luvmystang67
Member
Hey everyone, new to the forum and the UK.
I'm from Washington state, north of Seattle on an island actually. I grew up on a sheep farm and have been hunting deer (stalking in UK terms) since I was 7 years old. I've spent my whole life up until this point hunting deer every year (except 2 years of my 4 years in university). Over the last 7 or 8 years I've picked up hunting black bear in the Washington mountains with pretty good success. I've also spent the last 5 or 6 years archery and black powder hunting for Elk in Idaho, which some success and a good 5x5 bull this year before I made the trip across the pond.
Now I'm here working for Amazon and looking for ways to enjoying stalking here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to be here for at least 2 years, maybe longer depending on what my wife ends up doing. I'd love to spend time out in the wild with anyone and help haul meat or do whatever I can to be helpful. I do plan on paying for some hunts, maybe guided if necessary, so that I can get a good representative of each species here before I return back to the US. Just trying to figure out how I do that here. I don't have any firearms here (probably obvious). I'm buying a car in the next month or so. I DO have a barbecue, going to buy a vacuum sealer and a small freezer as well, even though its going to take up significant space in my flat.
Just trying to get a feel for how things work around here or what options I might have. Any help would be great. Based on my preliminary research here's what I'm thinking are some ways out to the woods/fields.
Options:
1) Pay for a guided hunt where they provide a firearm and treat me as a standard non UK hunter coming for a guided hunt and get the full outfitted experience. Do I get to keep the meat in this instance? I assume I don't need any special UK based training for this option? Could be wrong.
2) I see a lot about DSC1 and DSC2. I'm not sure if these are nice-to-haves or must-haves if you want to go stalking with a fellow good meaning person. Are these things I should actually look into, or am I here for too short of a time to worry about it?
3) I could just be a human pack mule and pal around with whoever would allow me to follow around, without a gun, and just be helpful and in a place that I enjoy being.
Some interesting notes to me already:
- You can sell game meat here... in the US that is completely illegal unless you have a game farm, and those are illegal in a lot of states, my home state included
- You can't archery hunt here... in the US it is seen as more sporting/ethical because you have to get closer to the animal, even by anti-hunter people. As a hunter, I would agree that the death itself is less humane, but it is very challenging. Interesting perspective difference though.
- Suppressors/silencers are HIGHLY regulated in the US. To have the right to buy one, you must first pay $200 and wait 6 months for the government to do a special background check on you. It is the same process as buying a fully automatic weapon. Very few people do this because of the regulation and even with that it still isn't allowed in many states.
- Bag limits/seasons - In most western states in the US, rifle deer season is maybe 2-3 weeks. You have other seasons for other weapon types (muzzleloader and archery), but you usually have to pick your weapon before the season starts and stick to that season. In most states the bag limit is 1-2 deer a year. The most liberal rules allow a 2 month hunting season and up to 6 deer, but in those cases you're only allowed 2 bucks.
- Licenses - licenses in your own state are usually fairly reasonable ~$60 USD a year, but out of your state they're typically 10-fold, so $500-600 per species is common.
- In the western US there's a ton of public land, you just park your truck and take off into the woods. You'll see other hunters, and you all have the same right to be there. Its some big big country. Even with this, most of the places I go I don't usually see people.
Excited to learn more about what happens here in the UK and excited to hopefully meet some of you fine folks.
-Stang (Brandon)
I'm from Washington state, north of Seattle on an island actually. I grew up on a sheep farm and have been hunting deer (stalking in UK terms) since I was 7 years old. I've spent my whole life up until this point hunting deer every year (except 2 years of my 4 years in university). Over the last 7 or 8 years I've picked up hunting black bear in the Washington mountains with pretty good success. I've also spent the last 5 or 6 years archery and black powder hunting for Elk in Idaho, which some success and a good 5x5 bull this year before I made the trip across the pond.
Now I'm here working for Amazon and looking for ways to enjoying stalking here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to be here for at least 2 years, maybe longer depending on what my wife ends up doing. I'd love to spend time out in the wild with anyone and help haul meat or do whatever I can to be helpful. I do plan on paying for some hunts, maybe guided if necessary, so that I can get a good representative of each species here before I return back to the US. Just trying to figure out how I do that here. I don't have any firearms here (probably obvious). I'm buying a car in the next month or so. I DO have a barbecue, going to buy a vacuum sealer and a small freezer as well, even though its going to take up significant space in my flat.
Just trying to get a feel for how things work around here or what options I might have. Any help would be great. Based on my preliminary research here's what I'm thinking are some ways out to the woods/fields.
Options:
1) Pay for a guided hunt where they provide a firearm and treat me as a standard non UK hunter coming for a guided hunt and get the full outfitted experience. Do I get to keep the meat in this instance? I assume I don't need any special UK based training for this option? Could be wrong.
2) I see a lot about DSC1 and DSC2. I'm not sure if these are nice-to-haves or must-haves if you want to go stalking with a fellow good meaning person. Are these things I should actually look into, or am I here for too short of a time to worry about it?
3) I could just be a human pack mule and pal around with whoever would allow me to follow around, without a gun, and just be helpful and in a place that I enjoy being.
Some interesting notes to me already:
- You can sell game meat here... in the US that is completely illegal unless you have a game farm, and those are illegal in a lot of states, my home state included
- You can't archery hunt here... in the US it is seen as more sporting/ethical because you have to get closer to the animal, even by anti-hunter people. As a hunter, I would agree that the death itself is less humane, but it is very challenging. Interesting perspective difference though.
- Suppressors/silencers are HIGHLY regulated in the US. To have the right to buy one, you must first pay $200 and wait 6 months for the government to do a special background check on you. It is the same process as buying a fully automatic weapon. Very few people do this because of the regulation and even with that it still isn't allowed in many states.
- Bag limits/seasons - In most western states in the US, rifle deer season is maybe 2-3 weeks. You have other seasons for other weapon types (muzzleloader and archery), but you usually have to pick your weapon before the season starts and stick to that season. In most states the bag limit is 1-2 deer a year. The most liberal rules allow a 2 month hunting season and up to 6 deer, but in those cases you're only allowed 2 bucks.
- Licenses - licenses in your own state are usually fairly reasonable ~$60 USD a year, but out of your state they're typically 10-fold, so $500-600 per species is common.
- In the western US there's a ton of public land, you just park your truck and take off into the woods. You'll see other hunters, and you all have the same right to be there. Its some big big country. Even with this, most of the places I go I don't usually see people.
Excited to learn more about what happens here in the UK and excited to hopefully meet some of you fine folks.
-Stang (Brandon)
