Sport hunter or meat hunter?

Could you classify a hunter by the type of weapon they use to down a deer?

Reason why I ask this is cause it seems some hunters are more enthused about what type of gun, size of ammo, amount of powder, etc., etc., they use without giving it a thought as to how much damage is it going to do to the carcass.

This last weekend I shot a nice little buck using an old 45 caliber Kentucky rifle. Patch and round ball. I waited till the buck was just as about as close to my treestand as it was gonna get. When the moment was right...."BAM". Right through the rib cage and straight into the heart. Very little damage to the meat.

Yesterday morning, a guy brought a deer to me to process for him. While dropping the big doe off he started giving me the run down of how he's trying to fill the freezer and harvested this doe at over 100yds. Yet, he also gave me the rundown on his new inline rifle. Gave me all the hoopla over the size, how many powder pellets, the primer, bolt action, can group in a softball diameter at 200yds, etc. etc.

Well, after he left I skinned his doe out. GEE-Whiz! I had to throw a whole shoulder away and part of another shoulder and half the neck. I thought to myself, "That new gun of his must be a grenade launcher too!"

My little buck dressed out at 95 pounds. His big doe dressed out at 105. I bet I'm putting in 1/3rd more meat in my freezer then he is.

To each their own on whatever type, size of weapon they want to use. And for whatever purpose they intend to use it. But sometimes to me, it just seems a little ridiculous.

[big rockpile]

Well I consider myself a Meat Hunter.Use both Inline and Sidelock.

But I throwed away more Meat off one Deer that I ever have the other day and it was shot with my Crossbow.

But I must admit on my Inline I'm going from a 240gr. Bullet to a 385gr. Bullet.Does have me a bit concerned.

big rockpile

[Bearfootfarm]

Its not so much the "size of the gun" as it is shot placement. If he had made a better shot he wouldnt have damaged any more meat than you did. And dont believe the "200 yd " crap unless you SEE him do it

[beorning]

I think guns are to hunting what tools are to woodworking. Without the game or the wood there isn't much point, but having good tools sure makes it nicer. Having high end tools isn't the guarantee that so many folks think it is. I've seen old guys do more with a handsaw and a few chisels than a lot of folks can do with a shop full of tools.

That said, seems kinda foolish to shoot something with a gun that chews up the meat so badly. But then that's more like trying to use a chainsaw to reproduce a french antique.

[jross]

That is precisely why I use a 20 ga slug gun and pick my shots. I have yet to kill a deer with the one ounce Buckhammer slugs I got at the end of last season. They group tight and no tumblers, unlike the Lightfields and Copper solids I used previously.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

12 ga with winchester rifled lead slugs have been very good to me
good penitration some expantion but the best thing is they usualy drop on the spot but personaly i like lung shots there is very little meat on the ribs anyway and they can be made from almost any angle yes this includes deer i have shot from the back before they had a chance to see me
one of my best shots though was jumping a bunch of doe and a spike on the way back to the house a few years ago got the one doe square in the head
it was all she was giving me

but i have taken many shots that were less than perfect if deer stood there for me it would be easy to make good heart shots although then you screw up your deer heart and gravy.

most of the less than perfect shots come from running deer we see a lot of runnig deer if we waited for shots were deer were't running we might get one every 5 years you just learn to adapt amd make the best of what they give you. around us if you don't do drives you don't see deer past 7:15 opening morning.
I have shot them running at me running away and running parralel
i have also shot a bunch were they stand so that all you can see is some mid section between the trees not head front or rear legs just middle
it can be thick were we hunt
so take what you can get. make the best of it if you can see it you can shoot it.
but yes some people do make an afull mss of things what i find more discusting is the we some people field dress and handle thier deer after the shot

[bgak47]

I hunt all game,big or small,for meat. I enjoy the sport of the hunt, but I eat what I kill.I've been known to take head shots on bucks with nice racks & been criticized for ''ruining a nice mount''. I'm not at all interested in trophies.

[cowgirlone]

I'm a meat hunter too.

[bob clark]

I am a meat hunter but we have guys come in from out of state and they hunt for big bucks. I just have never got the bug to kill the big ones. dont mind leaving the big ones for the paying customers

[RoyalOaksRanch]

I dont think a certain gun should classify a hunter as sport or or meat.. Heck my little 25.06 downs a trophy as well as a fork, same goes for my hubbys 300 mag, or the 338, 270, 7 mag 50 cal blackpowder etc.
Now of course we look for the bigger ones, because the body of a fork is generally rather small.. much more meat in the older deer, who also happen to sport a bigger rack And we also look for the bigger racks because well we do like big antlers.
We pass on the little ones figure they will grow up and be worth hunting next year or two. SO first part of season we hunt for big boys, sporting nice racks, But if last day comes and we have a tag empty. we will take the biggest bodied fork we can m
So I guess we fall into the Trophy/meat combo type

[rwinsouthla]

Meat hunter here. I'd rather kill the 6 deer I'm allowed have 6 pts or less. Younger deer are more tender and a bit less gamey.

30-06 with a 140 grain is what I use. If I can't be 90% sure of a kill, I don't even but the rifle to my shoulder. 100 yards out, yeah probably 50% of the time, you'll hit it, but 75 yards and in is a much more sure kill.

[Haggis]

I and my family are 100% meat hunters. We buy as many tags as we can get and fill every one if we can.

Herself shoots a Winchester model 94 trapper in .357 magnum. She killed a nice buck with it Sunday morning, and my good son killed a doe with it this evening; both were one shot kills; in fact every deer they have shot with this rifle were one shot kills.

My good son usually hunts with his Remington 700 in .30-06 with 150 grain bullets. If I'm hunting from "the tower", I use his rifle due to the 300 yard shots common from that stand. We've killed a bunch of deer with his rifle and they were all one shot kills.

My personal rifles are a Marlin 1895cb in .45-70, a Winchester model 94 Black Shadow in .444 Marlin, and a Marlin 1894cl in .25-20 Winchester; these are the rifles I use if hunting down in the swamp, though I have made several one shot 200 yards kills on deer out on the Back-Sixty with the big bore rifles.

I think shot placement is just about everything, calibre is far and away secondary. The buck Herself shot Sunday she shot in the neck and dropped him where he stood, the doe my good son shot this evening he hit through the heart and it ran less than 50 yards. The .30-06, the .45-70, and .444 Marlin plant most deer where they stand if they are hit through both lungs, or in the head.

[bargarguy]

I am a meat hunter, I hunt mostly with bow. I don't feel I lose alot of meat by making lung shots. I do hunt with a muzzle loader during"gun season" and I have experienced some loss of meat if a perfect lung or heart shot was not made. I shoot a 50 cal. TC with a 300 grain sabot pushed by 140 grains of pyrodex. The spec for the weapon states I can shoot up to 150 but I back off a hair as thats a lot of powder. I like shooting the mag load it drops them hard and fast, I have never had a deer take more than a few steps when they are hit with that amount of kinetic energy.

[kinderfeld]

Originally Posted by bgak47

I hunt all game,big or small,for meat. I enjoy the sport of the hunt, but I eat what I kill.I've been known to take head shots on bucks with nice racks & been criticized for ''ruining a nice mount''. I'm not at all interested in trophies.

Ditto!!!