Free: Contests & Raffles.
Shooting a deer or elk in its bed and shooting a turkey in its roost are completely different. You will never hear of an ethical turkey hunter shoot a roosted bird! That's about as challenging as shooting your neighbors black lab. A deer or elk in its bed has the same opportunity to flea as a deer or elk that is standing or feeding. Turkeys are different, once roosted they generally don't leave. It would be more appropriate to comparing shooting a roosted bird to spotlighting a deer (although yes I know spotlighting is illegal and shooting roosted birds is legal).
WOW! A lot of double standards in this thread
QuoteNot picking on you specifically MtnMuley... But would you shoot that buck of a lifetime in its bed? OR are you going to couch, stomp your feet, Yell,,, HEY DEER... to give it a chance??? Probably not....I would shoot a turkey in the roost 10/10 times.. go home a very happy hunter... I would also shoot a deer or an elk in its bed... Ethical?? I see more ethics out the window with guys drinking beer while hunting, shooting way past the range you can really hit anything at, etc..... and so on.... Shooting a deer or elk in its bed and shooting a turkey in its roost are completely different. You will never hear of an ethical turkey hunter shoot a roosted bird! That's about as challenging as shooting your neighbors black lab. A deer or elk in its bed has the same opportunity to flea as a deer or elk that is standing or feeding. Turkeys are different, once roosted they generally don't leave. It would be more appropriate to comparing shooting a roosted bird to spotlighting a deer (although yes I know spotlighting is illegal and shooting roosted birds is legal).
Not picking on you specifically MtnMuley... But would you shoot that buck of a lifetime in its bed? OR are you going to couch, stomp your feet, Yell,,, HEY DEER... to give it a chance??? Probably not....I would shoot a turkey in the roost 10/10 times.. go home a very happy hunter... I would also shoot a deer or an elk in its bed... Ethical?? I see more ethics out the window with guys drinking beer while hunting, shooting way past the range you can really hit anything at, etc..... and so on....
An argument for the situational -When fishing, we adhere to what we call "Captain's rules". If the host of the trip doesn't keep any oversized walleye (over 22" in most places), then you don't keep any oversized walleye unless the host ok's it. When you're fishing with me in my boat, if it's legal to keep, feel free. I hope you enjoyed your trip, and will enjoy your meals to come even more. But if I'm fishing with Yelp, and he says "we don't keep overs, and we only keep enough for a few filets for tonight's supper", then I'm only keeping a couple of fish for tonight's supper. Captain's rules.So, if I'm turkey hunting with Yelp, and he says "we don't shoot birds out of the roost", then I don't either. But if I'm out by myself, I won't necessarily feel compelled to adhere to another man's ethical standard just for the sake of adhering to another man's ethical standard. If I choose to shoot a turkey out of a tree, I can still sleep that night. If someone else does it, I'm sure not going to give him a hard time about it.BUT - you put that turkey on the side of the road, with half a dozen cars stopped watching the roosted birds and checking them off on their "life list", then some dude gets out and blasts a tom out of a tree in front of them... well, that's a bird of a different feather.So, I think it's situational.
Can I?? probably not the time I tried that with a grouse I missed? so my answer is no I probably can't .... now if I had a license and I was out hunting and had a turkey tag and the turkey was just sitting there like a dweeb I might take a crack at it.... my luck I'd miss and instead of flying away it would attack me....in which case I might just bash it over the head with my gun
Not sure how many "ethics" threads im going to have to post this on; there is no one set of ethics out there published in a book. Its up to the person in the situation and what they think is ethical. You cant expect every one to live by your set of ethics.I see nothing wrong with shooting a bird out of a roost, I dont find it very sporting and wont do it, but thats me. I also dont find hunting over bait very sporting, or as fun you could say, but im not going to slam any one who does it, and ill fight side by side with them to allow baiting to still be legal.
I remember a few years back, the game warden in the Davenport area telling me about how he shot a gobbler out of its roost. As a hardcore turkey hunter that would never dream of doing that, I was shocked. Legal, yes, but just plain unethical in my opinion. The difference between a turkey in its roost and a deer in its bed is the expectation of security that the animal has. A turkey roosts in a tree to avoid predators. When it is up in its roost tree and it sees a potential predator on the ground, it feels much more secure and is less likely to fly. At least, until you get very close. I've had plenty of gobblers let me walk right up directly beneath them. Of course, most of the time this was an screw up on my part, but the point is it took no skill to do so. Bottom line is: show the gobbler some respect and if you need to resort to shooting them out of their roost, then maybe you should learn to hunt.