Every time I read about yet another technological crutch that America's hunters are spending millions on, I am reminded of how truly laughable those "sportsmen" are. Tradition? Manhood? Please. These lazy fat-asses are barely a step away from just staying home and playing a hunting video game on the Nintendo Wii.

I'm not actually opposed to hunting - not even sport hunting, which is plainly an unnecessary activity. I just think it's hilarious that these gun-totin' wanna-be macho men need thousands of dollars' worth of electronic equipment to kill deer and pheasant.

Growing up in Detroit, my Sicilian-immigrant neighbor would go up North every fall with a bow and arrows and come back with a deer, which he would skin and gut on the front lawn. Not a compound bow with laser sights and so on, just a bow. That took skill, dedication, and seriousness. But deploying camouflaged cameras in the woods that you can monitor via Web browser, and hiding in a $20K "blind" that is actually a junior tree fort complete with minibar, is just weak.

Don’t hide you contempt for hunting behind the mask of “traditional” tools. Traditional big game hunting also included traps and snares which are now illegal and considered “inhumane.” In addition the traditional hunting season was 24 hours a day 365 days a year, not dawn til dusk for 2 weeks in November. You do not indicate how your neighbor got his deer. For all you know he could have baited an area next to his tree fort to get his deer so easily, which is illegal in most states. I don’t begrudge any hunter that uses these cameras as long as the hunt itself is legal. If you want traditional hunting I am fine with that, I will bait a pit trap and then come back and spear the deer a week later without using any cameras.

I hope you realize how all of those protected wilderness areas & national parks are paid for.

Hunters don't pay for national parks or wilderness areas any more than anyone else does. General fund taxes pay for these, as well as user fees that backpackers, campers, boaters, and hunters pay for. Hunters and fishermen on a state level, through license fees, largely fund the wildlife departments that regulate their activities; these departments buy some land with license fees.

I am not anti-hunter at all, but I want to make sure that hunters understand that their fees do not largely fund conservation lands across America.

misterben:

Every time I read about yet another technological crutch that America's hunters are spending millions on, I am reminded of how truly laughable those "sportsmen" are. Tradition? Manhood? Please. These lazy fat-asses are barely a step away from just staying home and playing a hunting video game on the Nintendo Wii.

I'm not actually opposed to hunting - not even sport hunting, which is plainly an unnecessary activity. I just think it's hilarious that these gun-totin' wanna-be macho men need thousands of dollars' worth of electronic equipment to kill deer and pheasant.

Growing up in Detroit, my Sicilian-immigrant neighbor would go up North every fall with a bow and arrows and come back with a deer, which he would skin and gut on the front lawn. Not a compound bow with laser sights and so on, just a bow. That took skill, dedication, and seriousness. But deploying camouflaged cameras in the woods that you can monitor via Web browser, and hiding in a $20K "blind" that is actually a junior tree fort complete with minibar, is just weak.

I have the same issues with drivers. It cracks me up to see these modern wimps with their electric starters - why not get an engine crank and do it the old fashioned way? Seat belts? Air bags? Please! How sissy can you get! electronic fuel injection instead of a carburator that may or may not work well in the winter, requiring you to spray ethane down it to get started - more wimpiness.

Not to mention better tires, brakes, etc. that these modern wimps not only think are good, but often MANDATE. Naw, modern drivers are much wimpier than modern hunters. If nothing else they have heaters in their cars whereas most hunters sit in the woods freezing.

BTW, did you ever think that it's more humane for the animal to have a good shot that quickly kills it from a good weapon, than to have some deer running and dying for a mile or so in fear and pain from your Sicilian's bow?

Most, if not the overwhelming majority of hunters do not employ such camera technology. Rather they spend a very limited resource, their time, scouting the areas they are allowed access to enter and looking for tracks and signs of animal activity. Then providing they have the permission of the landowner usually by promising a part of the meat taken or paying a handsome fee upfront for the privilidge of attempting a hunt, they spend more of their valuable time finding a good place to wait for their opportunity to take their quarry. Then if they are fortunant and have done their fieldwork well, they have a chance to make a kill, a chance. Then they will get to see how well their hours and hours of practice and dedication have allowed them to hold steady and take their prey.

Most hunters indeed consume the meat of their kills or share it with family and friends.

I mean, they have to go load and unload the camera. They have to pick up a gun or bow and at least walk out in the field and wait for the thing to come around, then they have to kill it and drag it back to the car. A damn dear can weight a bunch, man. It's real, physical effort. Then they have to wait for the deer to cure and be butchered -- it's the opposite of instant gratification (if you can believe that!). Hell, a lot of guys butcher their own kills. I'd bet you can't carve a Thanksgiving Turkey worth a damn.

On the other hand, you walk in to an air-conditioned mega-mart, Visa Debit Card in hand, and buy pre-killed and prepared steak. You have no connection to the steak -- it could just as easily come from Korea as Kansas, for all you know. Wherever it's from, you can bet some poor sucker got paid too little to kill the cow for you (and he was probably illegal, if the steak is from America). When a beef recall is issued, you have to rush to your freezer (on the next commercial, of course) and see whether or not you've poisoned your family.

And, while on a day to day basis, survival skills (including hunting) may be wholely un-needed, did you not notice the situation in New Orleans (and much of the South) after Katrina? A bunch of sisified urbanites crying for Uncle Sam to come save them, because they have no clue how to protect themselves, or provide for themselves, in the absense of what is really a fragile social system. Safety is an illusion, and I'd much prefer to live in an area full of self-sufficient hunters and survivalists than in the middle of an urban jungle with people who are going to have to rob me for a can of Chicken Noodle Soup if the mega-mart closes down for two days.

News flash misterben, the vast majority of hunters do exactly as your Sicilian neighbor did. The only difference now is that not everyone butchers their own deer, they take it to a butcher and have it processed.

I live in Wisconsin and it's illegal to hunt with a crossbow unless you are physically handicapped. Everyone that wants to hunt deer with a bow has to use the same kind. Certainly technology has been advanced and there are things to make it easier, but the principle is the same. You still have to draw the bow yourself and you still have to aim and fire on target.

But that's the problem with you, you grew up in Detroit. A large city with not an inkling of what goes on outside of it.

Faxmebeer, Good post but slightly inaccurate. Misterben isn't allowed to eat meat, His mommy has raised him on tofu and bead curd.

Great post FaxMeBeer! Good points all around. Self-sufficiency is a lost art I'm afraid.

Oh sweetheart, don't you know that approximately 60% or more of funding for the study and protection of both game and NON-GAME species comes from taxes on hunting licenses and equipment alone? I should know, that is where my paycheck used to come from when I worked for the USGS and the Forest Service. At least when people are hunting, they are only utilizing one animal for food. How many deer were killed by people driving cars last year? Do you fertilize your lawn? How many fish did you kill by ground water pollution? The only way humans can truely not have a negative affect on our environment is by commiting suicide... so get off your moral high horse.