Debate
Long-range hunting: is it sporting?
Switch on your computer, click on Google and then enter“ NZ long range shots deer”. You’ ll find a number of clips of hunters shooting game animals at long ranges, sometimes as far as a thousand metres or more.
These hunters are expert marksmen – no doubt about that. They have honed their shooting skills to a razor-sharp degree. They are skilled, accurate marksmen with specialised, top-quality equipment. Basically they are doing long-range benchrest shooting in the field.
But it would be unwise for the average shooter with average gear to try long-range shooting. After all, the NZDA Code of Ethics says we should ensure humane kills, with“ due regard to the welfare of the animals hunted, and prevention of cruelty to the same.”
I cite the example of a friend who is a fine hunter – a true stalker and a sportsman who gets up close to his quarry, and reckons he hadly ever shoots beyond about a hundred metres. Myself, I confess to having taken a few long shots in my lengthy hunting career, but never anywhere near a thousand metres. My idea of a long shot is anythingw beyond perhaps 300.
Even at short ranges it’ s sometimes hard to be sure whether you’ ve hit, missed or wounded an animal. I recall such an occasion when my friend Graham and I spotted four deer probably 300 metres away on a hunt
Apart from the danger of taking a skyline shot at one of these deer, the distance should be well within the individual hunter’ s capabilities in the Ruahines. As they filed into the beech forest one stopped to look back. I settled down to a steady shot using my pack as a rest and placed the tip of the post reticule on the middle of the deer’ s shoulder. Gently I squeezed the trigger and the. 303 bullet sped on its way. The deer took a step, seemingly unhit, and walked into the bush.
Had I missed? Doubt flooded in. But we had to check it out.
We reached the forest edge and my dog Sam hurried ahead under the trees, casting about for scent. We followed into the shade of the forest. There, 20 metres inside the bush edge, was Sam, her tail vigorously wagging, by the dead deer. It was a lung shot, the animal had been dead on its feet, but I had been unable to tell at 300 metres that it was even hit. Other similar instances come to mind. Heart-shot deer usually leap or sprint away only to fall after perhaps 20 to 50 metres. Bush stalking in the Waipunga many years ago, I fired at a stag at close range and my first reaction was a miss, but slow searching, finding blood and then slowly tracing the path led me to a heart-shot stag that had run a good 100 metres.
The point of relating these instances is that it can be hard to tell the difference between a lung- or heart-shot deer that is dead on its feet, and a wounded animal that will keep
Tony Orman, when asked to contribute this article, didn’ t flinch from providing an informed critique of the practice of shooting game at long ranges. But he did seek some independent back-up as well! – Editor
going and suffer for hours or days. At 1000 metres, often far across a rugged valley and up the other side, can the shooter always tell the difference? And is he always going to walk all that way to check the shot out after the deer walks or bounds into cover, seemingly not hit?
Even more importantly, the chances of wounding must increase at longer range. While the shooters I watched on Youtube were exceptionally fine marksmen, had done lots of target practice first and learned to make accurate sight adjustments for the conditions( range, crosswind, etc.), I still have ethical and philosophical doubts.
For a start, I just never would contemplate a shot at that distance; but then I don’ t rate myself a top marksman. I know my limits and keep within them, for the sake of the animals. I reckon it’ s irrefutably good policy to shoot at a distance less than your human limitations.
18 NZ Hunting & Wildlife 196- Autumn 2017