Five stages of a hunter

[wildfowler.250]

So after 20 years of deer stalking, I appreciate I’m not new to the game anymore. But I’m also aware that there are lots of folk on here may have been deer stalking for 40 plus years. What keeps you going?

I see the “five stages of a hunter” and it’s actually quite interesting. I think we can all appreciate a particularly old / big buck. At the same time, there’s only so many sets of antlers you can hang up. Sometimes you even see folk on here clearing out their heads. I think we all fundamentally just enjoy being out in nature. I know a lot of folk on here have high cull targets and a lot of the meat goes into game dealers - so we’re slightly different to our American friends who have maybe 1 elk tag to fill the freezer for the year.

I often find myself looking at different rifles / calibers and I wonder if that’s to try and change the method or experience. Maybe to add a new dimension to a stalk. At the end of the day, most legal calibers just work.

I think I’m somewhere between 4 and 5. But I also think many of us start at 4 or 5 anyway. Maybe many will always hold stage 3 as a bucket list? Or this is something we grow out of? I certainly know of one or two people who are less interested in stalking towards the end of their ‘careers’,(recreational stalking, not guiding).

1. Shooter Stage: The primary goal is to "get shooting". Beginners want to test their skills and test out their firearm or bow, measuring satisfaction by how many opportunities they have to shoot rather than whether they actually hit the target.
2. Limiting-Out Stage: Success is now measured by bagging the legal limit or "filling a tag". The number of animals harvested is highly important, and this stage often requires the hunter to develop the discipline to wait for better, safer shots.
3. Trophy Stage: The emphasis shifts from quantity to quality. The weight of the game bag matters less, and the hunter becomes highly selective, focusing on bagging mature, big-game animals or specific trophy characteristics.
4. Method Stage: How the animal is taken becomes more important than how many are taken. Hunters in this stage add personal restrictions and challenges, such as switching from a modern rifle to a bow, a handgun, or muzzleloader.
5. Sportsman Stage: The hunter mellows out and takes the most satisfaction from the overall experience. Success is measured by appreciating nature, being in the outdoors, and enjoying the companionship of family and friends—whether game is harvested or not.

Interested to hear your thoughts. I appreciate “limiting out” isn’t particularly UK relevant but I think there’s probably a transition for most from their first rifle at stage 1 to maybe mentoring at stage 5

 

[Jh1986]

Stage 6. Will my back cope with that extraction?

 

[HonestJohn]

Pretty much summarises the journey of most hunters.

I’m definitely in Cat 5 and have been since around turning 40. Thank god!!!

 

[Tim.243]

So after 20 years of deer stalking, I appreciate I’m not new to the game anymore. But I’m also aware that there are lots of folk on here may have been deer stalking for 40 plus years. What keeps you going?

I see the “five stages of a hunter” and it’s actually quite interesting. I think we can all appreciate a particularly old / big buck. At the same time, there’s only so many sets of antlers you can hang up. Sometimes you even see folk on here clearing out their heads. I think we all fundamentally just enjoy being out in nature. I know a lot of folk on here have high cull targets and a lot of the meat goes into game dealers - so we’re slightly different to our American friends who have maybe 1 elk tag to fill the freezer for the year.

I often find myself looking at different rifles / calibers and I wonder if that’s to try and change the method or experience. Maybe to add a new dimension to a stalk. At the end of the day, most legal calibers just work.

I think I’m somewhere between 4 and 5. But I also think many of us start at 4 or 5 anyway. Maybe many will always hold stage 3 as a bucket list? Or this is something we grow out of? I certainly know of one or two people who are less interested in stalking towards the end of their ‘careers’,(recreational stalking, not guiding).

1. Shooter Stage: The primary goal is to "get shooting". Beginners want to test their skills and test out their firearm or bow, measuring satisfaction by how many opportunities they have to shoot rather than whether they actually hit the target.
2. Limiting-Out Stage: Success is now measured by bagging the legal limit or "filling a tag". The number of animals harvested is highly important, and this stage often requires the hunter to develop the discipline to wait for better, safer shots.
3. Trophy Stage: The emphasis shifts from quantity to quality. The weight of the game bag matters less, and the hunter becomes highly selective, focusing on bagging mature, big-game animals or specific trophy characteristics.
4. Method Stage: How the animal is taken becomes more important than how many are taken. Hunters in this stage add personal restrictions and challenges, such as switching from a modern rifle to a bow, a handgun, or muzzleloader.
5. Sportsman Stage: The hunter mellows out and takes the most satisfaction from the overall experience. Success is measured by appreciating nature, being in the outdoors, and enjoying the companionship of family and friends—whether game is harvested or not.

Interested to hear your thoughts. I appreciate “limiting out” isn’t particularly UK relevant but I think there’s probably a transition for most from their first rifle at stage 1 to maybe mentoring at stage 5

Is this taken from a US site as the words "hunter" "tags" "bow" "harvested" speaks volumes

 

[wildfowler.250]

Is this taken from a US site as the words "hunter" "tags" "bow" "harvested" speaks volumes

Obviously but the concept is interesting

 

[finnbear270]

Stage 6. Will my back cope with that extraction?

Do I really want to shoot that there?

 

[Leec6.5]

So after 20 years of deer stalking, I appreciate I’m not new to the game anymore. But I’m also aware that there are lots of folk on here may have been deer stalking for 40 plus years. What keeps you going?

I see the “five stages of a hunter” and it’s actually quite interesting. I think we can all appreciate a particularly old / big buck. At the same time, there’s only so many sets of antlers you can hang up. Sometimes you even see folk on here clearing out their heads. I think we all fundamentally just enjoy being out in nature. I know a lot of folk on here have high cull targets and a lot of the meat goes into game dealers - so we’re slightly different to our American friends who have maybe 1 elk tag to fill the freezer for the year.

I often find myself looking at different rifles / calibers and I wonder if that’s to try and change the method or experience. Maybe to add a new dimension to a stalk. At the end of the day, most legal calibers just work.

I think I’m somewhere between 4 and 5. But I also think many of us start at 4 or 5 anyway. Maybe many will always hold stage 3 as a bucket list? Or this is something we grow out of? I certainly know of one or two people who are less interested in stalking towards the end of their ‘careers’,(recreational stalking, not guiding).

1. Shooter Stage: The primary goal is to "get shooting". Beginners want to test their skills and test out their firearm or bow, measuring satisfaction by how many opportunities they have to shoot rather than whether they actually hit the target.
2. Limiting-Out Stage: Success is now measured by bagging the legal limit or "filling a tag". The number of animals harvested is highly important, and this stage often requires the hunter to develop the discipline to wait for better, safer shots.
3. Trophy Stage: The emphasis shifts from quantity to quality. The weight of the game bag matters less, and the hunter becomes highly selective, focusing on bagging mature, big-game animals or specific trophy characteristics.
4. Method Stage: How the animal is taken becomes more important than how many are taken. Hunters in this stage add personal restrictions and challenges, such as switching from a modern rifle to a bow, a handgun, or muzzleloader.
5. Sportsman Stage: The hunter mellows out and takes the most satisfaction from the overall experience. Success is measured by appreciating nature, being in the outdoors, and enjoying the companionship of family and friends—whether game is harvested or not.

Interested to hear your thoughts. I appreciate “limiting out” isn’t particularly UK relevant but I think there’s probably a transition for most from their first rifle at stage 1 to maybe mentoring at stage 5

I’m firmly at stage 5 and mercenary, I now am firmly beyond mentoring anyone!

Stage 1 - get digital /thermal scope and kill with no respect for your quarry (I have several friends who fall under this category!)

Stage 2 / 3- shoots big bucks get a pointless bit of shiny coloured tin and post all about how well you’ve done on the SD

Stage 4 - when you finally learn respect your quarry for what it is and not a pest

Stage 5- when you finally realised you’ve killed enough, contemplated calling it day because you’ve realised you don’t like the way overall it’s going, but realise how you do things and how you go about things far outweigh the masses.

 

[Tim.243]

Obviously but the concept is interesting

Thankfully the words I highlighted (our use of game dealer tags but the US would not understand that lol)
Also I think you should have included the number of guns held to the deer shot will be in favour 20-(1 deer)

 

[wildfowler.250]

I’m firmly at stage 5 and mercenary, I now am firmly beyond mentoring anyone!

Stage 1 - get digital /thermal scope and kill with no respect for your quarry (I have several friends who fall under this category!)

Stage 2 / 3- shoots big bucks get a pointless bit of shiny coloured tin and post all about how well you’ve done on the SD

Stage 4 - when you finally learn respect your quarry for what it is and not a pest

Stage 5- when you finally realised you’ve killed enough, contemplated calling it day because you’ve realised you don’t like the way overall it’s going, but realise how you do things and how you go about things far outweigh the masses.

Funnily I’m still resisting a thermal handheld imager. And also using the old 8x56 but I think I’m falling behind the times

 

[Leec6.5]

Funnily I’m still resisting a thermal handheld imager. And also using the old 8x56 but I think I’m falling behind the times

Long that may continue, the way it should be I do have the thermal viewer, that’s only because a friend bought it for me as soon as it breaks it’s going in the skip and I’m back to all glass!

 

[Leec6.5]

Is this taken from a US site as the words "hunter" "tags" "bow" "harvested" speaks volumes

Who cares where it was lifted from, the adapted ethos is correct, I think my version sums it up better!

 

[geoshot]

I’m solidly with Jh1986 and finnbear270
I leave Reds, even hinds & calves, to the young’uns or use a quad where I used to drag beasts out
If an animal is “in the wrong place” it lives or I tell someone else to go get it
Yeah, absolutely Stage 6

 

[Ratel]

I am quite happy now to let my helpers do most of the shooting as I am more interested in watching how they stalk and handle it. I have shot deer for 69 years now and lost count, and although I shoot the occasional Roe I enjoy watching them more and we have no problems with our few. Fallow I still cull as it's part of the job, but now due to age and infirmity it's all high seat or hide stuff for me.
I only have two heads, a Fallow buck over the front door and a Roebuck I shot 30 years ago. He was a silver medal, had been gold and was 8 years old, I had been able to follow his development from a yearling.
I have no fancy gear, if I can't see them with binos and shoot them within the limits of an 8x56 scope I don't want to do the job.
I consider I fall into.number 8 category.

 

[Anser anser]

i recall something similar on an old wildfowling forum i was on more than 20 years ago now when old begbie was still quite involved. Suddenly,as if a wind had started moving a tall ship becalmed in the doldrums everyone came out of the woodwork on the posted thread so to speak saying how they were something similar to this stage 6 mentioned here. All the young shotcam jockeys ,the "look at me" types who so loved posting piccys displaying their huge bags of duck and geese etc,so preoccupied with filming wildlife dying quite bluntly they had all, quite suddenly, became stage 6 chappies. Why i ask you, well i suspect its something to do with wanting to be part of the pack and "fitting in" rather than being honest with themselves. Im old ( can you tell) and ive seen enough wool pulled over my eyes when i chat to fellas ,in real life, or on here to know that there be few fowlers or stalkers indeed that truthfully sit back and let those geese feed or that buck strut on by. Most honest cases of this stage 6 attitude are brought on by the advancing of the years, the grey hair and the arthritis playing up on those frosty waits far off out on the sea mud or in the dark December firs waiting for that doe to wander by late on in the misty gloom.I reckon there would be some here that truthfully match this stage 6 in their shooting life but the reality, i feel. is that youth and the technology combined have created a new species of hunter/fowler that thrives on imagery showing numbers rather than quality. That being said this opinion, and its only an opinion , is far far more visibly prevelent on wildfowling and on fowling forums that with the deer i reckon. I was out a few weeks back and had two yearling roe bucks fencing with each other 50 yards way and biting each others arses. chasing about like idiots ive christened them "the clicky twins".Ill take one given the chance but on that day the field quite literally --was theirs. aye you guessed it im a stage 6 if any stage at all.

 

[Longstrider]

In the OP the question is asked "What keeps you going ?"

Erm ... a love of very cheap venison !

I've been making them fall over for nearly 50 years and often just being out there is enough. I can thoroughly enjoy a stalking trip with not a shot fired, or, for that matter, a deer seen, but I do like to get something for the freezer occasionally. I've never shot an animal as a trophy. I have absolutely no interest in such. I shoot them as agricultural nuisances and as a source of excellent meat.

I'm very much in the camp of those who look at a shot and wonder about carcass extraction before I even raise the rifle these days. My back and my knees have seen too many days of dragging a fallow a mile or two to where I could get them into a vehicle.

I have mentored others and have enjoyed not only the process of teaching them, but seeing them become competent stalking shots in the their own right.
Sharing a stalk with a 'young 'un' can also be a good way around the extraction problem

BTW .. I also noticed the mention of bow, handgun and muzzleloader. I for one am grateful that bow hunting is unlawful in the UK. Look through this forum and others ... Experienced stalkers using firearms producing well in excess of 2000 ft/lbs of energy yet still wondering about bullet choice, shot placement, and worrying about 'runners'. Watch YouTube and see how many bow-shot deer run and how few drop to the shot. My idea of ethical stalking is that the deer dies so quickly that it doesn't know what hit it. I want "Bang-Flop" as often as is possible to achieve NOT "Well I hit it. All I have to do now is chase and find it". The .240 calibre/ 1700 ft/lbs law is there for a reason.
For goodness' sake .. there's enough on SD about bullet choice for foxes when the reality is that any commercially available bullet from a centrefire rifle will kill a fox instantly if it's put in the right place.

 

[sh1kar]

Never had and never will use thermal. I'm nearly at stage 7 -enjoy taking others out sometimes more than pulling the trigger myself

S

 

[TringSaint]

So after 20 years of deer stalking, I appreciate I’m not new to the game anymore. But I’m also aware that there are lots of folk on here may have been deer stalking for 40 plus years. What keeps you going?

I see the “five stages of a hunter” and it’s actually quite interesting. I think we can all appreciate a particularly old / big buck. At the same time, there’s only so many sets of antlers you can hang up. Sometimes you even see folk on here clearing out their heads. I think we all fundamentally just enjoy being out in nature. I know a lot of folk on here have high cull targets and a lot of the meat goes into game dealers - so we’re slightly different to our American friends who have maybe 1 elk tag to fill the freezer for the year.

I often find myself looking at different rifles / calibers and I wonder if that’s to try and change the method or experience. Maybe to add a new dimension to a stalk. At the end of the day, most legal calibers just work.

I think I’m somewhere between 4 and 5. But I also think many of us start at 4 or 5 anyway. Maybe many will always hold stage 3 as a bucket list? Or this is something we grow out of? I certainly know of one or two people who are less interested in stalking towards the end of their ‘careers’,(recreational stalking, not guiding).

1. Shooter Stage: The primary goal is to "get shooting". Beginners want to test their skills and test out their firearm or bow, measuring satisfaction by how many opportunities they have to shoot rather than whether they actually hit the target.
2. Limiting-Out Stage: Success is now measured by bagging the legal limit or "filling a tag". The number of animals harvested is highly important, and this stage often requires the hunter to develop the discipline to wait for better, safer shots.
3. Trophy Stage: The emphasis shifts from quantity to quality. The weight of the game bag matters less, and the hunter becomes highly selective, focusing on bagging mature, big-game animals or specific trophy characteristics.
4. Method Stage: How the animal is taken becomes more important than how many are taken. Hunters in this stage add personal restrictions and challenges, such as switching from a modern rifle to a bow, a handgun, or muzzleloader.
5. Sportsman Stage: The hunter mellows out and takes the most satisfaction from the overall experience. Success is measured by appreciating nature, being in the outdoors, and enjoying the companionship of family and friends—whether game is harvested or not.

Interested to hear your thoughts. I appreciate “limiting out” isn’t particularly UK relevant but I think there’s probably a transition for most from their first rifle at stage 1 to maybe mentoring at stage 5

Stage 4. Skipped 3 as not interested in trophies.
Main aim for this season is to cull well and make lots of biltong and droerwors in my new home made biltong drier.

 

[Donkey Basher]

Obviously but the concept is interesting

Sorry but the concept is fatally flawed as 2 & 4 cannot be applied in this country!

 

[Leec6.5]

Sorry but the concept is fatally flawed as 2 & 4 cannot be applied in this country!

No it’s not, only the wording!

Works perfectly fine, you just have to work around it.

My version is better.

 

[Mungo]

Stage 4 - when you finally learn respect your quarry for what it is and not a pest

But what if it is, in fact, a pest?