I think I can't hunt anymore

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niam11

niam11

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Sep 15, 2023
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Hoschton
I used to really enjoy hunting, but now I get frustrated of shooting small animals. I used to drive an hour and a half every weekend with my partner to hunt, mostly small game (mostly squirrels). At that time, I dreamed of having a backyard and putting some food in there to attract small animals and then hunt them, like many Youtubers do. Now I have such conditions, but I feel sad about hunting them and wathc them diying. I don't know what makes me changed, but I still love to shoot. I only have a distance of 15 yards (from my back door) and 30 yards (from my front door). What kind of shooting challenges should I do to get more fun? Thanks guys.
 
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niam11 said:
I used to really enjoy hunting, but now I get frustrated of shooting small animals. I used to drive an hour and a half every weekend with my partner to hunt, mostly small game (mostly squirrels). At that time, I dreamed of having a backyard and putting some food in there to attract small animals and then hunt them, like many Youtubers do. Now I have such conditions, but I feel sad about hunting them and wathc them diying. I don't know what makes me changed, but I still love to shoot. I only have a distance of 15 yards (from my back door) and 30 yards (from my front door). What kind of shooting challenges should I do to get more fun? Thanks guys.
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I get it, but from a different perspective - wife and neighbors don’t approve, which makes shooting animals feel a little cringe. In fact, I sort of drifted out of the hobby over time because of this (and other reasons, which are for another day). My wife thinks all squirrels are cute (they get in our attic from time-to-time, so I don’t approve of them). She also thinks chipmunks are super cute (I say they are destructive; I have no problem taking them out). Rats are a different story - she wants them gone, but doesn’t want any info on how great my shot was.

I personally enjoy plinking. But you have to give yourself some challenges that get you juiced up on your successes, or excited to try to get better. I always save eye drop containers, medicine bottles, and other small containers. Shooting a 1/4” yellow cap at 20 yards is almost has hard as getting a perfect kill shot on any vermin. Anything small like that - or put up several beer cans and see if you can knock them down by hitting them in succession. Anything that gives you a challenge.

Another fun thing for me is to test different pellets and see what the groups look like. I would rather go after bottle caps or whatever vs trying to get the perfect grouping. Probably because I am not a marksman and don’t have a proper bench setup. I want to be accurate enough with my placement to take out vermin and to enjoy plinking.

What are your airgun(s) you are using for shooting? That may give others some ideas.
 
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I strung up a line of sprite cans, and enjoy shooting the pull tabs to knock them off the string,

I get the hunting tho - I used to shoot squirrels in my back yard all the time in the suburbs, but I moved out to the country in 2021, and have only shot one since then - he was getting in the tree next to the soffit...so no attic access for you! But we have tons of squirrels in the woods out back, but i don't shoot them...they are leaving me alone so I leave them to their thing.
 
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Less than 1 in 1000 shots of mine are after something living, and then it is pests like rats and mice.
But i dont call it hunting unless i am shooting something i can eat, and what stop me from doing that aside for the insane laws here is, i would not know how to skin / handle a animal, and even cooking it is marginal what skills i have in that direction.


PS: Not counting flies.
 
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jcalvert said:
I get it, but from a different perspective - wife and neighbors don’t approve, which makes shooting animals feel a little cringe. In fact, I sort of drifted out of the hobby over time because of this (and other reasons, which are for another day). My wife thinks all squirrels are cute (they get in our attic from time-to-time, so I don’t approve of them). She also thinks chipmunks are super cute (I say they are destructive; I have no problem taking them out). Rats are a different story - she wants them gone, but doesn’t want any info on how great my shot was.

I personally enjoy plinking. But you have to give yourself some challenges that get you juiced up on your successes, or excited to try to get better. I always save eye drop containers, medicine bottles, and other small containers. Shooting a 1/4” yellow cap at 20 yards is almost has hard as getting a perfect kill shot on any vermin. Anything small like that - or put up several beer cans and see if you can knock them down by hitting them in succession. Anything that gives you a challenge.

Another fun thing for me is to test different pellets and see what the groups look like. I would rather go after bottle caps or whatever vs trying to get the perfect grouping. Probably because I am not a marksman and don’t have a proper bench setup. I want to be accurate enough with my placement to take out vermin and to enjoy plinking.

What are your airgun(s) you are using for shooting? That may give others some ideas.
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I have a Impact and Im going to buy a HW30.
 
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wimpanzee said:
I strung up a line of sprite cans, and enjoy shooting the pull tabs to knock them off the string,

I get the hunting tho - I used to shoot squirrels in my back yard all the time in the suburbs, but I moved out to the country in 2021, and have only shot one since then - he was getting in the tree next to the soffit...so no attic access for you! But we have tons of squirrels in the woods out back, but i don't shoot them...they are leaving me alone so I leave them to their thing.
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Can you please show me your range? Thanks.
 
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In the summer time i always douse my backing cardboard in sugar water ( soft drinks ) there are other alternatives but a little of my soda i can deal with.

When you hit a fly at +100 yards with a .177, it is immensely gratifying, so far i have just done that 1 time out of many 100 attempts, most often i just drill a hole close to the fly and it relocate.
Flies at shorter distances are fairly easy and i have done that many times, the second one land my game change. Hence why some times my papers / backing look as if i am a really poor shotgun shooter.
 
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I now only shoot paper , cans , sidewalk chalk , ice cubes and on a very rare occasion........................an over-achiever squirrel that manages to defeat the baffles on our bird feeders. Invading grackles got me into pellet guns about 15 years ago . Huge flocks would show up and decimate our feeders in minutes. It didn't take long until they recognized our "no fly zone" and the problem was solved. Now , I enjoy inanimate objects for targets. I still shoot almost every day, but don't hunt.
 
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Peashooter said:
But i dont call it hunting unless i am shooting something i can eat, and what stop me from doing that aside for the insane laws here is, i would not know how to skin / handle a animal …
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That’s a really great point. From that perspective, I have rarely used my airguns to “hunt” with the exception of a failed experiment to cure some squirrel tails (ended in tears I must say). When I have taken animals, it was for pest control …
 
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niam11 said:
I used to really enjoy hunting, but now I get frustrated of shooting small animals. I used to drive an hour and a half every weekend with my partner to hunt, mostly small game (mostly squirrels). At that time, I dreamed of having a backyard and putting some food in there to attract small animals and then hunt them, like many Youtubers do. Now I have such conditions, but I feel sad about hunting them and wathc them diying. I don't know what makes me changed, but I still love to shoot. I only have a distance of 15 yards (from my back door) and 30 yards (from my front door). What kind of shooting challenges should I do to get more fun? Thanks guys.
Click to expand...
Unless you hunt for food the taking of a life however large or small will create internal conflict - or at least it should make us question our motives against the outcome.
Target shooting especially Field Target is much more satisfying to me these days.
 
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niam11 said:
I used to really enjoy hunting, but now I get frustrated of shooting small animals. I used to drive an hour and a half every weekend with my partner to hunt, mostly small game (mostly squirrels). At that time, I dreamed of having a backyard and putting some food in there to attract small animals and then hunt them, like many Youtubers do. Now I have such conditions, but I feel sad about hunting them and wathc them diying. I don't know what makes me changed, but I still love to shoot. I only have a distance of 15 yards (from my back door) and 30 yards (from my front door). What kind of shooting challenges should I do to get more fun? Thanks guys.
Click to expand...
I have done pretty much the same as far as "hunting". Mobility (& age) have curtailed the "brush busting" & mountain scaling ! The fire has gone to warm ashes
and property has changed hands to crowd out hunting /shooting in the old haunts. Same old story. BUT, airgunning lives on w/ pesting destructive critters & fowl. I only take a squirrel if it chases birds from nests & feeders, then they become farm cat food. The balance of pests are G-hogs, in warm weather,then pigeons, starlings, house sparrows,& rats, w/ the occasional crow. These critters reek havoc on the farm(s). This year alone I've taken 144 G-hogs & 201 rats. I don't track pigeons or other birds. Considering it cost the farmer $ 250 to remove two G-hogs from a trouble spot a few years ago, and rats just gross most people out anyway, the farmer is more than happy to see me w/ my"noisy guns"( tongue in cheek ,obviously).
 
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I've been walking this earth almost 75 years. I've done a lot of hunting and shooting, and maybe some growing up. But as my time forward becomes considerably less than I've left behind, I've begun to see some things differently. I haven't become a bleeding heart, but I no longer believe in the death penalty, we just aren't worthy of it. Anyway, somewhere in this personal evolution, I've also become much less interested in killing things. For me, I guess it might be part of recognizing my own mortality and choosing not to intervene in such things. If we still had a huntable quail population, I'd have a bird dog and would love hunting and eating them, and the same with waterfowl if I lived near good hunting territory. And I have no issue with eliminating pests. But otherwise, I'll shoot targets. As for yard targets, other than paper, I shoot bottle caps stuck on an old dead tree in the back yard, great targets.
 
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Contndr35BB said:
I have done pretty much the same as far as "hunting". Mobility (& age) have curtailed the "brush busting" & mountain scaling ! The fire has gone to warm ashes
and property has changed hands to crowd out hunting /shooting in the old haunts. Same old story. BUT, airgunning lives on w/ pesting destructive critters & fowl. I only take a squirrel if it chases birds from nests & feeders, then they become farm cat food. The balance of pests are G-hogs, in warm weather,then pigeons, starlings, house sparrows,& rats, w/ the occasional crow. These critters reek havoc on the farm(s). This year alone I've taken 144 G-hogs & 201 rats. I don't track pigeons or other birds. Considering it cost the farmer $ 250 to remove two G-hogs from a trouble spot a few years ago, and rats just gross most people out anyway, the farmer is more than happy to see me w/ my"noisy guns"( tongue in cheek ,obviously).
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I can under stand that. Some time, the small animals are making a lot of trouble to farmers. But in my own case, they didn't do anything wrong.
 
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