doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ground swatting.

In "Meditations of Hunting" Jose Ortega y Gasset basically states that "one must kill something in order to have hunted". If, after walking all day, a ruffed grouse runs from me back into deep cover (other than flying)...I will kill it if I can. I have no qualms about that. If not that day, then on certainly another, that bird will be my (or my family's) dinner. I take the shots that game presents to me, no more and no less, and I will not apologise for that.

Edit to add: "One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted...If one were to present the sportsman with the death of the animal as a gift he would refuse it. What he is after is having to win it, to conquer the surly brute through his own effort and skill with all the extras that this carries with it: the immersion in the countryside, the healthfulness of the exercise, the distraction from his job." Jose Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Hunting, Spanish philosopher & politician (1883 - 1955)

It is legal according to the laws of the various States I hunt in, and ethical (in my mind) as long as the game is used properly (i.e., prepared & then consumed). Moralize all you want, but those are the cold & hard facts of the world I live in. I would certainly prefer that all the birds I take be flying, but that has not always been my reality. I am generally dog-less (which is a factor), I don't take unsafe shots (for all the usual reasons) and I'm certainly not interested in wounding game with little chance of recovering it, but... occasionally some form of "ground-swatting" is the only solution to the challenge of filling one's bag.

Live with that knowledge or ignore it as you please.

Hunting to put food on the table, to feed a persons family is different than hunting for sport. Family comes first. But nobody is recording that. What they are recording, for "content", often leaves me wishing they took up golf or fishing. Game deserves a fair chance. It is wing shooting, not ambushing on the nest, limb or on the ground. If you can not hit a duck or goose in the air do not hunt. And glorifying swatting ducks on the water, is just wrong to me and the way I was brought up. I have never swatted a duck on the water, in my entire life, even as a kid. I have shot a few cripples on the water but that was only to humanly finish them off. These are grown men acting like shooting a sitting duck, requires some special skill.

Eightbore, I agree, Market hunters of the past are very much like the water-men that are still with us today. Fair chase does not enter into their business. And they were in the business of killing game to fill the market demand just like the buffalo hunters. They take, take as much as they are "allowed" and do nothing to invest the games future. They are not farming, where they invest, to improve the crop. They just harvest, harvest, harvest. There were no limits on market-hunters because in those times game was considered a bottomless resource. Just as oysters, clams, fish and crabs were. And now we have scraps that are left to us.

The only ethics in hunting are those you abide by yourself within the confines of the law. In my province you can not hunt with a dog for wounded big game. In most other provinces you can. In Ontario you can chase (hound) deer with dogs. In Saskatchewan you can bait deer. In Saskatchewan you must be a resident and hunt wild pigs like any other game animal yet it is classified as an exotic animal instead of a pest. In the Yukon and NWT you can use sub caliber rifles to shoot big game. In the USA I expect, from my limited knowledge, the laws between states are vastly different. It used to be that ethics and morals were the foundation of our laws. Today it is quite the opposite and so you must decide on your ethics based on the law, it has become a personal thing and I can not fault anyone for how they hunt if it falls within the laws.

I've written a few posts through the years on my hunting experiences in Germany when I was stationed there in 1966-67 and how I met a fireman on post that was German and who also hunted. I was very fortunate in that I was able to hunt on his father's property. It started as a friendly bet because I told him that I had a .410 in the arms room and he said what was I going to hunt with that. Well I got the chance to hunt quite a few times and this one time I will never forget, reflecting back to what KY Jon said about sportsman like conduct, we were hunting a sugar beet field and the dogs suddently rushed to a fallen Roe buck that was wounded, The father and son called their dogs off and the father took out maybe a stilleto or something sharp and put it in the back of the bucks head and it died immediately, he then took a clump of grass and put in in the deer's mouth and I neve quite understood that until the son told me it was so that the deer would not go hungry on it's journey to the after-life. I understand that is a ritual in most of Europe. It shows how they respect wild life. That was 57 years ago and remember like it was yesterday.

Detached retina in the left eye, the eye I shot with for 50 seasons or so.

I shoot right handed,now, and I'll just say it is a work in progress.

Maybe the most difficult personal challenge I've ever had.

Best,
Ted

Some battles are forced upon us, Ted.
You’ll get it.
Someday I’ll share the story of our croquet court.
Just keep fighting back.

All the best.

That's a very real and reasonable world, but I've had some of my best hunts behind great dog work where a friend or kid is smiling ear to ear, or I held back my boy when ducks are landing in the dekes until a drake mallard sets wing and talk him up for the others that will explode into the air, or take in some great new cover, or conditioning the dog and passing up on dove, when that's why I brought a shotgun along. Somewhat similar for big game, I've supported many hunts, and scoped many big deer and elk, but I just don't feel like shooting one for at least the last fortyish years, could change tomorrow. I do like a good game bag, though.

I enjoy historical accounts, but I don't apply my values to them, they stand alone as an interesting snapshot in time, for me. Many of the market hunting accounts that I have read, seem like huge investments by the hunters to battle weather and large distances, to scratch out a very modest living. Even punt guns had a small sporting following, well into the twentieth century, with zero intent to be lit off for the market.

I don't like loud bar, hooting and hollering, but something is wrong without some expression happiness over a recreational, sporting accomplishment. Some old timers and kids really perk up when they are describing their shot of the day.

I don't see anything wrong with shooting a mule deer at 500 yards. The big ones aren't dumb and if you are on public land, you'll probably have to take some long shots. I have passed on long shots that in retrospect I should have taken. Better to shoot a mature one at 500 than a 3-year-old at 100. And for some species in some places, you may not draw that tag again for a very long time, if ever. We could limit ourselves to muzzle loaders or archery but we don't.

Clapper Zapper nailed it there in one short paragraph. In terms of modern day sport hunting, I can't believe we are even discussing the ethics of Ground Swatting. On the other hand, Ground (or water) Swatting was the sole purpose of the Punt Guns we sometimes discuss here. Market Hunting was a means of making a living, and selling game to feed people who wanted meat protein was done extensively, to the point that some species became extinct, or nearly so.

I really enjoy the annual "Favorite Game/Guns Picture Thread" here, but mostly for the photos of interesting double guns. I can't remember the last time I even took a photo of any birds or deer I shot, but I suppose I would if I happen to shoot a real big wall hanger buck deer. I have plenty of recent photos of scenery at the places I hunt, or the gun I was using, but I don't even think about taking pics of the game I shoot anymore. For the most part, getting out and enjoying time in the woods hunting is great for me, and shooting some birds or killing a deer is just an added blessing. Back when we had a good population of ringneck pheasants, I didn't even like the idea of hunting in places that were recently stocked by the Game Commission with pen raised birds, yet some guys literally follow the stocking trucks to get the easy pickings. I know a lot of hunters who aren't teenagers, but still feel the need to kill even more game than they can or will eat. One friend will do his best to kill a buck and also fill three doe tags, and admits to feeding half the meat to his dogs because nobody in his family wants to eat venison every day.

On the other hand, I'd bet that everyone here with an aversion to Ground Swatting would shoot a bird on the ground or on the water in a heartbeat if they were lost in the wilderness, or if their family was starving due to societal and economic collapse brought on by anti-gun Democrats. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where many people feel that even the most ethical forms of fair chase sport hunting should be banned, so shooters and hunters should keep that fact in mind when they think it's OK to vote for politicians who loathe gun rights and hunting.

Now for a bit of DoubleGun Trivia... Perhaps the most famous Ground Swatting incident involving a double shotgun happened in 2006 when then Vice-President Dick Cheney Ground Swatted his friend and hunting partner Harry Whittington with a 28 gauge Perazzi while quail hunting in Texas. Despite nearly killing his friend, Cheney still managed to maintain a higher average approval rating than the anti-gun Democrat Kamala Harris.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...-cheney-after-he-shot-a-guy-in-the-face/

https://www.the-independent.com/new...pproval-rating-dick-cheney-b1953742.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-approval-rating-worse-201305334.html