Having spend a lot of time in Canada on various shooting ranges, I am rather appaled at the overall poor marksmanship of people going out in the hunting fields.
It is one thing to sight your rifle in on a sturdy bench, it is a different cup of tea out in the cold weather with sometimes little support around to rest your rifle. The result is most people do not know their limitations since it is rare that I see people on the range training in sitting, kneeling or standing positions.
Result an uncalled for crippling rate in our wildlife. F&W can give you the exact figures, I do not recall precisely, but they were very high in the ratio for every big game animal harvested versus hit but lost.
In Europe a mandatory shooting test with your own rifle and shotgun, with a very high benchmark, before you get that year your hunting license. You get 3 tries that day to get the required score, if you fail you are welcome to try next year, but no hunting this year.
It will weed out most of the slobs and incompetent ones when it comes to the shooting.
Besides the shooting exam you need to pass a general knowledge test.
This includes a detailed knowledge, besides what we learn in Canada, of forest plants wildlife depends on, as well as composition of habitats for different species. It takes a lot of studying. Only those with a true interest in the outdoors and wildlife complete this test. You land up with a core of knowledgeable skilled hunters.
Those that just want to go and kill something as well as the indifferent and disinterested ones are weeded out and can stick to target shooting.
In North America we oppose such strict training for political reasons, since it would probably drastically cut down numbers of hunters, with the fear of having less political clout. Of course manufacturers of firearms and hunting accessories oppose it since it would cut down on their sales.
However in Europe hunters do have influence and are listened to, since their credibility is much higher.
Would we not be better of in the long run weeding out the slobs, indifferent and incompetent ones.
This is may be a good subject for the long cold winter evenings!
What do you think?
It is one thing to sight your rifle in on a sturdy bench, it is a different cup of tea out in the cold weather with sometimes little support around to rest your rifle. The result is most people do not know their limitations since it is rare that I see people on the range training in sitting, kneeling or standing positions.
Result an uncalled for crippling rate in our wildlife. F&W can give you the exact figures, I do not recall precisely, but they were very high in the ratio for every big game animal harvested versus hit but lost.
In Europe a mandatory shooting test with your own rifle and shotgun, with a very high benchmark, before you get that year your hunting license. You get 3 tries that day to get the required score, if you fail you are welcome to try next year, but no hunting this year.
It will weed out most of the slobs and incompetent ones when it comes to the shooting.
Besides the shooting exam you need to pass a general knowledge test.
This includes a detailed knowledge, besides what we learn in Canada, of forest plants wildlife depends on, as well as composition of habitats for different species. It takes a lot of studying. Only those with a true interest in the outdoors and wildlife complete this test. You land up with a core of knowledgeable skilled hunters.
Those that just want to go and kill something as well as the indifferent and disinterested ones are weeded out and can stick to target shooting.
In North America we oppose such strict training for political reasons, since it would probably drastically cut down numbers of hunters, with the fear of having less political clout. Of course manufacturers of firearms and hunting accessories oppose it since it would cut down on their sales.
However in Europe hunters do have influence and are listened to, since their credibility is much higher.
Would we not be better of in the long run weeding out the slobs, indifferent and incompetent ones.
This is may be a good subject for the long cold winter evenings!
What do you think?
