Hunting without a firearm...

puukko said:
HomeBru--Are you near a steel mill there in Indiana? I laughed when I read that post because every kid on Minnesota's Iron Range grew up using them as slingshot ammo (some in the UP near the open pit mines there too).
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I grew up in the arrowhead region of MN. My grandfather taught me to make my first slingshot from an old innertube and a good maple stick. We'd walk the tracks outside Duluth to pick up the pellets and then walk home through the woods and "hunt". Good times!

J-
 
Bows, knives, spears, snares, bolo's, blowguns, shovel, machete, airguns, you name it I have just about used it.
 
Anyone thinking of hunting small game with blowguns should keep in mind to use a dart with enough mass behind it to do the job well.

In human terms think of getting hit with a knife, vs. a spear.
 
As a kid in the Ozarks circa 1940s, our standard bunny hunting tool was a limber stick, a tree branch, with a fork on one end and about six feet long. No kidding. Jump a cottontail and watch the way he goes when he flees. In those Ozark forests, the first place he'll go is to a hollow gum tree. The bunny actually climbs up inside the tree much the same as a human can scale a cut in a cliff with the back again one side and the feet on the other. Anyway, run the forked stick up inside the tree, wind up in the bunny's fur, and jerk him out. I used to get five or more during a two or three hour hunt, plenty for a meal. An old "hillbilly" trick that works.
 
I have killed a slew of birds with slingshots and a few squirrels(using high velocity bands). I have killed rabbits, squirrels, woodchucks, deer, elk, geese, duck, turkey and some other critters with my compound bow, and a few of them with a recurve. I love bow hunting. I have killed a few birds with a blowgun but even one birds I found it a bit too slow a kill so I never upgraded beyond that. I have killed a rabbit with a throwin stick...which worked suprisingly well. Boar hunting with a knife is on the list. I have gone after critters with a spear but its HARD.
 
I saw a post on a hunting forum where a guy has prototyped a bow and a crossbow to shoot shot, mini-arrows, and flechette darts. Looks like it would be wicked for small game! Here is the thread and here is a video he posted on YouTube.

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-- FLIX
 
I killed a deer with a Fire Engine.. Does that count??

Well.. Wounded with the engine, killed it with the Haligan..
 
Rescue Mike said:
I killed a deer with a Fire Engine.. Does that count??

Well.. Wounded with the engine, killed it with the Haligan..
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Haha I have killed them with a Z71 FD command vehicle. Some died but last one got finished with a trailmaster bowie. A haligan bar is a nasty viking like weapon. I forgot I have killed a skunk with a haligan bar it was burned beyond repair and suffering so lights out. I have used an axe for the same thing. Thanks for breing up old memories as gruesome as they may be.
 
Yo DaleW

Some folks in New Zealand think that we have a rabbit problem. They aren't particularly dense in my neighborhood, but I understand some farmers are very concerned about the high numbers. A while back somebody introduced a disease called calicivirus in an effort to control the rabbits. It really hit them hard and it reduced the population significantly. Didn't see a rabbit for a long time. But now they are building up again.... to plague proportions in some areas I'm told.

I think that trapping is perfectly justifiable provided that it is done as sensibly and humanely as possible. It is certainly better than introducing a disease, or carpet-bombing the countryside with poison.

I am very keen on trapping..... about learning about how to do it, and learning about the animals I am trying to catch.

I've only snared a few rabbits. All the rabbits I've snared lately have come from an area where the use of a firearm would be severely frowned upon. I've also got a few with arrows.

I think trapping is a legitimate way to catch or kill an animal..if not the best option sometimes. I think in all things we should be as kind and humane as possible. I am aware of the anti-hunting and anti-trapping movements. Unfortunately some folks who use traps don't use them correctly... and some folks leave them set where they are easily seen by the public who don't know much about hunting etc. I can understand why people get upset about traps. I could easily get upset with the way some irresponsible, uncaring people might use traps.

And some hunters do some things that give the activity a bad name. Unfortunately, when some people regard hunting as a sport.... things can become unpleasant. I personally think that hunting is a bit more sacred than just a 'sport'.

It is amusing when a meat-eater stands up against hunting. These folks would rather have a hired assassin kill their meat and provide it through a supermarket. Surely it is better for an animal to die quickly in it's natural surroundings than be herded through a slaughterhouse.

We need laws to control the use of traps, but I would be sad if the practice were banned altogether.

...... Coote.
 
You know, this is a little bit off, But i've seen these things in the last little bit that were kinda neat.
They were .22 cal airgun shots, really neat(like an airgun shot gun). not totally sure how the work, but I've seen then in the sumatra air rifles, but there not your typical airgun. They cost around $1000 and shot a .177 and .22 cal pellet over 1500 fps, and the also have a shotgun setting, that shoots bbs out at around 800 fps, and they are prechared pnumatic (scuba tanks)
 
coote: I've been atrapper for many years. Fur, food, and damage control. There are worse ways of going, even if the animal spends a few hours in a foothold trap. My response to those who deplore trapping is, "When raccoons invade your attic, muskrats wreck your pond, or woodchucks dug up your garden; don't come bitchin' to me."
 
As a kid, I took down a few squirrels with the slingshot. When hit in the head with a half inch nut, a nice clean hexagonal chunk would be removed. I bought a marksman slingshot for the hell of it last year, but either I suck now, or cheap slingshots aren't what they used to be... could'nt hit the broad side of a barn. Ended up using it to launch a few pennybombs, but thats it.
Crossman 2240 will take rabbits out, but you gotta be good, and about 40% of the time your finishing the job with a second shot after a frantic chase through the undergrowth. But at sixty bucks, it's hard to beat the price, especially with all the modding options.
I've recovered a pellet from a snowshoe hare that passed through the ribcage (breaking 2), through the heart, through the opposing ribcage, and ended up being caught in the skin on the other side. That was an out of the box 2240, the rabbit ran about ten yards and just layed down and went to sleep.
 
Fonly said:
You know, this is a little bit off, But i've seen these things in the last little bit that were kinda neat.
They were .22 cal airgun shots, really neat(like an airgun shot gun). not totally sure how the work, but I've seen then in the sumatra air rifles, but there not your typical airgun. They cost around $1000 and shot a .177 and .22 cal pellet over 1500 fps, and the also have a shotgun setting, that shoots bbs out at around 800 fps, and they are prechared pnumatic (scuba tanks)
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gamo makes one of these guns. Its a break barrel .22 i believe and there are two inserts made from tubing which you slip into the barrel, one for a single .22 pellet and one for the shotgun shell for the gun.
 
yeah, there kinda neat.

And I know I've taken dozens of rabbits, partridge and squirrl with my old crosman 2289G backpacker, great little gun, I went camping soo many times with that thing, and all I need was a tin of pellets and I'd have some rabbit to cook up.
 
Buck268 said:
Thats pretty wild, Brown... Wish I had the funds to get into something like that; hell I can't even afford a new 22! Where abouts do you hunt them, I'll assume around the rockies?
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Not so much in the rockies, however, there are some up around Estes Park. Down around the east part of Texas they run rampant. Flordia is also a good place to hit up.

Back to the rabbit hunting part, there was one episode of Man vs. Wild where he got a 1 1/2ft long stick, threw it at a rabbit, and killed it.
 
Haven't tried slings, bolas, or even bow on small game. Although I keep menaing to start playing around with slings. I am a fan of throwing sticks though. Roughly 2 feet long with a nice bend approximately half way down the length. If you find one that is a little flatter, even better. Think of the general shape of a kukri. Range is usually not more than 15-20 feet so you need to have your stalking and camo skills up to speed. Works occasionally for me, but I now in some cultures it is a mainstay. Same principle as a hunting boomerang.
 
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