Really having 2nd thoughts about all of this...

Find a better group. They do exist

Safety is the utmost importance in my group. It trumps everything else. We dont hunt the hardest (never out before legal shooting time, some guys in before the end of legal) but if you pay attention, and do what the more experienced guys tell you, you'll get an opportunity at an animal.

Most of our guys enjoy a few drinks at night, but no one is ever hunting drunk and we're hitting the bush just after legal. Crazy weather will keep us in.
 
patriot1 said:
Met up with a friend of a friend's hunting group recently. First time that I'd ever been out not by myself. Had a whole camp nicely set up. Bunch of guys all younger than myself, mid to late 30's. So we get there around 8 or 9ish. Empty booze bottles and shotgun shells all over the place, everybody's hungover, these guys all smoking more than BC did this summer, useless hollow chit chat and generally no movement until about 10:30. I was hoping to be out there first light, and be hiking hard for most of the day. Instead we spent 2 hours on NOTHING and it was maybe a 50/50 split driving/walking. I might be a clueless new hunter but I'm not afraid of a hike and the prospect of dragging out several hundred pounds if need be.

So we're shown a spot, we drive out to it and start walking up a cut line. Then we run into 2 guys from my buddy's camp and he's showing us where trails intersect, where we could/should hike to, etc. As he's explaining and pointing the one guy swung his barrel right at my head! Like 3 or 4 times. So now I don't want to be a #### because I'm thankful for these pointers and to be shown these spots but I'm like, "hey can you please not point your gun at me?'" So he replies that it wasn't loaded. Well that's great but in my world, loaded, unloaded, defective, broken, YOU PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE YOUR GUN IS POINTED AT ALL TIMES and as much as these guys seemed to be experienced hunters I was extremely disappointed with the lack of firearms safety I saw. Actually saw far too many safety violations to list here.

Ended up seeing about 7 does but they all frigged off before I could get into shooting position. It was a pretty exciting feeling and even though I came home empty handed yet again it was encouraging this time to actually see something as opposed to all my previous (solo) outings where I didn't even see a squirrel.

Maybe it's just me here but all of this doesn't sound/sit right with me. Is this how a hunting trip is supposed to go down? Getting smashed and blasting shotguns to the point you're useless the next day? Dilly dallying all morning and then eventually just casually cruising out? Not taking firearms safety seriously?

If this is all normal, then I got 2 rifles, 2 shotugns, some ammo, camo and gear for sale.
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Well,look at the bright side. They were a bunch of drunks. At least,you weren't taken to an all ### camp.
 
Good hunting buddies and groups are hard to find. I think the best thing is for new hunters to form their own groups or circle of hunting buddies.

No older hunter or group is going to give up their spots, I think that is why a lot of these hunter mentor ship ideas that get floated around every so often never really go anywhere
 
Guns and impairment do not mix, do not care what the source is. Pot, booze and the often undiscussed, the opiates that seem to be so freely dispensed these days. Muzzle control is not up for debate, it is a must at all times under any circumstances. Learned my lesson about loaded guns when I was about fourteen. I could have sworn that 22 was not loaded, I was practicing my aim and trigger pull on a robin in full voice in a tree branch. And I blew it up, can still see it in my mind's eye. When handling a gun it is always treated as if loaded, there is no other way.
 
Trimmer 905 said:
Well,look at the bright side. They were a bunch of drunks. At least,you weren't taken to an all ### camp.
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Well I'm secure with the my masculinity and I know I like women and only women so provided alcohol was kept in check, firearms safety adhered to, and respect for my own orientation I'd take an all ### camp any day over a bunch of unsafe drunks. Don't really see how that would be an issue.

I don't really see any kind of bright side to drunk people in control of firearms.
 
If you think hunt camps groups can get bad, rifle ranges are the unsafest places in the world when all these "I shoot my guns once a year" twits come out to sight in!

Scott
 
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