ORIGINAL: GrumpyTom
I have been viewing Wild TV for free the last little while (free preview). Therefore I have not been watching much hunting shows (live in Canada, not much to choose from) before this. The free preview is a GREAT THING and I really like the channel, but I do have some complaints.
Some of the shows use words that to me are very disrespectfull to hunters and the wild animals in general. The word that gets me the most is :
[:@] .... Shooter Buck, [:@][:@]
They make it out that if the animal is not of a certain size (antler size only) that it is not worth harvesting unless it is a lowly "Cull Deer" that needs to be removed from the heard. Who do these people think they are to determine what is a trophy or to put down others for what they harvest.
A shooter buck to me is any animal (buck or doe) that I choose to shoot, no matter what size the antlers are. Some areas will see plenty of 150 class deer, while others will be lucky to get a buck near the 100 class range. Will this degrade the 100 class deer, not in your life, they are all great animals no matter what their size is. I know most of these shows hunt only private farms that promot trophy animals (large rack) but that is not a trophy to me. To me, the trophy is the trip and time spent, not the animal harvested. Some of these shows are just getting way to comercial for my liking since the last time they were available on TV for me up here (about 5 years ago when local cable removed chanel).
Sorry about the reant, but I had to just say something. Does anyone else feel the same or have other little things that bother them like this does me.
I agree with you 100%, most of those guys talk out of both sides of their mounths, hypocrites in fact, they brag about how "ethical" they are and how they have such a high respect for nature but then they turn around and play that "build the trophy animal" game...
I dont know who these people think they are that they haveANY right at all to decide what animal lives and what has to die in nature based soley on what type/size antlers they have, or will reproduce... culling out certain animals just to keep and let breed the ones with genetic traits that THEY desire, not what makes a stronger animal, or even a stronger herd, but what makes the biggest/best "trophy" for them is,IMO,disrepectful to nature in its fullest andit irritates me too that people like that can be so disrespectful to nature and brag themselves up like they're doing some big favor for the hunting world, it in fact boils down to nothing but money... big racks=big money...
but then again if you watch any of those shows most of these "pro" hunters basically hunt game farms with preset areas/stands and so put little to no effort in the scouting, stand placement, or any other actual pursuit of the animal, they just pull the trigger out of a 1000sq ftblind... the animals being "hunted" on/in TV shows arent respected, their treated like nothing more than objects to be killed and IMO its sad that our sport is represented like that
top that with all the fake emotional outbursts and high-fiving/ass grabbin' after "the kill"and I could just about puke... it looks like nothing more than a low buck soap opera, I like watching hunting shows just for seeing the animals and the basic situations, but I usally have the remote in my hand and turn the channel at that point...
put a show on that plays the game, even remotely like it should bedone, that shows a guy going into a new area(no game farms), going through all the scouting, stand placement, and all the other aspects of the pursuit(and give tips/advise along the way) right up to the taking(or not) of the game animal would be an awesome show IMO, even if the entire thing was spread out within several shows and some stand highlightswere uneventful, It would stillbe realistic and something I'd go out of my way to watch, unlike whats on now where in a five minute show theres 750 semi-domestic deer in a field and some guy in a blind bigger than my house whispering at the camera andwaving his arms around like he's trying to take flight bragging about how much of a "hunt" it is, right before pulling the trigger...
lame...