Muntybuck5803
Well-Known Member
Ever get the feeling you’re pushing diarrhoea uphill with a fork @Brave Echo Niner ? 
Voluntary Annual Assessment - Poll
- Thread starter Brave Echo Niner
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Brave Echo Niner
Well-Known Member
Certainly got that feeling now!Ever get the feeling you’re pushing diarrhoea uphill with a fork @Brave Echo Niner ?
Bo Diddley
Well-Known Member
I had to check the calendar... I thought it was April 1st already..
Brave Echo Niner
Well-Known Member
I have to ask - what part of it presented as the joke?
A well intentioned suggestion from an individual where he believes there is a way to improve deer welfare, I struggle to see the humour in that!
Brave Echo Niner
Well-Known Member
Agreed - which is why I avoided that entirely, going with zeroing targets rather than deer targets.While I agree with your sentiment, in practice people can't agree on where is the best/effective/humane place to shoot a deer. You may be getting all your shots within a 25mm circle on the range, right over the centre of the target but they will be 50% of stalker's who tell you that you've shot the deer in the wrong place
"head shot? That's unethical, go for a high shoulder, pin it so it won't run"
"High shoulder? What are you trying to waste meat? Double lung all the way"
"Double lung? Do you want it to run off and die slowly? Hillar zone all the way"
Whatever aim point you choose though, the same principle still stands, you're less likely to hit your chosen aim point if you're unable to place accurate shots repeatably!
Bo Diddley
Well-Known Member
Don't take it personally. Humor is very individual, I like Bernard Manning.. I'm not sure many others on SD would.
Red tape is crippling this country, the standard of "Rifle Men" in this country is reasonably high I think, especially amongst the Stalkers & Foxers that I know, I can't speak for everyone, so why increase bureaucracy?
How many shot deer are ever lost? I've had one Muntjac in the last six years, no Roe, and no Reds, Compared to the number of road casualties in Norfolk I can't see it's a problem to unduly worry about.
What I’m surprised no one has yet pointed out is that many stalkers could find getting stalking of their own very much easier if they can show due diligence to landowners in terms of DSC1and 2 and a current skills test result. It shows a degree of responsibility and professionalism that steps up to industry standard as performed by Forestry Commission.
You have neatly, although perhaps inadvertently, summarised the conundrum.
If your primary goal is to improve deer welfare, why then design a marksmanship competition, and not a course that helps stalkers understand when not to take “difficult shots that most would pass up”?
As was identified in the report you linked to earlier, it is exactly those type of “tricky” shots that are most likely to go wrong, resulting in an injured animal. Shots taken at animals that were not standing still, were too far away, not broadside on, through thick brush, etc. by a shooter who had insufficient time, or an unstable platform, etc.
The course you’ve designed does little to address such issues. I’ve yet to see a paper-target based competition that does. Your course could have been improved by designing targets accurately representing different species of deer, with some quartering towards you, others away, some partly obscured by undergrowth, etc. That could help improve deer welfare, rather than just another variation on paper-punching.
Competitions are all well and good, and can be great fun, but as the poll results show not every stalker enjoys them or wants to enter them (SD Monthly Supporters Draw aside!). Go right ahead and run your course as designed, but treat it as what it is - a competition.
What this thread has also inadvertently shown is that there is little appetite in general for such courses. Maybe the BDS should stick with the regular range days, and run other events with a focus on welfare, leaving those with a yearning for marksmanship courses to run them independently?
I’m a bit late to this thread but this is the problem.
If something like this took off, it wouldn’t be long before someone in the FLD, government or an animal rights group starts pushing for it to be compulsory. And at that point (see BASC lead transition) it’ll be damned hard to say ‘no’ as we (as a group) will just have your sorts of posts quoted back as us to show that even we think it’s a good idea. That being the case, we should ‘welcome’ it becoming compulsory to weed out the wronguns.
Not long after, someone will point out that the same sorts of principles apply when shooting fox, squirrel or pigeon. So now I’m going to need to do 4 annual skills tests for deer, foxes, vermin and shotgun.
Now, there will be some who are sufficiently committed to put up with this but many who are more occasional will just say ‘eff this’ and pack it in. There’ll then be less of us and we’ll be even less politically relevant than we already are.
I might take a different view if we lived in a country which respected hunting and shooting, but we don’t and anything of this sort will eventually be used to bury us that little bit more.
I appreciate that isn’t what you want, but if you can’t see that it is what others will, then I’m afraid you’re extremely naive.
I would expect you to say that you would support the testing of anyone shooting any animal with a firearm, shotgun or air rifle.
Why should it only be those who shoot deer that require your test ?
Oxymoron of the day: I also recognise that I am pretty hopeless at target shooting but I very confident of my ability to shoot deer.
In case you didn't notice, that DEER IS YOUR TARGET.
In case you didn't notice, that DEER IS YOUR TARGET.
Don’t fret Steve!
I have little interest in paper targets, ballistics, reloading or discussing the merits of various deer calibres. Most of it bores me witless if I’m honest.
Fortunately we live in a society where we can (just about) still say “each to his own”.
Are we not trying to in effect, Increase respect for hunting?
Overlay
Well-Known Member
pretty logical that everyone strives to get to and keep your rifle skills accurate and shoot as accurate as possible and practices to do so
i do the skill set mentioned and although i’m not the best paper or any good as a target shooter it makes me keep practising
i consider it something that I should be doing at my pace not someone else’s whim and It’s all part of what I do anyway
so it would be a NO from me purely as like the rest of us it’s what we do anyway. no point in more nooses, if anyone hasn’t got a zeroing range join a club it’s all part of it.
i do the skill set mentioned and although i’m not the best paper or any good as a target shooter it makes me keep practising
i consider it something that I should be doing at my pace not someone else’s whim and It’s all part of what I do anyway
so it would be a NO from me purely as like the rest of us it’s what we do anyway. no point in more nooses, if anyone hasn’t got a zeroing range join a club it’s all part of it.
Yes, and I can see that as a possible outcome, but the far more likely one is that we fashion the stick with which we are then beaten.
I am in the “no” camp as well.
DSC2 is quoted as, not many do it after DSC1. well, why should you? DSC2 (which i am not against) shows someone else that you are able to stalk and gralloch a deer. I know how to do both. (I’m sure I could do it better though, but I won’t get the from DSC2). I stalk private ground and nobody has ever asked or needed it. At some point I will do it, when time allows, but, not for CPD. Hence why I am one of the stats who hasn’t gone and done it.
Target shooting. Boring as hell, and where is the range I can practice on? I can just manage 15/20 meters into the wood shed with my air rifle. So if I want to practice, then it would have to be Bisley. I have neither the time nor the money for that. Funny enough, I was out yesterday and checking zero on my rifles, (2 bullets, each caliber allowed, but if I spent an hour the farmer would be complaining.) so lose the village green and put a range on there and, yeah, I would be happy to practice.
Your target idea is flawed. I have never been under pressure to shoot a deer. If I am comfortable with the shot, I take it. I have often stood and watched a deer for half an hour, before it moves into a position that I can it. I am not sat there tense waiting to squeeze the trigger, I am sitting comfortably watching through binos.
I would see it as likely the police would take it as 'necessary', and we know how effective our organisations are at fighting. Or should that be, we know how much the government doesn’t listen to advise from the community.
I agree with many of the valid sentiments from other people here And I am not against CPD. However I think your idea is flawed and would not prove anything.
Now, if someone was to start that petition to change the cricket club into a target range…….. I’m in.
DSC2 is quoted as, not many do it after DSC1. well, why should you? DSC2 (which i am not against) shows someone else that you are able to stalk and gralloch a deer. I know how to do both. (I’m sure I could do it better though, but I won’t get the from DSC2). I stalk private ground and nobody has ever asked or needed it. At some point I will do it, when time allows, but, not for CPD. Hence why I am one of the stats who hasn’t gone and done it.
Target shooting. Boring as hell, and where is the range I can practice on? I can just manage 15/20 meters into the wood shed with my air rifle. So if I want to practice, then it would have to be Bisley. I have neither the time nor the money for that. Funny enough, I was out yesterday and checking zero on my rifles, (2 bullets, each caliber allowed, but if I spent an hour the farmer would be complaining.) so lose the village green and put a range on there and, yeah, I would be happy to practice.
Your target idea is flawed. I have never been under pressure to shoot a deer. If I am comfortable with the shot, I take it. I have often stood and watched a deer for half an hour, before it moves into a position that I can it. I am not sat there tense waiting to squeeze the trigger, I am sitting comfortably watching through binos.
I would see it as likely the police would take it as 'necessary', and we know how effective our organisations are at fighting. Or should that be, we know how much the government doesn’t listen to advise from the community.
I agree with many of the valid sentiments from other people here And I am not against CPD. However I think your idea is flawed and would not prove anything.
Now, if someone was to start that petition to change the cricket club into a target range…….. I’m in.
I totally get your not proposing this becomes legislation or part of licensing so all good there and yes each individual needs to keep ontop of their own competency.
As you correctly state the addition of hoops to jump through that is not legislative needs to be challenged...but to what level? The individual can challenge the licensing dept directly, then if no joy have a main body like BASC challenge on their behalf. I suspect...in fact I know both of these are futile and until a piece of paper says the licence holder has obtained DSC1 then licensing aren't going to budge!
Yes there's the saftey side of things for new applicants but what about experienced CF licences holders? At that point it comes down to knowledge of deer, ballistic legal requirements etc etc which is good to obtain but not compulsory so why are 99% of licensing debts demanding it!? Why hasn't BASC, SGA etc challenged and quashed this unlegislated demand??
My point is that if licensing depts can make this demand with regard to DSC1 then what is to stop them making the demand with this competency?
Logistically is would be a nightmare BUT yes if an individual wishes to have some form of unofficial qualification to show prospective landowners then let them do so off their own back.
Then comes the American mentality of everyone suing everyone...a person completes the competency assessment and has the misfortune to have an accident the landowner could then desire financial settlement in court from the range/establishment that passed the individual. After all as a business the range/establishment is likely to have more money than the individual.
As much as its a nice idea I believe its a quagmire for abuse from licensing and other areas to restrict our sport which is under more scrutiny now than ever before.
Good debate material though!!
Are the Germans beaten with a stick?
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