Trekking and hunting

Wow

A member of this web site ask a question about hunting and trekking, another member (that would be me) shares something I learned how to do with my dad 40 years ago that helped lead to a passion for nature. And this is where it ends up.

It would seem that getting lost in the woods is not the biggest problem some of you have to deal with.

When are they gonna invent a beacon for that.

Hey if it serves you keep at it.

Bill

Oh and DW… I'm just really blessed to call it home.

I just asked if anybody has experience with the thing Ryan suggested in his pak rifle review: Hunting as a means to stretch your range on a long cross country wilderness hike. So far I only had a reaction from Bill…
Is it possible that this lightweight trekking and hunting mix is only a phantom?
Don't get me wrong, I did't want to stear up the heated discussion on this topic, I am really interested if this seriously already had been done. Imagine a big trip like the one planned by Andrew without Airdrops or other kinds of external support…

>>Hunting as a means to stretch your range on a long cross country wilderness hike.<<

"Range" is a function of calorie-supported walking. The most efficient way to maximize daily mileage and thus range between "outposts of civilization" will always be to carry precisely the number of food calories needed to support an all-day walking regimen.

Carrying a Pak Rifle would mostly arm one with a chance at serendipity in this case. While you'd still need to carry food from point A to B, serendipity might see you to point B-and-a-half, but then where is that exactly?

>> I just asked if anybody has experience with the thing Ryan suggested in his pak rifle review: Hunting as a means to stretch your range on a long cross country wilderness hike.

No, no experience, Gerald. But like Brett I have my doubts.

But I would point out to Brett that sometimes it's NOT about making as many miles as you can.

P.S.- Sincerely sorry about the ugliness (on my part) above. But I don't believe in giving rudeness free reign without confronting it. Do so, and people think such behavior is ACCEPTABLE.

Unfortunately, though, for some reason people behave much worse on anonymous internet fora than they EVER would in person. It's cowardly. Maybe I'm guilty, too. I try not to be.

I'm all for razzing people on the internets to enliven dull moments, but I also think that if you're being honest you'll try to portray the opinions with which you disagree in the strongest possible light. We can't do that when folks self-censor! (or by constructing ad hominum attacks via grammar)

As to the original question…..

I'm highly skeptical that it's a viable strategy, provided that one merely wanted to make max miles without resupply. I think it'd be more effective to train hard, carry the food, and use the hours spent hunting walking fast.

However, Bill's overnighters with a dog, gun, tarp, and a bottle of wine sound great! Hiking is fun, getting lost is fun, hunting is fun, fishing is fun, drinking quality booze around the fire in the middle of the wilderness is fun, eating dead animals roasted over fires is really fun. And who doesn't want to have as much fun as possible?

Starting on day three of the Parcour back in October, Kevin Sawchuk and I started seeing some seriously tame (or dumb) grouse, and in short order started seriously considering turning our trekking poles into atlatls. Fresh meat would've been very welcome, and on days 3 and 4 we could've collected several birds easily with a pak rifle, or even a .22LR pistol.

Maybe I'll spend the winter turning a trekking pole into a blow gun.

Bill,
Your trips on your family ranch sound fantastic.
There are a lot of ways to enjoy the outdoors and use lightweight gear.

Denny

+1 on Fun – that is why we do all this, right?

Dave we do want an update on the MYOG Trekking pole atlatl and/or blow gun. I am more interested in controlling irritating hiking partners than hunting, but still I am interested. I have used my shillelagh during close quarter annoyances, but I have found they tend to run after the first knock or two.

>>But I would point out to Brett that sometimes it's NOT about making as many miles as you can.<<

You'll find advocates for that.

D = R*T. But D can also suffer at the expense of having a good time, at any rate! And it's all too easy to dress up pleasure to look more sophisticated than it really should.

I have no personal experience, but I like to read biographies and diaries of some of those hardened explorers of the past. They lived very well off the land while forging into new territories. A lot of them had good dogs to help with the hunting though…but they didn't cover big miles.

Pointless redundancy retracted. This was nothing I haven't said already.

And I also re-read what Dave C. wrote a little more closely…

Mr. Fellabaum,

I have been reviewing this thread for awhile, and you sir, seem to be the one keeping most of the snideness aloft. Perhaps you should take a break from posting in this thread awhile.

My personal experience with hunting in the wilderness has mostly been with a fishing pole, as rifle hunting has mostly been a messy affair with skin and entrail disposal. Fish are so much easier to clean, and cook, that a rifle has not gone out on my trips for some time.

I have not used anything close to the weight of the Pak-Rifle, and I have never hunted bird on a hiking trip, but then again, I have never had to dress a bird after a kill, and the thought of the feather plucking makes me think how nice fish are, hehe.

I enjoy seeing the reports of you all hunting and trekking in the great wild, and look forward to see how you continue to supplement your diet out and about.

The only weapon I take out now is a Spyderco Salt "Ladybug" , about .6 oz. My pole usually stay at home, and I'll bring the foil bags of salmon instead.

Hrmmn… Tekana. You call to me.

Mr. Volaine,

I will admit that I have my hackles up. Mea culpa. My patience is wearing a bit short with both sides of the issue, and Dan sort of offered himself with his comments which, unfortunately, you can no longer read for yourself. But TRUST ME- beyond about halfway down the first page this thread has been relatively civil. (Admittedly, largely because Dan was a big man and didn't escalate after his initial smug comment. I admit that I did give him cause to do so, had he chosen to.)

Look up some other gun/hunting threads in the archives. Some get VICIOUS. I'm actually trying to encourage restraint and politeness, here.

But, you're absolutely right- my last post was very redundant and pointless. Retracted.

But please point out where I was being inflammatory beyond about halfway down the first page. I did respond to Dave Ure's "You're joking… right?" comment, and I tried to make my point without hurling invectives, but that was about it.

BELIEVE ME, I want this to end, too. (Thus the retraction.)

Back sort-of on subject:

I've never really been a fisherman- a few attempts in childhood, basically- but I recently ordered a Tenkara Hane rod and look forward to a lot of cursing as I learn fly-fishing.

Big hug.

Hey Dean, Sorry for that blast yesterday. I did not know there were other posts regarding that review. I would not have posted like I did had I read that one very long thread.

I'm not vegan, but I try to eat as little meat as possble. In the context of what's happening to the world's fisheries and etc, I don't eat ocean fish. I eat the fish of the prarie; chicken. Eating a chicken is not the same as taking the life of a grouse in the wild. The grouse in the wild has a life and 'relationships' and was not necessarily put there for us. When I go backpacking, it is to admire and be more in touch with what is left of nature.

I shot grouse as a teenager with bow and rifle. They're tasty all right. I'm not sure that just being tasty qualifies something to be shot. I'm not sure when it was that I became more sensitive, I think it's from seeing what's actually happening to the planet rather than putting blinders on. Seeing what's happening makes me very empathetic to creatures in the wild.

I make packs for hunters even though I disagree with trophe hunting. Seems like there's always compromise and they'll have another brand anyway otherwise. But, since I have been a hunter in the past….. To me, it's anti-natural selection – going for the most robust creatures for sport – the best and brightest. I understand the whole deer and elk meat thing, ocassionally a friend will give me an elk steak. The herds need to be culled. I have eaten road kill too, and served it for dinner to friends.

I raised a 4H calf and after a year of caring for 'Casey' had to hear him get shot. It was pretty strange. I think about him almost every time I eat a steak – which is fairly rare – the steak I mean. I think about Casey every time I see cattle. I understand too, that most of the cattle we see grazing, are there for us to eat and would not otherwise have lives, but then there were the buffalo……

Animals in the wild are having a hard time though, co-existing with US animals, and it is with that sentiment that I made the remarks I erased yesterday. It's a complicated subject all right, and there are things I can't even say, but something about the review really got to me – and really p….. me off.

Finally, having guns does not make one a hunter. The arms trade around the world has more to do with people on people violence.

Dan,

Heck, I'll hold no hard feelings if you don't. Actually, I wouldn't hold any hard feeling even if you DID. Obviously, I got quite judgmental, there, too.

Yes, you sort of stepped into a quagmire if you weren't aware of the storm already raging about that review when you posted. I could've been more gentle. (And… er… ahem… polite.)

So, I'll sign off in the exact way that I endorsed on several other threads, and incidentally exactly as you have, above. With a summary of MY position on hunting, without bringing up any new arguments:

I disagree with you that a stock animal somehow lives a better life and dies a better death than a wild one- quite the opposite, in fact. I have no objection to managed hunting for food (not trophies) yet haven't done so in about twenty years. I've found that I prefer hiking, and observing the critters. This is not to deny that I will ever go hunting again in the future.

I agree that our fisheries need to be regulated a bit more tightly.

My views on guns, on the other hand, are much more complex. (By which I mean "at times self-contradictory.") But I've covered my views on reasonable gun legislation elsewhere.

And as I said if you care to talk about this in more detail- and I do think that I have excellent responses to most of what you just posted- PM me. I'm glad to do so, off-screen, so to speak.

Big hug.

NM

I am also not anti-gun, but I don't feel comfortable with hunting for sport. I was also a vegan for over 20 years, and am thinking about a return to that lifestyle.

I take my hat off to those hard working folks who hunt and kill vermin for a living in this country. They still don't have the vermin under control, but at least they are making an effort. You see, when Europeans first settled here, they didn't have anything to 'hunt'. I guess flightless birds are not that 'fun' to hunt…so in their wisdom they introduced all sorts of 'fun' animals to hunt, including deer, pigs, chamois, thar, possums and rabbits. These rapidly adapted to become major pests. Anyhow, those early explorers did just fine with a gun, a bird dog and some fishing line (much to the detriment of the bird populations). There was nothing 'fun' about it. However, as Dean is fond of saying, HYOH. If hunting is legal and makes your wilderness experience more rewarding than it doesn't really concern me. As a matter of fact, I would rather eat wild game (or no meat at all) then to eat that mass produced inhumane rubbish they sell at the grocery store.

OK. If Dave Ure retracted his, I'll retract mine. But you're getting a PM, Dave.

Thanks Dean, I don't need to go into it though, endless subject like most. I did not mean to imply stock animals have a better life. I eat as few of them as possible, and non of the others. If you think about what would happen to the wild if everyone that ate meat hunted, things would be a real mess. It would not be possible of course.

>> If you think about what would happen to the wild if everyone that ate meat hunted, things would be a real mess.

I agree fully. Humans have exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth if there were no agriculture or husbandry.

That's why I specified "managed" hunting.

I don't think we disagree very much, after all. Just one point. :o)

Good then – we would not want to disagree now would we? :>)

WOW. A kiss and make up on a gun thread…methinks this is a first here at BPL.

HUG! No kiss.

Not that I'm insecure about my masculinity or anything…

"Hobby farm is it?"

LOL

I could not help it – with all those hugs!

Perhaps what is going on in my mind with the introduction of the pak-gun is that with all the emphasis on this site with having to go lighter and lighter all of the time, as a means to an end in itself, even when going even lighter isn't needed, the end product is hunger, because people are not taking the amount and variety of food that they should. And then making up for it with a gun, doesn't make sense. Most UL hikers could easily carry more food by carrying slightly more conventional packs. As far as carrying a gun on a long trek to suppliment food, I don't know how many people can actually be out there living such lifestyles – seems like a remote possibility for most.

I have thought for some time that this emphasis on UL at this site would logically lead to a desire of living off the land more, A desire to meld into the woods more, rather than backpacking itself. When the comforts of backpacking are given up, something takes there place or you don't keep doing it. The OP mentioned sling shots. I thought that would be a very good UL alternative to a gun. Maybe pellet gun? Poison darts? Deerskin quilts?

I found myself wanting to become a member of a remote heard of goats in the Cascades once. It was a very powerful feeling and quite the opposite of wanting to shoot them. If you do backpacking right, I guess, you don't want to come back, or at least it changes people in profound ways.

"Kevin Sawchuk and I started seeing some seriously tame (or dumb) grouse"

That's why we call them "fools hens" out here. You wouldn't even need to carry a gun for them. Carry a few good throwing rocks, or maybe a slingshot. They really are stupid.