Doc

And yet your every reply both in this thread and the other THS thread has been a valiant defense of that foolish shot. You claim that you would never take that shot unless it was absolutely necessary and yet you describe your tennis ball sized groups that you claim would be adequate to pull off a THS. You claim to have the skill to make that shot and you claim that it is as deadly as any heart-lung shot. If all that is true, why wouldn't you take that shot? Why aren't you advocating that other people that are as skilled as you take that shot? The fact is that you know it is a goofy shot. And you know that goofy shots are not effective shots and that there is no such thing as properly executed goofy shots. You have spent a lot of pages defending this BS, and frankly I think it represents a little more committment to that shot than you are now letting on. As for the rest of your reply, that is just the pointless flailing around of someone who hasn't got a clue how to defend his nonsense anymore, and it really, doesn't even deserve a response. So, I won't bother.

Well, all I can say is learn to shoot straighter and that won't happen. In all my years of hunting, the only time that I have seen a deer exhibit the behavior that you are now describing was deer that have been spine hit. And yes, they will carry on very similar to what you described and what that hog was doing in that video, and most of them will not die quickly without a second shot. And that is not something pretty to look at either and is clearly a case of good shot selection with poor execution (which can happen easy enough even without trying foolish low percentage shots). I thought your questions were rhetorical and asked just for effect. I didn't think that you would seriously be so confused about the ethics of hunting that you would seriously ask that kind of a question and actual need an answer. But since you do seem to be confused, let me just say that I don't think I would say that someone who has done all in their power to accomplish a quick humane kill has performed an unethical act. Those that insist on taking goofy, un-recommended, risky, shots well........ that's a different story. By the way just for the record, the examples I gave were factual events whether you feel uncomfortable with what they illustrate or not. They were not hypotheticals or "falsities". Perhaps I should question the truth of your little examples (fact or hypotheticals or something else), but I think we can do without that kind of foolishness. And maybe you should read some of that lengthy diatribe for a change. You just might learn a little something. I know that stuff proves inconvenient to your point of view, and it's a lot easier to talk about your favorite little buzz-words and trite phrases of spin this and cherry-pick that, but really, another viewpoint really won't hurt you.

You only respond to questions?? ...... since when? But since you brought up the subject of picking and choosing what to respond to, I have to say that you failed to respond to my comments about choosing high percentage shots and the idea of purposely choosing the smallest lethal target on a deer, and the material that you were taught in your hunter training course on proper shot selection vs the crap you are spewing now, or the goofy idea of purposely choosing a shot selection that requires you to shoot as good at your best day on the archery range (your tennis ball reference). So get off your high horse about "cherry picking". You certainly are no stranger to that in fact you are an expert. Oh, and by the way, my response to the dinner plate part of your comment was simply to leave no doubt that that is not an adequate group when taking the ridiculous shots that you are claiming are so effective. I can't for the life of me understand why you even included that in the sentence as it made absolutely no sense, but I simply pointed out that your dinner plate reference really was a ridiculous thing to even add into the discussion. But anyway, here we have another good example of what I said at the the end of my last reply. The worthless dancing and prancing and deflection that is the constant hallmark of any of your discussions. We have a topic going on the validity of the Texas heart shot and you have steered the discussion toward dinner plates. What the heck is the point of trying to discuss anything with you when that seems to be your primary debate tactic with just about every topic? It's pretty much impossible to keep you on topic long enough for you to learn anything. You obviously would rather talk about spinning and cherry picking or any of your other over-used meaningless catch phrases. It really is getting tiresome.

Apparently you don't see any difference between an animal that is basically dead and simply reacting with unconscious spasms vs. a partially paralyzed suffering critter that is in obvious pain for who-the-heck knows how long. Undoubtedly a lot longer than your assumed 20 seconds judging from the obvious action just before the camera was shut off. And you know, that kind of suffering will happen occasionally from accidental mistakes, even with good broadside lung opportunities mistakes can be made. But there is no call for upping the odds of that sort of thing by intentionally taking some sort of goofy shot, trying to thread the poopchute. like I said before, there is no need to choose the smallest lethal target on an animal. Oh, and as far as your head shot, I shot a deer a few years back that was the victim of someone elses attempt at a head shot. Lol.... lets call this "situation number 4". Only this one didn't just go down. Instead it's lower jaw was blown off and was swinging like a piece of blown up steak. If he had not happened to come across in front of me where I put him down with a single shot to the lungs, he most likely would have died a pretty slow death of starvation. Again, another poor choice in shot selection where someone went for the smallest lethal area. Is that the sort of thing we want to be promoting on this site? Thank heavens for mandatory hunter training classes where new hunters are told the right way to do things instead of leaving it all up to the crazy BS that is spread around on the internet. I just hope the training sticks a little better for them than it did for some here.

I agree, the content of the kind of show you are describing would be a lot more entertaining (for as long as it lasted .... lol). However, try to make a living off of a show with that kind of content. Produce 1 hunt per week. Can you harvest a deer per week for one entire TV season? Can you do it on public land? Can you do it without having it all pre-arranged for you by a guide? See, I don't think these guys prefer to hunt the way they do. I really don't think they have any choice. It's a business to make a living. They have operating expenses and sponsor expectations. They also have a responsibility to perform ..... every week for "X" number of weeks. Let's face it, it's the sponsors that keep food on the plate. It's not the most ideal situation, and the quality of the resulting shows stinks, but when you think about the practicalities of putting on such a show, you can see where it all comes from.

I think it would be an excellent way of turning something I enjoy into drudgery. Listen to Jim Shocky(sp?) on his program, "The Professionals". He definitely conveys the idea that he considers it all to be a lot of work and grief with heavy pressures to perform. Not at all what most people picture it. I'm not sure whether that is all just some added drama to add to the show or whether that is the real way that it is. However, I can see where hunting for a weekly deadline could put some horrendous pressure on an activity that we mostly enjoy for recreation. Think about it ...... hunting with deadlines. As far as hawking products, I don't see any problems with that. That is the part that pays the bills, and a lot of personalities in other areas of entertainment industry have no problem doing it. On the other hand, publicly saying something about a product that I don't believe might pose some ethical dilemma ...... not sure.

What kind of terrain do you have? I don't know whether my concern is valid or not, but I have one steep, ugly hill that I have to climb to access the back of my property. And I have always wondered if the side-by-sides aren't so big and bulky that I will lose the ability to apply a bit of body english to shift weight and C.G. and such. Maybe it's nothing I don't know, but on my ATV I do feel the need to lean into the hill a bit when going up or across. That's why I am asking about the terrain. It might be something you should be thinking about or maybe those side-by-sides are heavy enough to hold their ground. i was looking at a Kawasaki Mule and the first thing that came to mind was that there is no way that I could ever influence something that huge.

There is no question there just like the pie-plate comment wasn't a question. It is merely a series of statements just like the one that wnybowhunter picked out of the middle to comment on relative to the pie-plate groups. A quartering shot is just a variation of the broadside and still is basically a heart-lung shot. I remember back in the dark ages, I received a booklet on recommended shots when I took my bowhunter safety course. In that booklet they had illustrations of ethical, high percentage shot selections. The quartering shots were included. All recommended shots involved the heart-lung area. I assume those illustrations are still in use. I use that as a compilation of what most hunters regard as being targets of a high percentage of success. I actually took that stuff seriously. I can't recall ever seeing anything that regarded a Texas heart shot as being an ethical or high percentage shot. My comments not only represent my own feelings on proper shot selection, but are based on what I was taught and what has been taught throughout the state and designed by a lot of people who are a lot smarter at that sort of thing than myself. I don't know, maybe things in the hunter safety training have changed, such that they are now recommending rump shots, but I seriously doubt it. However, if someone shows me where a Texas heart shot is now a recommended and taught as an ethical shot I will stand corrected.

Finally had enough and took the long drive over to Auburn (Bass-Pro). The new Primos is gone and a nice new shiny Bushnell Trophy is in its place now. Hopefully we're back in business.

I had one in a trap once that was "playing dead". Well, when I was done he wasn't playing any more. We didn't get much for possums (about $1.50 back then) But then that was when $1.50 was actually worth something .... lol.

You really are getting desperate aren't you? look, I said enough is enough, and I meant it. You can carry this on for as long as it takes you to feel better about your performance on this thread, but do it with someone else.

You are the one that made mention of the dinner plate. I don't know what the purpose of that reference was, but I responded to that. To use a phrase that you would be lost without, your response is indeed a case of "cherry picking" in terms of what you want to respond to and what you do not. Would you care to respond to the rest of what I said in that same reply. Perhaps I have to present it sentence by sentence for you. Just to refresh your memory as to what you chose to ignore about your tennis ball archery range groups: "And I guess you didn't learn anything from the long distance thread regarding the foolishness of trying to relate archery range marksmanship to what can reliably be done afield while hunting. As noted in that thread, unpredictable things happen when in hunting situations and taking a shot that requires you to be exactly as good as you are on the range is simply not the best and most responsible shot selection. That's why your hunter training instructor stressed that your shot selection be limited to "high percentage shots" (remember that term?). That would mean not looking for the smallest kill zone you can find, but the biggest and accepting nothing less" No on second thought, don't bother responding. We don't need a bunch of more pages of you dancing and prancing around. There's no need to waste anymore time on that sort of nonsense.

And you are still going it ..... lol. Give it up. The credibility of your posts has already been shown to be worthless and not worth replying to. Your words mean nothing to you or anyone else 10 seconds after you type them.

That 15 seconds or whatever that we saw was not as long as the pig's suffering went on. You know that and anyone paying attention to what was happening in that video understood that. That is what I was commenting about when I said that it was "hard to watch". It was very obvious from the footage that just because the video was shut off, that hog still had a lot of life left in it and what I saw was not the normal death throes (the flopping around that you speak of) of a well hit animal. As far as answering your question is concerned, I didn't think that such a ridiculous question needed to be answered. But you do seem to be confused by the ethics of these kinds of situations, so I will try to explain it to you. Of course it's not easy to answer something that is based on a bogus assumption. It isn't just 15 seconds of flopping around. That flopping involved several attempts of a fully conscious, partially paralyzed, animal to escape. Further, I have no idea how long that pig continued to suffer nor do you, but I can tell you that It had a whole lot more life in it than any deer I have ever seen shot in the heart-lung area. So when it comes to the ethical outcome of your comparison, the answer is pretty obvious. I also might add that deer that I have watched expire, pretty much died in mid-stride and then performed some involuntary kicks or unconscious spasms. I once even saw a lung-hit arrowed animal begin to resume eating just before it crashed. That's not a normal reaction, but simply an indication that a properly hit animal does not go through what that hog went through. So, take a realistic, honest, look at your own question, and you probably won't need anyone to answer it for you. The important aspect of all this is that the difference between what the hog was going through and what a properly hit deer goes through boils down to attitudes about responsible shot selection. That's not a mystery to most hunters who have paid any attention to their hunter training courses, and I hope that all this talk about texas heart shots will not confuse any of our members who are new to hunting. I would rather they pay attention to what they learned in their hunter training courses than some BS being spouted by a couple of people here. That is the main reason I am wasting so much time on this thread. I hate to see this crap go unchallenged.

Isn't that "playing possum" thing some kind of actual physical unconscious condition kind of like fainting? I thought I read that somewhere ..... that they aren't acting, but actually are out cold. Kind of like those fainting goats that get all excited and drop over in a cold faint.....lol. Nature can be weird .....eh?

But what you should understand from this exchange is that when you type something for other people to read, don't be trying to run away from those words unless you have genuinely changed your mind. And above all, don't be accusing someone of mis-representing a quote when it is an exact copy and paste. Now as far as I am concerned, that is the last bit of effort I am going to waste on this subject. Enough is enough.

For one thing, I'm not sure where you are getting the 15 seconds thing since the pig was still very alive and very active when the film was shut off. And also I am not sure what your problem with the "hard to watch" comment is. I personally find it difficult to watch any animal in pain, and I would hope that isn't a real hard thing for anybody to understand. That's why I am so adamant about taking only responsible high percentage shots. Unfortunately, I could not get your attached video to play.

I'm smart enough to recognize someone dancing and spinning and running like crazy away from their own words. And I hope you are not trying to say that what I posted in the above reply was some sort of misquote because I simply copied and pasted your exact words. So let's stop the dancing and apply a little honesty here. Those are your words exactly and you know it. So don't be accusing me of mis-quoting.

Yeah, not to mention that all this phoney nonsense gives you a way to avoid responding to my reply. I don't think you realize how transparent that tactic is getting to be.

Yes, I think you are referring to another thread where I put your exact words in front of you and you still continued to dance and squirm away from what you actually said, aren't you? We already know from that other thread that you feel perfectly comfortable running away from your own words even when they are laid in front of you. So that's probably a subject that you would be smarter not even bringing up.

I took another look at that video, and came to the conclusion that while the hog was clearly in partial paralysis, there still was plenty of life left in him when they hit the off switch. So I wouldn't want to say just how quickly that critter died. All I know is that it was a pretty hard thing to look at. Not exactly the cleanest kill I have ever seen.

That is one tiny camera that he is using there. I would think the problem would come when you take your shot. Who knows where the camera will be pointed. Probably would be pointed at the ground ...... lol. But I guess if you are by yourself with no camera-man, it might be better than nothing.

Aphrodite Montalvo?????? Is that a real name?? ......... lol.

Excellent non-reply. ....Your specialty.

So you think all that after-shot activity was just the involuntary spasms of the animal's death throes. Maybe you had better take a second look. Yeah, that pig was dying all right and it was a lot more drawn out than it had to be because of irresponsible shot selection.