Killing for Pleasure....

[AJMD429]

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I have to admit, I’ve done it....

A friend of mine and I were talking about getting older and having different views on taking life when hunting.

I’ve always thought of hunting as a more humane way to earn the privilege of eating meat versus buying farmed-meat at the store, and the target shooting and gun hobbyist part of me is certainly interested in terminal ballistics and stuff like that, but the idea of going out and shooting something that you're not going to eat would be kind of strange, unless it is to de-populate an invasive species or some other ‘protective’ or ‘defensive’ situation.

But there ARE exceptions....

They have horsefly traps that have paper in them that is soaked in some sort of pheromone, and I would love to get some of that printed up as 100 yard targets. I actually shot a horse fly at 100 yards with an 88 grain bullet traveling about 3400 ft./s from a Ruger M77V in 6 mm Remington many years ago. I could see it clearly through my 10-40X scope when it happened to land about an inch from the bull's-eye when I was shooting off the bench, and I sacrificed a good 10 shot group by moving the gun over and aiming at the horsefly.
I could see the fly clearly through the scope but after the shot all I could see was the bullet hole waaay off to the side. I remember thinking it was stupid because it was just gonna look like I pulled the shot and nobody would believe me, but the target actually had radial splatters of horsefly-blood around the hole...!

[JimT]

When I was much younger a friend and I were rabbit hunting with our .22 pistols one day in the Arizona desert. We were not having any success when we stopped near a cattle tank. We were standing around the back of the vehicle when we noticed quite a few dragonflies landing on the tailgate we had put down.

I took aim and cleaned one off without hitting the tailgate and that started a marathon of dragonfly shooting. It was great fun!

No. The tailgate did not remain unscathed.

[AJMD429]

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There's also the fine sport of using 22 shot cartridges and a pistol to get rid of carpenter bees in midair. It's actually easy to miss them. Somewhere I saw some 22 WMR shot cartridges and I thought that would be even better...

[Bill in Oregon]

I am heartily sorry for all the robins I killed with my Daisy Spittin' Image 94. Not so much for the starlings.

[Old No7]

Back in the early 70s, my late mother pulled a package out of the freezer aptly marked "Chicken Breasts -3" and she set it out to defrost for company coming over later. Oh my, was she p*ssed when she unwrapped 3 of her "precious Bluejays"! You see, my brothers and I were doing a mail order Taxidermy Course and we had homework! It must have been all the bird seed my father put out weekly, as we never had a shortage of Bluejays, Grackles or Squirrels, despite our best efforts to acquire the, um, "raw materials" for the course. This all came to an end after we learned we weren't very good at it, were kind of grossed out by the brain scoop (and the sound it made using it!), plus the low entry-cost to start the course was being ratcheted up every month as they wanted us to buy even more and more tools and equipment.

Instead, we bought MORE ammo!!!

Old No7

[Mark in MO]

Old No. 7’s story brought a laugh because it reminds me of a similar tale when I was in school. My hunting partner and I decided we were going to learn taxidermy. So one fall day we ventured out with our .410 shotguns and each killed a large red or fox squirrel.
Coming back to his house we sat on the steps, gently cleaning and brushing their fur. Of course no pre-planning went into this so we placed out trophies spread-eagle in his mother’s chest freezer until we’d ordered the forms and associated supplies. Of course a week later we’d forgotten all about our taxidermy aspirations.
Several months later his mother, who was Japanese, went to get something out of the freezer and discovered our by now frosty squirrels lying across their food. Fortunately I wasn’t there but apparently she began yelling in Japanese, berating her son and me as she pitched our prizes into the back yard for the dogs. Thus ended our brief flirtation with taxidermy.

[Sixgun]

Insects, rats, crows need not apply and even then I won't kill crows in the spring......I'll kill every spider in the house I see. As semi farmers we get lots of flies and I have 4 Starbar fly catchers that attracts them and drowns em...this stuff stinks so bad you would think your attending a BLM protest.

I believe a lot of hunters will kill "an example" of many legal species just to look at em. Excess killing of warm blooded...or cold blooded.... for no reason is a sign of a psychopath and one who lacks empathy, which is what a psychopath is.

Killing deer or any animal for money, when you don't need the money, which a guy I know does, but don't affiliate with.......is no different than a psychopath as far as I'm concerned.....

But like I said in another post many young males in the early teens will kill for pleasure but hopefully will outgrow it. It's in our DNA to kill.....the ones who don't outgrow it are the same kind of people that hang around Moscow, Idaho. Why society and or law enforcement puts up with people like that is beyond my imagination. Yes, they get arrested and get a trial but you know, they have "rights" and that is when, if I caught him, I would kill for pleasure.-----006

[Bronco]

Well I am guilty!
A few day of ground squirrel shooting is fun for me! Feral cats, jack rabbits, coyotes are also in the fun game. Used to shoot badgers then it hit me, hey they are hunting ground squirrels and the fact that a friend had a pet badger, I quite shooting them.
Yes sir, guilty as charged!

[Ysabel Kid]

I'll kill every spider in the house I see.

I'm with you Six. The only good spider is a dead spider!

[piller]

Out at Grandma's farm, we used to kill starlings and sparrows. They would eat the peaches and apples. Made Grandma mad. Me and my older brothers would kill the birds with our pellet guns. It was a lot of fun.

[gamekeeper]

As a small kid I shot Starlings and Sparrows with my air rifle but even at that age I felt remorse for the Sparrows, they were such easy targets I decided it was only fair to shoot them with my Webley air pistol and not my air rifle.
After spending 30 years as a pest control exterminator I guess I have killed enough critters along with those. I have hunted for the last 65 years to qualify as a killer but now the list of things I will happily kill is shrinking fast.
Six and YK I'm with you on the Spiders....

[GunnyMack]

After a recent electrical problem in the house, mice chewed wires for 2 separate circuits, fortunately no house fire . I'm in KILL EVERY MOUSE mode. Of course I had to completely gut the room where the dead circuits are so I'm literally putting pounds of mouse killer baits in the walls to prevent future infestation.
I've shot tons of prairie dogs, fun but necessary. I too have shot flies on targets but my " trophy " was a big ol grasshopper that sat on the target stand, left a big splat! I used to love groundhog hunting, sadly no farms left where I can hunt them.

[Gobblerforge]

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There's also the fine sport of using 22 shot cartridges and a pistol to get rid of carpenter bees in midair. It's actually easy to miss them. Somewhere I saw some 22 WMR shot cartridges and I thought that would be even better...

I have been using a 22 single shot with shot cartridges for years on bees. There was a gun designer named Routledge that would drill the rifling out of the front half of a rifled barrel. I'm sure I oversimplified that. Findings proved that a shot column would break up and separate out of a rifled barrel but in his design the shot would regroup into a shot column again in the second half and give a tighter pattern. Bullets still are effective in that the rifling did spin the bullet but the oversized bore didn't touch the bullet so accuracy was possible. I drilled the front half of my 22 barrel out to 5/16 and it worked like a charm. Nice tight pattern out to about 10 feet or more. As far as spiders go, if they are out of my way and killing flies and the like then I let them stay in the garage. I hate bugs.

[308magtip]

Reminds me of the direction all the "deer hunting/shooting" TV shows have gone.