We need an Pro Active Hunting Association and we need to support it.

[pitnie]

I just watched Stars in the Sky on Netflix, very much USA based point of view but and I guess like many other raised a few questions in my head.

Personally, I have had a gut full of the antis having upper the hand.

A few thoughts:

How can we as people who harvest the surplus wildlife in the Uk take class out the anti’s perception of what we do?

We have all heard the anti’s rhetoric of what we do, “Tweeded Toff’s” “Rich so and so’s “, “Camo murders” etc. However the USA has by in large a different point of view of hunting, it not cheap but it’s perceived as an everyman’s sport. You can do it by drawing a tag, and getting there, and just doing it.

We can do that in the UK and probably cheaper, but its not seen that way. Probably it has to do with current and historical land ownership. We do not have public land in the same quantities that they have in the USA the closest we have is the Forestry commissions. Its Public land as well just managed by twerps for those that are PR savvy and shout loudest.

Could we lobby for a TAG system on forestry commission land here? Available for all with a skill set, safety, DSC 1, insurance, etc. That would make its perception fairer in being open to all.

We need to advertise shooting differently, why not advertise it, as come and harvest your food we’ll teach you to shoot and harvest it for your families next celebration meal. Be that a pheasant, rabbit, or deer. Its better than a Red tractor or organic badge!

If you look at the RSPB with their many reserves, bought by the members. Why have the hunting shooting fishing paternity not done the same? Other than BASC with Arran. (Kick em if you will but nobody else has. And I have left them.) Group all the BASC CA SGA etc together add £20 to the subs and get buying areas. Advertising the good we bring and teach folk about the countryside on those sites not the Beatrix Potter Disney world that youngsters grow up with.

Why cannot BASC SGA CA etc set up as game butchers and sell game in the cities. Venison prices are at an all-time low, so is pheasant and partridge.

We as a group have shaped many habitats on land up and down the country that are now havens for wildlife. Moorland, lowland game crops, woods etc. all these are hugely beneficial to wildlife. Why can we not add it up as an area and advertise what we do and to how much. In comparison the to the RSPB.

Again as a group (keepers, stalking, out feeding the poults on a local farmers shoot etc) we are far more active in habitat maintenance than the RSPB, whose members by and large sit in urban conurbations and salve there social justice by giving money monthly to a bunch of antis.

We should plaster in the press, Langholm moor as an example of the RSPB does not work. Muirburn protects the environment not rewilding.

These are just my thoughts.

We need a progressive forward-thinking Association and we need to get behind them and win the PR war on hunting. Its time one of them stepped up or they all grouped up, as a one, because we are loosing bit by bit, and as a generation guilty of allowing it.

 

[User00014]

I just watched Stars in the Sky on Netflix, very much USA based point of view but and I guess like many other raised a few questions in my head.

Personally, I have had a gut full of the antis having upper the hand.

A few thoughts:

How can we as people who harvest the surplus wildlife in the Uk take class out the anti’s perception of what we do?

We have all heard the anti’s rhetoric of what we do, “Tweeded Toff’s” “Rich so and so’s “, “Camo murders” etc. However the USA has by in large a different point of view of hunting, it not cheap but it’s perceived as an everyman’s sport. You can do it by drawing a tag, and getting there, and just doing it.

We can do that in the UK and probably cheaper, but its not seen that way. Probably it has to do with current and historical land ownership. We do not have public land in the same quantities that they have in the USA the closest we have is the Forestry commissions. Its Public land as well just managed by twerps for those that are PR savvy and shout loudest.

Could we lobby for a TAG system on forestry commission land here? Available for all with a skill set, safety, DSC 1, insurance, etc. That would make its perception fairer in being open to all.

We need to advertise shooting differently, why not advertise it, as come and harvest your food we’ll teach you to shoot and harvest it for your families next celebration meal. Be that a pheasant, rabbit, or deer. Its better than a Red tractor or organic badge!

If you look at the RSPB with their many reserves, bought by the members. Why have the hunting shooting fishing paternity not done the same? Other than BASC with Arran. (Kick em if you will but nobody else has. And I have left them.) Group all the BASC CA SGA etc together add £20 to the subs and get buying areas. Advertising the good we bring and teach folk about the countryside on those sites not the Beatrix Potter Disney world that youngsters grow up with.

Why cannot BASC SGA CA etc set up as game butchers and sell game in the cities. Venison prices are at an all-time low, so is pheasant and partridge.

We as a group have shaped many habitats on land up and down the country that are now havens for wildlife. Moorland, lowland game crops, woods etc. all these are hugely beneficial to wildlife. Why can we not add it up as an area and advertise what we do and to how much. In comparison the to the RSPB.

Again as a group (keepers, stalking, out feeding the poults on a local farmers shoot etc) we are far more active in habitat maintenance than the RSPB, whose members by and large sit in urban conurbations and salve there social justice by giving money monthly to a bunch of antis.

We should plaster in the press, Langholm moor as an example of the RSPB does not work. Muirburn protects the environment not rewilding.

These are just my thoughts.

We need a progressive forward-thinking Association and we need to get behind them and win the PR war on hunting. Its time one of them stepped up or they all grouped up, as a one, because we are loosing bit by bit, and as a generation guilty of allowing it.

i like your way of thinking but..............

you will never win the PR war !

what we do involves killing animals and to 80% of the public that is not pink and fluffy and friendly to the eye.

Until you can justify the killing of Wild animals to the uneducated public then your Pi$$ing into the wind and getting wet legs.

 

[Fabnosh]

Like leec6.5 I like the sentiment.....but I think is it just sentiment. I think its also worth considering that in the US owning a gun does not make you some kind of 'weird nutter'.....which sadly in the UK it does. So then the only point of debate for them is killing animals. For use its a double whammy.

FN

 

[Essex stalker]

However there are more meat eaters than vegetarians so we should be able to win the war by concentrating on demonstrating and explaining how it's far more ethical to hunt and shoot animals the way we do rather than factory farming of meat just to obtain a cheap protein source
People are starting to want to know more and more about where there food comes from, I d however realise it's not an easy battle to win

 

[CarlW]

i like your way of thinking but..............

you will never win the PR war !

what we do involves killing animals and to 80% of the public that is not pink and fluffy and friendly to the eye.

Until you can justify the killing of Wild animals to the uneducated public then your Pi$$ing into the wind and getting wet legs.

I don't think most people care. Very few people are sitting in council estates or high rises or just ordinary working homes worrying about bunnies. They are fretting over how to find money for the gas meter.

The problem is that those ordinary folk don't have any influence. They don't run the BBC, or PR agencies, or governments. A loud, well-educated and well-fed minority of woke tw@ts does that for them...

 

[JMikeyH]

I love the idea of this. A positive media campaign on shooting and all it's benefits is long overdue BUT there are hypocrisies within shooting at the moment which undermine any effort to present what shooting for the majority of shooters is without being made to look like fools. One point which I think is at the forefront of this concern from my perspective is how many game birds are released and the effect on the countryside this has. The jury is still out on what the impact is exactly but it'd be foolish to think the release of so many game birds (was it 50 million? Cannot remember exactly) was having no detrimental impact at all. Before perspectives can swing, you have to remove ammunition for the antis to use and I think the simple truth of it, at least with this point and maybe a few others, is that they are right.

Slightly off topic, but that's a hurdle I see with this idea.

Next off is the cost of getting into shooting. I am fairly late to the party here having started shooting fairly recently and one of the things that was apparent is how difficult it is to get into shooting for two primary reasons. The first obvious one being firearms license, we don't need to get into that because we all know what it's like. The second one is to do with our country being very old, and pretty much all land shooting is undertaken on being private and unfortunately this means for the majority of people to get into shooting they cannot, until they bump into someone, sensing naivety perhaps and holding their hand out for a fee, sometimes unreasonably large like on the other thread with some scoundrel taking a newcomer for a ride, £170 for a muntjac carcass not included (what the f**k is that about). There is greed in shooting, I appreciate people's time must have value and the value of the animal itself but there's a line that many people cross and this is hugely off putting when getting into stalking. I was very lucky to come across this site and get taken on my first deer stalk for a very reasonably price by a very knowledgeable bloke, most will not have such luck and instead will not get into shooting. Even just getting land for taking rabbits on is difficult and my first permission was a paid one again!

Now, Forestry land is the solution right? State managed land which we can hunt on! How fantastic that'd be. Except we need the legal infrastructure to back that up, the US is really leading the charge here and they have a fantastic system which has proven itself time and time again. Adjusting seasons, bag limits etc by a government body staffed with biologists and wildlife experts monitoring populations to keep everything in check. Just perfect, how I wish we had that here.
Now assuming that by some miracle it happened that our forests and national parks were opened up to shooting we have the problem of shooters and general public mixing. I actually think general public exposure to firearms and hunting is a good thing but of course with this comes a certain level of responsibility to be an ambassador for our sport and many people I've seen I don't think could behave diplomatically and respectfully to people perhaps on the fence or the other side of it! There is this "death by a thousand cuts" mentality over here in the shooting community, and actually I think it's a fair stance to take because we are so terrible at presenting what shooting really is that maybe a snowball of legislation not in our favour could occur. Everything we're talking about here though is requiring a huge shift in our community mentality and that again is another hurdle that I do not think will happen.

I could go on about some more of these points but the more I think about it and write my thoughts, the more mental gymnastics I have to do and frankly it's making me tired and sad.

I'd love for us to have one organisation with bollocks to pick up the baton and run with it here but no, we will have to continue waiting for that one.

 

[terrier1]

We as shooters or stalker don't put thing across to the public in the right way. When I get into a discussion about shooting I always ask would they won't to be a Turkey or a wild pheasant three months before Christmas. And after they have thought about it they all pick the pheasant when I ask them why they always admit the Turkey will not get past Christmas but the pheasant has got more of a chance.
And I always say then its not as cruel as you were saying ten min ago is it.

 

[Tim.243]

I just watched Stars in the Sky on Netflix, very much USA based point of view but and I guess like many other raised a few questions in my head.

Personally, I have had a gut full of the antis having upper the hand.

A few thoughts:

How can we as people who harvest the surplus wildlife in the Uk take class out the anti’s perception of what we do?

We have all heard the anti’s rhetoric of what we do, “Tweeded Toff’s” “Rich so and so’s “, “Camo murders” etc. However the USA has by in large a different point of view of hunting, it not cheap but it’s perceived as an everyman’s sport. You can do it by drawing a tag, and getting there, and just doing it.

We can do that in the UK and probably cheaper, but its not seen that way. Probably it has to do with current and historical land ownership. We do not have public land in the same quantities that they have in the USA the closest we have is the Forestry commissions. Its Public land as well just managed by twerps for those that are PR savvy and shout loudest.

Could we lobby for a TAG system on forestry commission land here? Available for all with a skill set, safety, DSC 1, insurance, etc. That would make its perception fairer in being open to all.

We need to advertise shooting differently, why not advertise it, as come and harvest your food we’ll teach you to shoot and harvest it for your families next celebration meal. Be that a pheasant, rabbit, or deer. Its better than a Red tractor or organic badge!

If you look at the RSPB with their many reserves, bought by the members. Why have the hunting shooting fishing paternity not done the same? Other than BASC with Arran. (Kick em if you will but nobody else has. And I have left them.) Group all the BASC CA SGA etc together add £20 to the subs and get buying areas. Advertising the good we bring and teach folk about the countryside on those sites not the Beatrix Potter Disney world that youngsters grow up with.

Why cannot BASC SGA CA etc set up as game butchers and sell game in the cities. Venison prices are at an all-time low, so is pheasant and partridge.

We as a group have shaped many habitats on land up and down the country that are now havens for wildlife. Moorland, lowland game crops, woods etc. all these are hugely beneficial to wildlife. Why can we not add it up as an area and advertise what we do and to how much. In comparison the to the RSPB.

Again as a group (keepers, stalking, out feeding the poults on a local farmers shoot etc) we are far more active in habitat maintenance than the RSPB, whose members by and large sit in urban conurbations and salve there social justice by giving money monthly to a bunch of antis.

We should plaster in the press, Langholm moor as an example of the RSPB does not work. Muirburn protects the environment not rewilding.

These are just my thoughts.

We need a progressive forward-thinking Association and we need to get behind them and win the PR war on hunting. Its time one of them stepped up or they all grouped up, as a one, because we are loosing bit by bit, and as a generation guilty of allowing it.

There are a number of wildfowling clubs that own land/marshes out right.

Sorry to say but the bigger picture is the older values have been diluted to the extent with a prime example people don't even wash their own cars which is done by 6/8 lads who live in the same house and bust the rent up by 6/8

If people can defy a lockdown then leave tons of rubbish on a beach well.....

I did the filters air oil diesel also front pads on my truck the other week,

can't see the following generation cracking off an oil filter lol

 

[User00014]

I love the idea of this. A positive media campaign on shooting and all it's benefits is long overdue BUT there are hypocrisies within shooting at the moment which undermine any effort to present what shooting for the majority of shooters is without being made to look like fools. One point which I think is at the forefront of this concern from my perspective is how many game birds are released and the effect on the countryside this has. The jury is still out on what the impact is exactly but it'd be foolish to think the release of so many game birds (was it 50 million? Cannot remember exactly) was having no detrimental impact at all. Before perspectives can swing, you have to remove ammunition for the antis to use and I think the simple truth of it, at least with this point and maybe a few others, is that they are right.

Slightly off topic, but that's a hurdle I see with this idea.

Next off is the cost of getting into shooting. I am fairly late to the party here having started shooting fairly recently and one of the things that was apparent is how difficult it is to get into shooting for two primary reasons. The first obvious one being firearms license, we don't need to get into that because we all know what it's like. The second one is to do with our country being very old, and pretty much all land shooting is undertaken on being private and unfortunately this means for the majority of people to get into shooting they cannot, until they bump into someone, sensing naivety perhaps and holding their hand out for a fee, sometimes unreasonably large like on the other thread with some scoundrel taking a newcomer for a ride, £170 for a muntjac carcass not included (what the f**k is that about). There is greed in shooting, I appreciate people's time must have value and the value of the animal itself but there's a line that many people cross and this is hugely off putting when getting into stalking. I was very lucky to come across this site and get taken on my first deer stalk for a very reasonably price by a very knowledgeable bloke, most will not have such luck and instead will not get into shooting. Even just getting land for taking rabbits on is difficult and my first permission was a paid one again!

Now, Forestry land is the solution right? State managed land which we can hunt on! How fantastic that'd be. Except we need the legal infrastructure to back that up, the US is really leading the charge here and they have a fantastic system which has proven itself time and time again. Adjusting seasons, bag limits etc by a government body staffed with biologists and wildlife experts monitoring populations to keep everything in check. Just perfect, how I wish we had that here.
Now assuming that by some miracle it happened that our forests and national parks were opened up to shooting we have the problem of shooters and general public mixing. I actually think general public exposure to firearms and hunting is a good thing but of course with this comes a certain level of responsibility to be an ambassador for our sport and many people I've seen I don't think could behave diplomatically and respectfully to people perhaps on the fence or the other side of it! There is this "death by a thousand cuts" mentality over here in the shooting community, and actually I think it's a fair stance to take because we are so terrible at presenting what shooting really is that maybe a snowball of legislation not in our favour could occur. Everything we're talking about here though is requiring a huge shift in our community mentality and that again is another hurdle that I do not think will happen.

I could go on about some more of these points but the more I think about it and write my thoughts, the more mental gymnastics I have to do and frankly it's making me tired and sad.

I'd love for us to have one organisation with bollocks to pick up the baton and run with it here but no, we will have to continue waiting for that one.

Recreational hunting on public will NEVER Happen!

you could write a book on the amount of time that’s been talked about on this forum.

stalking over the last 20 years has out grown itself and lay the blame at the shooting orgs feet so they can earn coin from the DMQ and pre DMQ etc etc etc

this then lead to the cost of stalking, well it is what it is!

you want to do it and you have not got your own ground then yes it’s expensive and that’s that!

i take clients for a farmer who’s happy Just earning a few extra quid and that why my prices are very reasonable.

you will struggle to find a stalking outing for under £75!

and will struggle to find an outing plus animal and carcass for under £135 , they are out there But hard work to find because they are fully booked from 1 year to the next.

i want to catch carp on a well known syndicate in the colne valley and that cost me £400 a year so be it, because that’s what I want to do.

you can’t have your cake and eat it.

the shooting orgs are never going to stand up and shout the odds and support the members because that’s not politically correct and we all know you have to keep politicians happy.

 

[User00040]

News flash!



No government wants it's citizens to have guns/weapons/hazardous items in any shape or form, legal or otherwise.

Exceptions to this are:

1- People in the military acting on government orders.

2- People the police doing the same.

Not to say that a police or military force is not needed, but recognise they are the 'right hand man' of any government.

Look at China for example.

In the UK (along with it's former colonies) firearms ownership for hunting/pest control and target shooting is permitted but not encouraged, and it is a privilege not a right.

Complaints of doctors letter's and renewals running into the hundreds of pounds fall on deaf ears, the answer is if you can't afford it don't shoot! (a position that I firmly protest)

NZ and Canada are now clamping down hard on ownership and in some cases laws are being bent or broken in the pursuit of this.

The USA likes to flout the idea of being an exception to the rest, a self-governing republic of independent citizens whose rights are guaranteed by their constitution... it's a nice story to tell and pacify the public whilst they believe the choice of voting RED TEAM or BLUE TEAM every 4 years, which represents democracy and personal freedom.

BAAAA...



I am looking at getting back into archery because it is one form of hunting that is unlikely to get banned.

Oh wait, I live in the UK, silly me!

 

[User00014]

The best thing we can do as hunters is hang on for as long as we can!

Lobby, shout, moan and create what ever shooting org you like but the over welding fact is that we’re BUGGERED in the long run.

 

[BLUEROLL]

Are any of you members/shareholders of fieldsports channel TV ?

 

[pitnie]

Too defeatist guys. People want ethically sourced food. They want to do what we do we just need to push them to see we are not cruel, but thoughtful. Show people that the antis are wrong demonstrate it. The politicians will do what gets them votes

 

[Tim.243]

Too defeatist guys. People want ethically sourced food. They want to do what we do we just need to push them to see we are not cruel, but thoughtful. Show people that the antis are wrong demonstrate it. The politicians will do what gets them votes

what do you do for a job?
myself mobile welding, contract machining.............

 

[User00014]

Too defeatist guys. People want ethically sourced food. They want to do what we do we just need to push them to see we are not cruel, but thoughtful. Show people that the antis are wrong demonstrate it. The politicians will do what gets them votes

which they will distance themselves from shooting wild animals.

i would get yourself some good leggings or your going to get wet legs.

the 500,000 or 1,000000 shooters Votes is small fry.

 

[devon deer stalker]

Too defeatist guys. People want ethically sourced food. They want to do what we do we just need to push them to see we are not cruel, but thoughtful. Show people that the antis are wrong demonstrate it. The politicians will do what gets them votes

That's very true, politicians will do what ever they can to get them votes, putting up forestry commission land for hunting would be political suicide in the climate we live in.
You cannot compare the UK to the states, as an example you can get the UK into the single state of Montana 2 1/2 times, not really any safety issues as the place is vast.
At the end of the day you can't break the Bambi syndrome.
The anti's are brilliant at what they do and distort the facts, the general public absorb it like a sponge, especially coming from the likes of Packham.
As for permissions, I'm like a broken record here, the land is out there, stalkers pass away, give up or the land changes hands.
Cheers
Richard

 

[Tommy2bucks]

I just watched Stars in the Sky on Netflix, very much USA based point of view but and I guess like many other raised a few questions in my head.

Personally, I have had a gut full of the antis having upper the hand.

A few thoughts:

How can we as people who harvest the surplus wildlife in the Uk take class out the anti’s perception of what we do?

We have all heard the anti’s rhetoric of what we do, “Tweeded Toff’s” “Rich so and so’s “, “Camo murders” etc. However the USA has by in large a different point of view of hunting, it not cheap but it’s perceived as an everyman’s sport. You can do it by drawing a tag, and getting there, and just doing it.

We can do that in the UK and probably cheaper, but its not seen that way. Probably it has to do with current and historical land ownership. We do not have public land in the same quantities that they have in the USA the closest we have is the Forestry commissions. Its Public land as well just managed by twerps for those that are PR savvy and shout loudest.

Could we lobby for a TAG system on forestry commission land here? Available for all with a skill set, safety, DSC 1, insurance, etc. That would make its perception fairer in being open to all.

We need to advertise shooting differently, why not advertise it, as come and harvest your food we’ll teach you to shoot and harvest it for your families next celebration meal. Be that a pheasant, rabbit, or deer. Its better than a Red tractor or organic badge!

If you look at the RSPB with their many reserves, bought by the members. Why have the hunting shooting fishing paternity not done the same? Other than BASC with Arran. (Kick em if you will but nobody else has. And I have left them.) Group all the BASC CA SGA etc together add £20 to the subs and get buying areas. Advertising the good we bring and teach folk about the countryside on those sites not the Beatrix Potter Disney world that youngsters grow up with.

Why cannot BASC SGA CA etc set up as game butchers and sell game in the cities. Venison prices are at an all-time low, so is pheasant and partridge.

We as a group have shaped many habitats on land up and down the country that are now havens for wildlife. Moorland, lowland game crops, woods etc. all these are hugely beneficial to wildlife. Why can we not add it up as an area and advertise what we do and to how much. In comparison the to the RSPB.

Again as a group (keepers, stalking, out feeding the poults on a local farmers shoot etc) we are far more active in habitat maintenance than the RSPB, whose members by and large sit in urban conurbations and salve there social justice by giving money monthly to a bunch of antis.

We should plaster in the press, Langholm moor as an example of the RSPB does not work. Muirburn protects the environment not rewilding.

These are just my thoughts.

We need a progressive forward-thinking Association and we need to get behind them and win the PR war on hunting. Its time one of them stepped up or they all grouped up, as a one, because we are loosing bit by bit, and as a generation guilty of allowing it.

It’s a cracking idea just difficult to get traction with it as convincing the general public to change views with social media Being the way it is , basically people remain ignorant and lazy and are like sheep
Just a point but some angling associations actually own there land and the lakes so in principle why not some thing has to change or it will get worse !

 

[pitnie]

what do you do for a job?
myself mobile welding, contract machining.............

I stalk shot and fish and work as an eng to pay for it.

 

[BryanDC]

On a more positive note. I get a weekly news email from the Jægerforbund here in DK. This week there is a story about the work they have done along with the fishing community, developing a pack that can be sent out to children's nurseries promoting the outdoors, hunting and fishing. They made up 400 packs and all of them were taken within hours of being released.

 

[cjm1066]

Shooter Rights Association, Sportsman's Association, it easy to set up a new organisation, only the NGO has any traction. It would be quicker to change an existing organisation.