Leave the mods alone and get outdoors?Pics from your walk ?

[fireman 11,563]

40 minutes ago, mel b said:

I mainly shoot these day . But if I couldn't shoot , I'd trap or snare , or use a dog , or just dig a pit .  I just can't help it. When I'm fishing , I'm catching one fish at a time , but I'm constantly thinking how I could catch them all , and if I'm using a keep net , it kills me to put them back.

I was out hiking on a hill not too far away a few years ago , it was about 5am , and half light . I bumped a herd of fallow , and they just ran nose to tail in front of me , just three feet away (about 30 of them). For that few seconds that they were running past , all that was going through my head,  was how am I going to grab one of the slower ones , kill it without a knife , and get it to my car , without anyone seeing me .

It was only a few seconds , but the hunter in me was screaming at me . Instinct almost beat the civilisation out of me that morning. 

If it's in you , it's in you .  It's not something that you could ever put in , and it's not something that you can ever take out .

I remember reading somewhere years ago , that humans are all born with different instincts , and it's just the way humans have evolved. I can't remember all of the different types , but it made me realise that I was definitely a hunter gatherer .

It was something like .

Hunter gatherers .

Warriors.

Healers.

Builders.

Farmers. 

Travellers. 

Traders.

You'd definitely get a bit of an overlap , but we all have a basic type. 

Bottom line is were humans and were a tribal people and warriors is another one but there all things a tribe needs to survive, like not all dogs are hunters,some are trappy early warning systems,some are fighters etc etc as there things a pack needs to survive.. It's DNA'd in everything and does cuase torment if it's not ever let loose...

[mel b 4,373]

39 minutes ago, mackem said:

I will go with this,Nomad.

You were in my head as I typed it mack. You're the perfect example .

[mel b 4,373]

13 minutes ago, fireman said:

Bottom line is were humans and were a tribal people and warriors is another one but there all things a tribe needs to survive, like not all dogs are hunters,some are trappy early warning systems,some are fighters etc etc as there things a pack needs to survive.. It's DNA'd in everything and does cuase torment if it's not ever let loose...

Bang on the money . It's the way that we've evolved to survive over thousands of years . Governments can change , hunting / fishing /foraging laws , as much as they want , but they can't change that deep seated need to do it , and they'll never be able to stop people from doing it. If it's in you,  it's in you , and that's that.

I remember watching a documentary about the American civil war . They found a rifle that had been loaded many times with lead balls , but hadn't been fired .  The soldier , just wasn't a warrior , and didn't have it in him to kill another man.  He wasn't a coward , he stood there in the front line with his mates while under fire , and went through the motions of loading , but just couldn't pull the trigger on another man.

[Daniel cain 49,946]

2 hours ago, mel b said:

I mainly shoot these day . But if I couldn't shoot , I'd trap or snare , or use a dog , or just dig a pit .  I just can't help it. When I'm fishing , I'm catching one fish at a time , but I'm constantly thinking how I could catch them all , and if I'm using a keep net , it kills me to put them back.

I was out hiking on a hill not too far away a few years ago , it was about 5am , and half light . I bumped a herd of fallow , and they just ran nose to tail in front of me , just three feet away (about 30 of them). For that few seconds that they were running past , all that was going through my head,  was how am I going to grab one of the slower ones , kill it without a knife , and get it to my car , without anyone seeing me .

It was only a few seconds , but the hunter in me was screaming at me . Instinct almost beat the civilisation out of me that morning. 

If it's in you , it's in you .  It's not something that you could ever put in , and it's not something that you can ever take out .

I remember reading somewhere years ago , that humans are all born with different instincts , and it's just the way humans have evolved. I can't remember all of the different types , but it made me realise that I was definitely a hunter gatherer .

It was something like .

Hunter gatherers .

Warriors.

Healers.

Builders.

Farmers. 

Travellers. 

Traders.

You'd definitely get a bit of an overlap , but we all have a basic type. 

My Mrs,is very much the Healer/gathering type...I'm a hunter/builder

Mel,I've always had a fascination with trying to out smart/catch things....not always necessarily to injure or kill them.....having hold of,and just  looking into their eyes..then watching them run/fly off

[mel b 4,373]

34 minutes ago, Daniel cain said:

My Mrs,is very much the Healer/gathering type...I'm a hunter/builder

Mel,I've always had a fascination with trying to out smart/catch things....not always necessarily to injure or kill them.....having hold of,and just  looking into their eyes..then watching them run/fly off

That's it , you did the hunting and catching.

I'm the same these days to be honest . I could kill much much more than I do , but I'll just spend time looking instead , while in my head , the hunter is plotting it's demise , and making space for it in the freezer .

[tatsblisters 11,235]

8 hours ago, mel b said:

The hunter gatherer in my head doesn't care about sport mack , the hunter gatherer only sees a belly full of food.

My woodland is surrounded by one of the biggest and best shoots in the country , and is alive with many thousands of pheasants at this time of year.  It takes everything I have not to put every last one of them in my freezer.

I've never hunted because I wanted to , I only hunt because something inside my head forces me to do it. You can convince yourself that you're doing it by choice , but you're not really.   If you're a hunter , then you have to hunt.

I'm the same with the gathering.  I'll gather or collect anything , no matter if it's logs for my fires , money , food , cigars , guns.  I'll even gather stuff that is of no use to me , because I'll know someone that would want it.

I'm 57 years old , physically wrecked from years of graft , money in the bank, and freezers filled with food  . What do I need with a rabbit ?, but that thing in my head,  still makes me get up in the middle of the night , and drive miles,  just to shoot one .

Being a hunter is a real f***ing pain in the ass .

 

Edited to add.

Dozens of you are going to read this , and know exactly what I mean.

Brilliant post mate and sums up the instincts that I believe is in some of our DNA . Every morning I have a good walk out in local woods and fields and always have a catapult in my pocket and feel better when I have shot a few squirrels though tbh I spotted an hare jugged up in an hedge bottom and never even thought about taking a shot at it though i did slip my imaginary lurcher on it when it got up and ran across the field.  

[fireman 11,563]

1 hour ago, Daniel cain said:

My Mrs,is very much the Healer/gathering type...I'm a hunter/builder

Mel,I've always had a fascination with trying to out smart/catch things....not always necessarily to injure or kill them.....having hold of,and just  looking into their eyes..then watching them run/fly off

Hand on heart and apart from the edible as i ate them or they were eaten,  i wish everything i ever killed could after the dog have had a mouthful of fur for a reward it all could jump up and run off. 

[mel b 4,373]

42 minutes ago, tatsblisters said:

Brilliant post mate and sums up the instincts that I believe is in some of our DNA . Every morning I have a good walk out in local woods and fields and always have a catapult in my pocket and feel better when I have shot a few squirrels though tbh I spotted an hare jugged up in an hedge bottom and never even thought about taking a shot at it though i did slip my imaginary lurcher on it when it got up and ran across the field.  

Yep. You just can't help it . It's just always there , just waiting for an opportunity .

[mackem 30,789]

18 minutes ago, mel b said:

Yep. You just can't help it . It's just always there , just waiting for an opportunity .

Deduct a point from him mel,he didn't even think about shooting the hare (same as me with the Turkeys).I just had this squirrel 4 feet away?

[mel b 4,373]

14 minutes ago, fireman said:

Hand on heart and apart from the edible as i ate them or they were eaten,  i wish everything i ever killed could after the dog have had a mouthful of fur for a reward it all could jump up and run off. 

This . 

It's a strange thing , but I take no pleasure from the killing , only from the hunting and the getting.  That's probably totally unfathomable to most people , as the killing is part of the getting,  but it's just the way it is . When I pull the trigger and something drops , I don't think " yes , I've killed it ! " , I think , " yes , I've got it !". 

I know a couple of folks that shoot , that will just leave things where they drop . I just can't comprehend it , and find it f***ing disrespectful and wasteful . It's just countryside vandalism. They'll drop a muntie , and leave it where it fell. Then buy a shit flavoured big mac on the way home , when they could have been eating venison steaks .  I just can't wrap my head around it ???.

Then again , I can't understand driven pheasant. I can understand shooting them , if you're taking them home to eat , but lots of folks will just take a brace to be polite , and then chuck them in the bin when they get home . I'm not knocking the folks that do it , it just seems to me that they may as well shoot clays.

[mel b 4,373]

6 minutes ago, mackem said:

Deduct a point from him mel,he didn't even think about shooting the hare (same as me with the Turkeys).I just had this squirrel 4 feet away?

I mainly leave hares alone to be honest mack ( usually down to landowners wishes) , but my mind still goes through the hunting of them.

That squirrel is as cute as f**k mack . What did it taste like

[mackem 30,789]

Out fishing,had one tiny crappie so far,got here earlier than my brother in law so followed a set of coyote tracks down the river,it made a bee-line for every beaver and muskie den on the ice,there was a few otters fishing along the edge of the ice earlier.

[mackem 30,789]

14 minutes ago, mel b said:

That squirrel is as cute as f**k mack . What did it taste like

It's a little red squirrel,my Mrs would go ballistic if I killed one of them for killings sake,she has eaten squirrel as a kid but not reds.

[mel b 4,373]

25 minutes ago, mackem said:

It's a little red squirrel,my Mrs would go ballistic if I killed one of them for killings sake,she has eaten squirrel as a kid but not reds.

You're living the dream there mack.

Are the black squirrels a different type of squirrel, or just a different colour?.

I went on a deer stalk a few years back , on a large private family estate. The place was overrun with black grey squirrels.   It was crazy that they didn't sell the black squirrel shooting,  when plenty of airgunners would have paid more for the squirrel shooting,  than folks were paying for muntjac deer shooting. 

[mackem 30,789]

36 minutes ago, mel b said:

Are the black squirrels a different type of squirrel, or just a different colour?.

They are melanistic eastern grays mel,but the blacks actually seem larger than the gray version,maybe because black stands out more?I saw a few black grey squirrels in the UK,near Milton Keynes,they are still just greys.