solely for the purpose of recreation. For this reason, the utility of releasing the fish to have a shot at continuing to reproduce and provide recreation to other fisherman is greater than the utility of one small meal. And if the fish happens to die, let it give its energy back to the river to help the other components of the ecosystem live. Or if you get a fish in and know it's probably going to die, then just keep it.

 

[gfoledc]

Good day deer hunting pull the trigger once, good day turkey hunting Pull trigger once, good day grouse pull trigger 10 or 15 times. Good day fly fishing pull the trigger 20 to 40 times. Release the fish catch him again tomorrow.

 

[Cornholio]

No time for hunting here! I fish year round.

 

[PALongbow]

I will be archery hunting with my longbow in the Fall and fishing on Sunday's

Ron

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Don't hunt will fish.

 

[pcray1231]

Pontus,

There are many different opinions on stuff like this. For instance, I was recently in Switzerland. They are technically not allowed to C&R on public land. If you catch a fish, you must keep it, you are not allowed to release it. This is an animal rights/moral thing to them. It's seen as ok to to fish or hunt for food, I mean, that's nature's way. But one should not torment the animals merely for the sake of sport! How evil. That would be like a hunter taking only leg shots, so that they could see blood and claim success but their quarry would likely live for another hunter to maim next year.

No one has ever said damn they really damaged the fishery by making it catch and release.

I have. There are cases where the stream didn't need such regs, there was no issue to begin with. But by putting them on, it makes it special regs and attracts large crowds.

There's also been discussions about overpopulation and stunted growth, right here on this forum. Many people think, for instance, Spring Creek could use a bit of a culling.

And keep in mind, with hunting, for instance, we choose when the deer season is precisely based on the time when it will damage the deer population the most. Right after the does become pregnant. Every doe you kill is the equivalent, on average, of killing fully 3 deer. It is closely regulated with management units, doe license allocations, etc. And hunters are the only group who advocates killing LESS deer. All of the other pressures come from insurance companies, timber companies, AAA, and the like.

 

[kmmichael51]

Fall is for hunting, sundays i fish if the honey do list isnt too long

 

[boychick]

I don't hunt so I'll be fishing. Please don't shoot at the guys in the water