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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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May 26, 2017 - 11:32am PT
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I grew up hunting. I had a single shot 20 gauge for quail and duck at 13, and I damn sure knew how to use it and be safe. I used to be big into deer hunting, with bow, muzzle loader, and rifle. I've killed deer with all three.
As for bears, I walked up on a grizzly laying on a fresh caribou kill. He came after me like a race horse. No tree to climb within 30 miles. I just stood there with my 12 gauge beaded in on his chest. They often bluff charge, so I didn't shoot. He pulled up about 15-20 yards from me and circled me, until he was downwind and smelled me.
Right when he smelled me, he let out a big snort and walked up the narrow valley hillside for about 150 yards and sat down. That puzzled me, because they normally run like hell when they encounter a person.
Bear lived. I lived. I was super surprised to walk over to where he had been laying down and saw that caribou kill, and realized that it wasn't a bluff charge.
I've had quite a few grizzly run-ins. There aren't any black bears that far north. I was close to the divide on the south side of the Brooks Range in Alaska, alone. I've had them walk through my camp and wake me. They normally don't want anything to do with people. In northern Alaska, anyway.
A few years later, about 60 miles north of where I had that encounter, two people were killed and partially eaten by a grizzly. I know the eskimo guy who found the camp. They had a lever action rifle in their tent but didn't get a shot off. It is hard to aim a long gun while in a tent. I used a tiny one man bivy tent, and couldn't aim at all.
I still slept well. Most of that was in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but I've run into bears down in Western Alaska and the Western Brooks Range along the Noatak river as well. I've seen way more grizzlies than black bears, oddly enough.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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May 26, 2017 - 12:38pm PT
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Had a problem with deer in my crops. Called the game warden, he said just shoot them. I donated the meat to poor neighbors that could use it more than me. Is that wrong?
Hell, just trying to grow produce so you guys can get it at the store!
Qball
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 26, 2017 - 12:44pm PT
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my dad was a farmer and an episcopal minister. God help you if you messed with the lords corn or cabbage! he routinely killed ground hogs, racoons and any birds that were hitting the seed corn....
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MassiveD
Trad climber
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May 26, 2017 - 02:17pm PT
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1) He may well be celebrating his heritage in his own way, but the gear he is using is classic "Traditional" gear (90 era and forward) which is sorta to archery, and even non-compound archery, what the clean climbing/free climbing revolution in the 70 was to climbing. As some people thought too much aid, pitons, and bolts were being used, and went back to the roots of the sport but did it with new gear that came out of the new ideas. Swami belts hexes, ebs. (ie, primitive climbing, if there was such a thing would be say hobnails, socks and hemp ropes, as in the documentary on lakeland climbing. Primative archery is all plant or sinew bows, etc...)
2) Shooting animals with guns is like riding an escalator, it is not challenge based it is the need to get to the top, or actually harvest meat. Archery has many advantages that have nothing to do with sport, but rifles, or variants like airbows, xbows, may take most of the challenge out of it, but that also presents the opportunity of less wounding. Bow hunters wound a lot of game. It can be done without wounding game, but the reality is otherwise.
3) Hunters fall primarily into 4 categories, though doubtless one could fabricate many others: Dominators, harvesters, challenge motivated, and nature freaks: 30%,30%, 30%, 10%. That is old research, but if nothing else it shows it isn't all one thing. Archers can be any of these, as can hunters in general, but typically the guys who created trad archery were challenge oriented. It's like climbing where you have peak baggers, technical guys, people who love being out in nature, and so forth. At one time it was considered odd that people would climb a face with no motivation to reach the summit. I know a girl who does cheerleading comps, she has never cheered for a team. Stuff just gets odder as time goes by. Most sport hunters are not motivated by food, but the law almost everywhere requires you to use the meat. That goes for elephants in Africa. Trophy hunting changes nothing in that regard.
4) Allsports have their dark sides. Rock climbing sure isn't much of steward of the rock any more. It is more like dirt biking, at least from the perspective of the Chouinard catalog of 1972.
5) While I always figured climbing as the most demanding sport ever conceived, the biggest challenge, but hunting does have one factor over it. Most hunters are not successful. Harvest rates are often as low as ten percent. Imagine trying your whole year to climb one route and never succeeding year after year. Maybe the Dawn wall, but most average climber succeed on nearly all their routes unless they just prefer not to choose ones they can do. The best hunters get almost all the game; some hunters accept the experience as it is; others carry primitive equipment knowing they aren't getting anything (like wearing a swami belt in camp 4 but never going climbing).
6) The guy from the States who speared a bear on the ground was internationally excoriated, for the usual reasons.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 26, 2017 - 05:49pm PT
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As a kid I hunted deer with my stepdad in New York State. Strictly archery. He was a tournament archer, regularly "twenty'd" field archery courses if you're familiar with that sport. I was okay, but never went for a shot. I left that to Stepdad, if he took a shot the animal died fast. So my job was to hike around the long way and drive the deer in his general direction.
We used a rifle to nail ground hogs that ate the garden. Our garden was about a half acre of everything from lettuce to currants to squash to corn. The darned groundhogs could eat their way through a whole row of lettuce in a few minutes. The Winchester 30-30 was a bit much for a groundhog but what the hell.
I lost a girlfriend one time with that damned gun. It was early morning, we were sleeping together upstairs. I got up to look around, and there was one of those infernal creatures chowing down in the garden. The rifle hung on the upstairs hallway wall. I took it, opened the window over the porch roof, took aim and KABLAM!!!. I should have considered the fact that she was sound asleep.
FWIW we used broad-heads, but called them razor tips when they had a slot into which you would insert a razor sharp blade crosswise.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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May 31, 2017 - 01:22pm PT
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Good post tradmanclimbs. Dead on I'd say. The further north you go it's generally harder to be vegan.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 31, 2017 - 02:38pm PT
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I had a construction job one summer in Humboldt County,
boss used to go bear hunting with a bow.
I saw pics of a large black bear (not grizzly- California!) he killed.
Definitely folks out there that do it.
Edit: Base104, pretty hard core grizzly encounters. I suspect it would take some gumption to keep from blowing your wad when grizzly is charging in your direction. But maybe better to wait until he is close enough to ensure you won't miss?
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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May 31, 2017 - 05:34pm PT
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The very few people (relatively speaking) that regularly hunt/fish for food are not in the same situation as the majority who could/should be vegetarians but prefer to support the factory production of those little Styrofoam, shrink-wrapped packages of meat.
If the arable land that is presently devoted to producing feed-lot grains was instead devoted to producing food directly eaten by human beings, the cost savings, water savings, CO2 savings, etc. (not to mention health benefits) would be off the charts.
There should be a meat-tax, like a carbon-tax, to offset the baleful effects of meat production and consumption. It would work the same way as proposed carbon-taxes, and it would be exactly as effective. My god madbolter, if more of your posts would be of this ilk..I agree with you 100%.
While I don't see the merit of what most hunters down in this neck of the woods do (fat, camo draped, driving around in their little Polaris so they don't have to walk a 1/4 mile and can swill their Bud at the same time, shooting near well established trailheads--no joke; I see this routinely near the Needles in the fall), I see a big distinction between that group and native hunters or those who live in remote areas who need to hunt for their substanance.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 31, 2017 - 06:01pm PT
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okner, when you gots some human skulls up on yer wall we'll talk, m'kay. ;-)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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I remember the time MooseDrool was out filming mushrooms...it was a bloodbath.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2017 - 10:48am PT
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Moose, if you didn't GoPro your adventure and post it up on Instagram then it never happened.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Well, all of you that aren't vegetarians have some hypocrisy imo. Flesh-food is completely unnecessary and is a VAST waste of water and arable land, yet you're all for the relentless slaughter of untold millions of cows and other creatures just because you like their flavor.
And the practice of eating cattle also greatly contributes to the mowing down of rain forests, which in turn greatly contributes to global warming.
If you actually believe this, Mad, we're of a mind. The cow industry is insane. Just the part where they are allowed to graze in wilderness (Golden Trout), is insane. You can see where they have converted the verdant meadowlands of Monache Meadow (largest meadow in the Sierra) into scrub brush, by the voracious eating, and actions of their hooves.
I think we are on the verge of a breakthrough on meat subs:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/21/482322571/silicon-valley-s-bloody-plant-burger-smells-tastes-and-sizzles-like-meat
Won't sub for a steak, but will for hamburger.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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One thing that surprises me, is the line that is drawn between "first Nation" people and hunting.
It makes you wonder if people think that whites just always shopped at Ralphs?
What was Daniel Boone doing for food?
I think it is time that we understood our common ancestry. When we do, I'm not sure I understand why hunting by "Dances with Wolves" is more sacred than by Jim Bridger?
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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I think it is time that we understood our common ancestry. When we do, I'm not sure I understand why hunting by "Dances with Wolves" is more sacred than by Jim Bridger? It's not, but there aren't any Jim Bridgers out there anymore. Now it's mostly (but not all) rednecks.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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If you actually believe this, Mad, we're of a mind. The cow industry is insane.
I do, and we are. I've been a vegetarian for almost 50 years, and I haven't missed meat at all.
The entire meat industry (not just cows) is insane, and it's become a complete rip-off for the individual farmers/ranchers as well, as big agri-corps have entirely taken over everything from the chicken supply to the feed-grains to the antibiotics to the distribution channels... well, it goes on and on.
And the industrialization of meat has literally mowed down the rain forests at an absolutely astounding rate! We spend unconscionable amounts of water, energy, arable land, and the list goes on and on... all at a rate far, far beyond what it costs to just directly grow human food rather than pass the calories through a cow first (and then net two orders of magnitude less calories and nutrition!).
And to accomplish waste on this grand of a scale, we are necessarily committed to subsidizing this industry and its "support" industries, including, as you mentioned, the abuse of public lands.
There is no net gain to eating meat. It's a convenience food that to most people tastes good. That's its "upside." Its downsides (particularly on the industrial scale) are horrible beyond description. At the very least, we should cut every government subsidy even indirectly related to meat production.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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I fully support this.
The over-reliance on meat has also been a major contributor to the progressive accumulation of health problems: obesity, diabetes, heart disease...probably some cancers.
And it doesn't require the elimination of meat. A very achievable 50% reduction would have vast ramifications for environment and health outcomes, country-wide.
Within the next week or two, I'm going to take the opportunity to partake of an "Impossible Burger", which is available here in LA. Reviews say that it can't be distinguished from hamburger. We'll see. I'll post a review.
Apparently they are scaling up right now, and they project that it will cost less than beef. That would be a game-changer.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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It's not, but there aren't any Jim Bridgers out there anymore. Now it's mostly (but not all) rednecks.
You think Bridger wasn't a redneck?
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