Oh, how true and speaking from first hand experience.
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no its not good form to shoot the peasants
What absolute bull.... pheasants are fair game with an airgun! Rabbits are cleanly taken at 40 yds with head shots and modern airguns along with a good scope in the hands of a seasoned hunter can be easily take pheasants to 30 yards and beyond, head shots being a must. As long as they are in season and your permissions are in order and you are capable go for it. Very tasty they are too. There will be couple complimenting the turkey on my table this year. However you can see why shooting them with an airgun is frowned upon,they cost money to rear as captive sport for people with more money than sense. Gamekeepers really get their knickers in a twist if non payers are having a bit of sport for the pot. If they are on your permissions and it is ok by the owners then shoot them as they eat as well as rabbits. I know of several stud farms where pheasants are hated with a vengance. The clatter of them rising at the feet of thoroughbred horse has been the downfall of many a thrown jockey, and in some cases injury to bolting horses. And stud farms can be a good source for permission if they have pheasant problem.
Last edited by AirMad; 02-12-2012 at 12:11 PM.
Seashot.
My Grandad, God rest his soul was forever borrowing my air rifle to shoot pheasant, woodpigeon and the like...I don`t see the harm in shooting pheasant if you indeed plan to place it on a dinner plate with a few roast potatoes, carrots, peas and gravy and eat it!!!...
Most of my childhood transport seemed to involve travelling along the verges as my dad attempted decapitation with the metal number plate of a Vauxhall Victor FD2000. The "thuck" of head on number plate told you when dinner was ready to be picked up, I was trained to get the bird, check the head was either loose and flopping about or removed and chuck in the boot of the car! Happy days!
ive shot a small number of pheasants with my air rifle, alway a headshot. I have no qualms about admitting if the landowner doesnt mind and I am able to ensure a headshot I will kill one, sorry to say but its my favourite meat.
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As I put in my earlier post, if it's a good headshot, and I have permission then I'm happy to take a Pheasant with an air rifle. 'Sporting shot' doesn't come into it for me. I want to eat the bloody thing not stroke my vanity as a hunter. That also means I want to walk over and pick it up, I don't want it running into an overgrown bramble ditch with a pellet in the breast. Pointless.
Just imagining how much more fun it must have been to open said car boot with one prior to your floppy neck training that had regained conciousness!
As to catapult launched squirrels, I will happily make the catapult, but no way in hell am i going to load it. I keep pet gerbils, they can bite clean through thick welding gauntlets, i can only imagine what a squirrels jaws are capable of!
Shooting(any live quarry),if we would all care to admit,is not fair! We,as the dominant species,decide we want to do it.Is it neccessary?Well,vermin controllers,such as myself,think it is.People employed in all aspects of the shooting industry,keepers,estate owners,shooting suppliers,RFD`s etc think the same..
However,after making the decision to shoot any creature we owe it to such bird or animal to at least strive to make its demise as quick and clean as possible. Bar blasting it with an expanding centre-fire round at 30 ish yards a well executed head shot on any small game,at a sensible distance,with an accurate and close to max legal power air rifle(or rimfire even) for me at least,is the most efficient method.I have to admit that I find it slightly more satisfying to drop a flying pigeon dead with a shotgun than to drop one dead out of a tree with an airgun BUT the shot to clean kill rate with the latter is much higher.--Shaun.
Last edited by shaun the sheep; 02-12-2012 at 04:28 PM.
Reasons for shooting at live animals can either be for Vermin Control, For the Pot (hunting for food), or for amusement. The first can claim the moral high ground with it being a necessity for disease control and farm management, the second console themselves that they 'eat what they kill' (though there may be better ways of obtaining it), but the third really have to question their motives and whether shooting paper targets might not be a more humane pastime? Many try to combine reasons 1 & 3 or 2& 3 to excuse the act.
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what you have to also remember is if you shoot on a tenant farmers land like i do ,and they have paid pheasant shoots you may not be allowed to shoot any game birds unless you have permission from the factors . im only allowed shoot them if they are on the farmhouse land and destroying veggies and so on. i have to them leave the pheasant there and inform the game keeper
not sure if its how all tenant farmers land rules go but its what is mainly done up here
Why do you think my father trained me to make sure it was dead? We could tell the damned thing was alive an drunning round the boot, so dad had to take the back seat out, reach through and wring it's neck! After that I was trained to make sure the neck was broken! Any doubts and to the driver's window where dad would do the honours! When I was about 10 he taught me how to pluck and gut the bird! Great days!
I find that doing reason 1 for reason 3 provides reason 2! I enjoy hunting with my air rifle. I admit it. I also like eating nice fresh meat that I know has been killed as humanely as possible and treated in a manner I find hygienic and stored afterwards in conditions I know are suitable for the storage of food.
As previously stated on my permissions any pheasants are viewed as reason 1, vermin, as nobody has bred them for shooting on the farmland I have permission on. I have also left them with the permission holders (albeit unplucked an with guts in), as they like a nice pheasant dinner too. I make no excuses I enjoy hunting with my air rifle, I like eating meat, I like eating food I have caught! I also eat fish I have caught and gutted!
No excuses, just a nice hot dinner!