Hunting 2014

Do you really consider a .30 a "fat" caliber for bears?
What did you use to shoot them with.......a .22?
 
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  • #303
Stig I wasn't referring to caliber and diameter so much as weight and speed. Yes, I consider .30 caliber fat for an animal under 400 pounds. A good choice of caliber, but I'll happily and humanely kill a bear with a 7-08, or any of the 6.5's. The idea of needing a big cartridge to make humane kills is crap. It's not a bad idea, but all that recoil and rifle weight isn't necessary. The right choice of bullet construction goes a lot farther then the load of powder pushing it.
 
I forgot you were talking about black bear, i tend to think of Grizzly, when someone says bear.
 
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  • #305
Nooooo. If I ever had the chance to hunt grizzly, well, my rifle of choice would be big.
 
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  • #307
I'm not familiar with the case dynamics of those sized cartridges. I've got an idea what is what up to around the .338's. An idea, not a degree.
 
375Ctgs.jpg
 
Been hunting our lease for the last several days. I saw a couple of bucks I should've shot, looking back on it now. One 3 or 4 year old with a 14 inch saber on one side that went straight up, no bend at all. He had a rack on the other side and good mass. Another old swaybacked palmated buck but one side only went out past the brow tine a few inches, couldn't tell if it was broke or that was all he grew. Probably saw 50 hogs in 4 days. Didn't shoot any because the rut is kicking and didn't want to spook my bucks. I'm gonna declare war in a few weeks though, got several kids that have never shot one and hopefully they will kill a truckload. We've got a bumper acorn crop this year and everything is so fat it's amazing.
 
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  • #315
Turkey hunted with my wife today in 19 degrees and snow. It was chilly. My buddy trapped a decent coyote where we were turkey hunting and a local houndsman has been on my back to get him a live coyote to train with. So I stuffed that mofo in a dog kennel and everyone was happy. Except my wife. She was like "you need to get some help, soon".
 
Coyotes are out of control here. I think fawn survival rate is very near zero this year. A few more years of this and whitetails will be in real trouble in our area. The Game Commission sits on their hands as usual. Steel traps are illegal and they won't issue depredation permits for wildlife eating wildlife. If they were eating pine trees you could kill them by nearly any means. By the way, how do you hunt the turkeys in the winter Chris, do you try to scatter a flock or just set up and call like you would in the spring? And how in the world did you get that 'yote in the kennel, a choke stick or what?
 
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  • #318
Turkeys? I wander around until I see them in the woods then shoot one. In the fall that is when rifles are legal. Or break the flock and call them back. The coyote? Had a snare pile but it wasn't working right. Stuffed him in with my hands with his head somewhat guided away from my hands. The best way to handle a coyote to release it from a trap is to stretch it out by the tail and snatch it by the scruff and have someone release it. Then get on your feet with the coyote and don't let go with the scruff hand without giving a good shove to get that head away from you.
 
Turkey hunted with my wife today in 19 degrees and snow. It was chilly. My buddy trapped a decent coyote where we were turkey hunting and a local houndsman has been on my back to get him a live coyote to train with. So I stuffed that mofo in a dog kennel and everyone was happy. Except my wife. She was like "you need to get some help, soon".
So I'm clear, you put a live coyote in with some hounds to be killed?
 
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  • #320
Nope. It won't be in with hounds. He will be released in the wild, and a short time later, a hound pup will be dropped on his trail. The pup had no experience, and won't go far. An introduction really. The coyote, will live. Trapped fur bearers here in America end up in women's coats. I did that coyote a big favor.
 
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  • #321
An unpleasant journey for a day, for sure. But I'm most likely the most pleasant human that coyote will ever encounter. Coyotes here are hunted, chased, trapped, snared, and randomly shot at with no mercy. Always been that way. Since white folks showed up here.

So before you chastise me, know that I'm the hunter that let him free, unharmed.
 
Before anyone sheds any tears over a coyote, watch this.http://youtu.be/iKzOdasHLOw
I see wild animal-pet-people confrontations all the time and it's amazing how distant a lot of people are from the reality of nature. They stomp a cockroach, an ant or a termite and think nothing of it. In fact, they hire "exterminators" to make sure that every single one is poisoned, most dying a slow, agonizing death. Kill something a little more "cute" and it ruffles people's feathers - until it directly affects them. As long as the coyotes, bears or gators are eating someone else's cattle, sheep or poodles, we should just leave them alone, after all, they're just trying to survive too. But when the aforementioned predators eat that person's poodle, then they want to eradicate the species. Coyotes here have become adept at eating fawns as they are being delivered and then eating the weakened doe as well. They start at the rear end, just like in the video, and eat the deer's hams while it's still alive. Just as people have a right to control pests in their home, I have a right to control them on my property.
 
I wouldn't say coyotes are "out of control", but we definitely have plenty of them. I hear them almost every night. I have shot several from my front porch. I hope to get into calling them more if I can find the time....
 
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  • #324
The population spiked high for awhile here a few years back. Lots of them. The houndsmen trimmed the numbers down and I believe we have a lot less then we did. I see more foxes now. For awhile we had almost no foxes. The coyotes really wiped them out.
 
An unpleasant journey for a day, for sure. But I'm most likely the most pleasant human that coyote will ever encounter. Coyotes here are hunted, chased, trapped, snared, and randomly shot at with no mercy. Always been that way. Since white folks showed up here.

So before you chastise me, know that I'm the hunter that let him free, unharmed.

That's why I wanted to be clear Chris.
Thanks.
 
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