This site is a bold venture, but...

[H.P.Sauce]

Congratulations. I must confess to being pessimistic about the future of traditional fieldsports in this country though, in part because of the numbers (town v country) and in consequence I am not sure how long your site might last...
A minor whinge: I came here after seeing a reference on that fishing thing I just found, Fishing Magic (like every other UK fishing site I've seen it's dreadfully disappointing, very low level of discussion, a mere shop window for ads by extremely boring retailers, enlivened only by the great Barrie Rickards) but of course instead of being about "hunting" (pursuing the creatures of the wild with gun, rod, bow, whatever) it's about "hunting" as defined in UK, meaning specifically "fox hunting on horseback with a pack of doggies". I'm quite happy about the latter of course - not my cup of tea, and I've found the fox-hunting crowd often to be supremely arrogant, narrow minded, clannish, and viciously damaging to other sports such as shooting; but in a spirit of libertarianism, let them flourish, I say.
(I attended a meeting some years ago organised by the BFSS as was, rallying the Devon troops to resist the hunt ban; I attempted to persuade these cavemen not to keep slagging off shooters, people like me who shoot lots of foxes with .22 centrefire calibres, and to accept that the struggle to protect hunting was part of a wider struggle to defend ancient liberties - or indeed newer liberties such as the right to smoke dope, or whatever. Waste of breath! They hadn't a clue what I was talking about, selfish purblind reactionaries to a man, their own worst enemies. I'm raambling here, must shut up. Jolly good luck to you.
The terminology reminds me of fishing: all those books one has picked up, entitled "fishing", to find they're not about fishing as such but specifically about catching those rather primitive salmonids with flies..... Believe me, I know where these purists are coming from - I contributed to The Field for several years and met lots of that crowd, many extremely nice but most imbued from birth with Neanderthal notions of sporting correctness...

[Marc Dradge]

I came from a working class town background and have hunted to 30 plus of my 46 years and have made many friends in all areas of field Sports,when started as a whip you'd get the sack for owning a lurcher,heaven forbid you ever owned up to shooting a fox ( never have ) !! I have never met a hunting person who isn't a friend,most however are wary of strangers ,but once they know your genuine and not an anti poking about you'll find us a good crowd. I think the last 15 years has seen a hell of a change in how each field sport relates to each other,alot of my friends shoot and a few are keepers. As for this sites longevity ,I'm sure like hunting it will survive!!

[H.P.Sauce]

Glad to hear you love hunting (that is, hunting foxes on horseback with dogs - right?) and think those people a good bunch, but your comments are a bit contradictory. You describe them as "a good crowd" but say you would have got the sack for owning a lurcher, and shooting foxes was looked on with great disfavour! This latter is certainly true of the fox-hunting crowd, traditionally: a friend of mine in the E.Midlands started shooting foxes with high-velocity .22 centrefire calibres a long time ago, before any or many people were doing it at all, and he not only experienced vicious hostility from trad horsey fox-hunters, but they tried actively to get him in trouble with the police! Utterly contemptible behaviour on their part, but par for the course I'm afraid. And they didn't win - he still shoots loads of foxes, and despite what the horse & hound types say, a good rifleman will always be a vastly more efficient despatcher of foxes than any pack of hounds. I have a photo of my chum shot early one morning, with 2 friends, and that night's bag of foxes laid out in front of the Land Rover - sixteen (16) foxes....
I would like to think things have changed between shooting & horseback hunters, but AFAICS the latter still do their best to tarnish shooting with idiotic, grossly ill-informed rubbish about shooting being unsporting or some such. Nonsense! Hit a fox anywhere in the torso with a modern frangible varmint bullet doing maybe 3000+ fps and it's dead meat. I've shot lots of them...
Why do you predict the survival of hunting? It's already banned! And the massive 90% urban majority, most of whom wouldn't recognise a fox if one bit them in the leg, will keep it banned. Sad but true - unless you can point to evidence I don't know about..?

[Vixen]

Perhaps HP Sauce should set up www.myshootingspace.com and contribute to forums there

[David Stocker]

Thanks HP for your provocative post, much of which I disagree with! Why not create a group within my huntingspace for shooting. as I've said elsewhere there's no specific agenda for this site, and if folk want to think of shooting as a hunting sport, they're welcome to contribute. After all, we share a common enemy.

[H.P.Sauce]

Well, we're not going to have much of a stimulating discussion, are we, if people here just respond by telling me to go away! Presumably you don't like criticism? Fox hunters are beyond reproach so all criticism of them is mere "provocation"? The points I've made - and if you disagree with any of them, it might be interesting to know on what grounds - are more properly addressed to horseback-fox-hunters because you are the people whose very narrowly self-interested campaigns, demonstrating intolerance of and indeed hostility to shooting e.g., failed to protect hunting from being banned. One might argue credibly that it was this very ignorance of shooting (the rubbish I've heard about shooting foxes, from BFSS / CA folk...) and reluctance truly to embrace all fieldsports as being on the same side, that contributed to fox-hunting's downfall. You lot are not alone in this of course: I once spoke up at an AGM of a national fishing society I helped to run, in favour of fox-hunting (please note!) and suggesting that anglers and fox hunters were on the same side. To no avail - there was pooh-poohing and even jeering, from anglers who doubtless saw fox-hunting types as elitist twits in fancy dress...
And shooting is notoriously riven by factionalism, to the extent that there was nothing like a united front in the face of the knee-jerk bans imposed in 1988 and 1997 on semi-automatic rifles and handguns respectively.
I'm puzzled by your doubt about whether shooting should be considered a "hunting sport" - see my earlier remarks about terminology. If I go out with a shotgun or rifle over my shoulder, what else am I doing but hunting?
I'll go away if you like, and leave you to comfort one another as traditional fox-hunting becomes a fading memory - or alternatively you might learn something about shooting, a subject about which many horseback fox hunters are breathtakingly ignorant...
Yours, HPS

[Marc Dradge]

One thing I love about American's in general is their absolute tolerance of other people's life styles they are lucky over here in that they have no inground prejudice,hunting over here means everything covering all the shooting and dog/hound sports. I have to share my hunt country with Bird and Deer Hunters and this means all three groups are about on most days we are hunting; and we all get on,and try accomodate each other.You unfortunately seem to have a very tarnished view of hunting people. By the nature of the beast both hunting and shooting will have a few people who will not see the others point of view. I do not take offence and am sad that you feel that way.As it has been said in a previous post we all have one common enemy,who view all field sports in the same light.

[H.P.Sauce]

You're right in that we have one common enemy - if one can lump together the uneasy combination of suburban ignorance, class hostility, repressive political agendas, animal-lib-lunacy etc with which we are faced as being a single entity, that is. I entirely agree that we should think thus, and unite vigorously to fight anti-countryside anti-fieldsports measures on all fronts. But that has never happened, and some examples I've provided are instances of why these didn't happen - BTW they are not mere indications of "feelings" on my part. I do not have a "tarnished view" of hunting folk in general. But I do know from personal experience, and e.g. the bitter experience of my shooting chum in the E.Midlands who suffered treacherous persecution by local fox-hunters, that all too many traditional horse/hound types (a) regard themselves as far too special to genuinely come together with anglers & shooters, and (b) are as I said, massively ignorant of shooting but happy to express publicly the wildly erroneous idea that shooting foxes is both cruel and inefficient!
BTW I attended the Hyde Park rally and subsequent fight-the-ban march with the Dart Vale & South Pool Harriers...
Re Americans, a key factor is that a hell of a lot more of them go hunting (in the correct sense - pursuing the creatures of the wild, with gun/bow etc...) and fishing, plus it's a very big country with bags more room to get out into the wilds. But they suffer from animal-lib loonies too: the PETA crowd are troublesome and there are lots more fringe groups like them. It was such types who got e.g. cougars protected in California, until a couple of people were attacked by cougars and people started to have second thoughts... I would not agree that Americans have "absolute tolerance" per se - start an argument with them about religion or politics and you'll quickly learn just how intolerant they can be...
Yours, HPS

[Marc Dradge]

My Boss at Midland was President of the American MFHA and involved heavily in the fight against Peta,the US Sportsmans Alliance is at the forefront of the fight and has a budget a mere fraction of Peta's which I think is in excess of $300,000,000 pa. What they have been good at here is mobilising all groups under one banner at both State and Ferderal level. And your right there are certainly pressures here. And here money talks,Deer hunting and other permits fund the Wildlife service and are worth hundreds of millions(Billions) in revenue.Hound Sports here are very much the minority in numbers but combined with the Bird,Deer Hunters,Fishermen ,trappers etc are still a very powerful lobby. But I'm in no doubt its the shear fiscall contribution of Hunting(All) in general that holds sway both Federal and State legislators.
Urbanisation is nibbling away at the "Big Country " also,subdivisions and development are eating away at land at a frightening pace,there is still alot of huntable land but it is under extremem pressure,raw land is so expensive near any town that only developers can afford it. The housing crisis has taken the heat from it at the moment ,but that will come back. Where I am in New York State,nearly everything that isn't in land presservation will get houses on it at some time in the next 5 years or so The State lands are safe, but the pace of development is frightening.
I guess I lived in the Republican, Deep South for too long,Southerners are very tolerant as long as u don't mess with their guns,Nascar,Grits and Sweet Tea!!!!and Country Music, and Religion.I take your point,but in 8 years I have never had any shite,I have lived in rural areas ,so I guess I'm lucky.

[ronald bell]

hi there.lets all pull together and stop becerin among all sports man wether shooter hunter fisher and all countryman.

[Vexed Foxy]

I am pesermistic about this sight.