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I hunted!
Didn't see a legged thing, about as expected.
First time I ever got around to hunting. Haven't gotten my hunting license yet, but I don't need one in my own yard. And I just need to be at least 300 feet from the closest house.
Part of my interest is predators that might eat chickens which I think I'm about to order. And all of those predators are currently in season (which still matters in my own yard).
There was definitely a predator of some kind. But most of the prints weren't fresh enough to tell more than pattern of tracks, including general size of the animal.
So I figured possibly fox, or maybe just house cat. I also saw tracks for rabbits (which I've actually seen), and something mouse like. Cute.
I wandered back into my woods around the South side of my property, and discovered that the growth is far less dense on that side. And North along my stream a bit. Getting my bearings and seeing what tracks there were to see. Lots of tracks in the snow, but none fresh.
I noticed activity tended to concentrate some under low hanging evergreens, so I picked a spot near some, and spent most of my time reclining against a tree there. Paying particular attention to the upwind direction.
I heard a dog barking way off in the distance, trees creaking against each other, a couple small birds, and I think nothing else but wind.
I continue to suspect I may have some advantage in spotting animals because of my visual search related brain damage. The part that's broken, which filters out visual background noise, isn't going to help anybody when animals are motionless. And I can see movement just fine. Methods I use to compensate for my visual search difficulty are what I think might help. "Is this item in my drawer a can opener? Nope. How about this one?" "Does this square foot contain an animal?"
When I decided to head in, I took a closer look at the tracks I had been staring at. I noticed drag marks. Then it became very clear where one animal pounced on another, and began dragging it off. And those tracks were fresher. The prints looked way too big to be a house cat. That was kind of exciting. I followed it to the North side of my yard, which was a little more difficult because it looked like it had doubled back on that path a few times.
After looking at the pocket guide to N.H. animal tracks, I'm fairly certain that the predator was a coyote (always in season) or fox (in season), and the tiny tracks were a white-footed mouse.
I am undecided on hearing protection while hunting, although I have noticed that the people who claim it doesn't cause significant damage don't seem to have done it for long. I didn't wear any today, partially because I expected chances of seeing something to shoot were so low.
I left my woods on the North side, with the incredibly dense small trees. Almost took my Ka-bar out to get the vines off of me. (I fully intended to field dress anything I might kill where it fell.)
My toes and butt (leaning against a tree) were coldest. Easy enough to fix. Ears and face probably come next. I had my hair out, which did a great job of keeping my head warm.
Update: I was hunting with my Bulgaria Arsenal SLR-95, which is one of the better semi-auto copies of the AK-47, with only 5 rounds in the magazine due to NH hunting law.
First time I ever got around to hunting. Haven't gotten my hunting license yet, but I don't need one in my own yard. And I just need to be at least 300 feet from the closest house.
Part of my interest is predators that might eat chickens which I think I'm about to order. And all of those predators are currently in season (which still matters in my own yard).
There was definitely a predator of some kind. But most of the prints weren't fresh enough to tell more than pattern of tracks, including general size of the animal.
So I figured possibly fox, or maybe just house cat. I also saw tracks for rabbits (which I've actually seen), and something mouse like. Cute.
I wandered back into my woods around the South side of my property, and discovered that the growth is far less dense on that side. And North along my stream a bit. Getting my bearings and seeing what tracks there were to see. Lots of tracks in the snow, but none fresh.
I noticed activity tended to concentrate some under low hanging evergreens, so I picked a spot near some, and spent most of my time reclining against a tree there. Paying particular attention to the upwind direction.
I heard a dog barking way off in the distance, trees creaking against each other, a couple small birds, and I think nothing else but wind.
I continue to suspect I may have some advantage in spotting animals because of my visual search related brain damage. The part that's broken, which filters out visual background noise, isn't going to help anybody when animals are motionless. And I can see movement just fine. Methods I use to compensate for my visual search difficulty are what I think might help. "Is this item in my drawer a can opener? Nope. How about this one?" "Does this square foot contain an animal?"
When I decided to head in, I took a closer look at the tracks I had been staring at. I noticed drag marks. Then it became very clear where one animal pounced on another, and began dragging it off. And those tracks were fresher. The prints looked way too big to be a house cat. That was kind of exciting. I followed it to the North side of my yard, which was a little more difficult because it looked like it had doubled back on that path a few times.
After looking at the pocket guide to N.H. animal tracks, I'm fairly certain that the predator was a coyote (always in season) or fox (in season), and the tiny tracks were a white-footed mouse.
I am undecided on hearing protection while hunting, although I have noticed that the people who claim it doesn't cause significant damage don't seem to have done it for long. I didn't wear any today, partially because I expected chances of seeing something to shoot were so low.
I left my woods on the North side, with the incredibly dense small trees. Almost took my Ka-bar out to get the vines off of me. (I fully intended to field dress anything I might kill where it fell.)
My toes and butt (leaning against a tree) were coldest. Easy enough to fix. Ears and face probably come next. I had my hair out, which did a great job of keeping my head warm.
Update: I was hunting with my Bulgaria Arsenal SLR-95, which is one of the better semi-auto copies of the AK-47, with only 5 rounds in the magazine due to NH hunting law.
no subject
"Semi-automatic" means you pull the trigger, and it fires one bullet. The "automatic" refers to the fact that it chambers the next round automatically. I don't think I've ever needed to tell anybody that before. Perhaps I should adjust my expectations.
"Fully automatic" means you pull the trigger, and bullets come out until you let go. And basically all fully automatic guns are select fire, meaning they can be fired fully automatic, or semi automatic. Except those which are belt fed. Which are... big, and.... I think generally qualify as "crew served", meaning they're intended to be operated by more than one person. Inconvenient for hunting. There is no animal for which isn't far more convenient to hunt with a couple shots of a very powerful caliber.
In general, I wouldn't say full auto would be bad to hunt with. You still have all your accuracy on the first round. Yes, you lose accuracy on the rest of the rounds, to varying extents depending largely on how well the barrel is vertically centered relative to your shoulder (muzzle rise - basically all rifle's barrels are above the center of their butt stock). Yes, this loss of accuracy is generally wasteful. But you're talking about wasting 24 cents per round, preferably in controlled ~3 round bursts. I believe police etc. who are issued with sub-machineguns (full auto in a pistol caliber, generally small) are told to aim for the crotch due to muzzle rize. Probably in a 2 or 3 shot burst mode.
However:
If, instead of hunting something harmless, you're defending against, say, zombies, every round you have quick access to is far more valuable, in which case, yes, full auto would probably be a terrible idea. Full auto is generally only ever useful at extreme close range, where I would really rather not be. So I have not spent the extra money for the ability to waste ammo. (The extra cost is entirely due to unconstitutional regulation. Full auto is easier to make than semi-auto.)
Also, within sight of houses is a very terrible place to hunt with full auto. More stray bullets is bad. Especially with the muzzle rise caused by firing most full auto guns, you have less ability to make sure your bullets are going into the ground when they're done their job, instead of above the horizon.
I am officially not awake yet. I'll try to re-check this comment later.