We are complicating hunting in the U.S.A. Perhaps more than necessary.

It used to be you bought a license, then a tag, and went hunting. When you filled your tag or the season ended, you were done hunting.

Not anymore.

Photo shows hunters draggina out a buck deer while not complicating hunting.

We weren't complicating hunting too much 40 years ago.

Complicating Hunting With Regulations

These days you do more hunting to get your tag than your game. First you buy your license, then you wade through 50 to 80 pages of State Hunting Regulations, apply for a special ID number, apply for a license, pay to apply for the license, and start compiling preference points so you have a chance to draw that license in 20 or 40 years.

So it goes when you have more wanna-be hunters than wanna-be prey animals.

Complications Continue

But our complicating hunting doesn’t stop there. Even if you’re fortunate enough to live in a state where buying a deer license remains simple, you might have to contend with the complications of the new ways of hunting. Tree stand? Ground stand? Bait? Scents? Calling? Decoying? Should you wear wool, cotton, or polyester clothing? Camo or blaze orange or blaze pink? And what style or pattern? Rubber boots or leather? Folding knife, fixed blade, or replaceable blade?

But all that’s easy compared to selecting your “weapon of choice.”

Image shows a variety of hunting knife types and styles.

What kind of knife should you carry? And how many? Fixed blade or folding? Replaceable blade? It's so complicated...

Complicating Hunting With Too Many Tools

Ah yes, the all important firearm. (Sorry, no space for complicating this article with longbow, recurve, compound, and crossbow options.) We’ll also dispense with the complications involved in choosing whether to hunt with flintlock, caplock, traditional or inline, full patch bullet or sabot, slug gun or buckshot, straight-wall cartridge or bottleneck, revolver or hand-cannon, lever or pump or auto or bolt-action or falling block. Or simple break action. Skip all that because it’s been around for decades. We’ll jump straight to the new complications, the digital age stuff that really puts a crimp in what used to be an escape from the stresses of modern life.

Complicating hunting by too many rifles from which to choose.

OK! We've narrowed it down to a bolt-action... Now what stock, barrel length, barrel contour, chambering, scope, short or long action?

I recently read on a popular website — one of those forums where members ask questions in hopes of being chastised, lambasted, yelled at, and called a fool — details on how to make a shot on a deer 650 yards down a canyon at a 22.7-degree slope in a 17.5 mph wind sliding over the shooter’s left shoulder at 8-o’clock. At an altitude of 6,279 feet, temperature 28-degrees F., humidity at 56.5 percent barometer falling. Using a 142-grain Very Very Very Low Drag bullet rated G7 B.C. 314 and pushed from his fluted, 24.8”, #2 contour, 1:7.5" twist barrel by 43 grains of clean-burning, low-fouling, temperature insensitive HMR 5340 powder. The rifle, of course, would be secured atop a 50-pound portable table and anchored via a 2-pound attached bipod. A ComplicatorX SniperZ aftermarket trigger set at 1.3 ounces would ignite the fireworks. What additional tools, the writer wanted to know, would be required to make this shot before the deer migrated to winter range?

Help Is On The Way!

Other members of the forum eagerly obliged while simultaneously proving their superior insights and experience on the subject — or any remotely related or completely unrelated subject.

Image shows shooter firing a large, heavy Barrett 98B bolt action

Now, how much to dial for a 17.376 mph wind from 8 O'clock at 48-degrees F. on a falling barometer with a right-hand twist barrel...

Some of the suggested solutions included:

Reply from Re-Calibrate: Get a Falcon ZX Calibrated Exclusive wind meter with bluetooth connection to a BlackOps TSOG 6-36X70mm FFP scope. Download the BallisticWhirlingDervish app to your smartphone. Input your above data, connect to the Falcon ZX, push the ZX emit button twice and wait for the correct aiming point to illuminate in your BlackOps scope. Hold this on your deer and caress that trigger.
Reply from DogRider X: No no no! YOU DO NOT WANT TO DEPEND ON A SMARTPHONE!!! The battery might die. Mine did just last week when I was calling my girlfriend to explain that the woman her girlfriend saw riding with me in the Volvo was my friend’s Afghan hound! Those dogs have some really posh hair! Anyway, you’d be up sh8 creek if you needed the BWD app at the moment of truth.
Reply from Skepticworldpiece: Dude! Who drives around in a Volvo?
Reply from BuckStraight: I currently shoot a Nixjam 6000 all aluminum chassis custom in purple sarahkote with cream highlights tethered to the Hornlertristic ballitic calcerlater. It’s awe-sum!
Reply from Cowgirlbit: I have the new HyperFalcon VXI vaporLock TZ wind meter I got on-line for $197.33 that included shipping at no extra charge. I coupled it with the GizSOG ProLock laser binocular tethered to my GPS Cosmos Systems electronic e-collar. (My faithful yellow lab goes everywhere with me.) It inputs constatn updates not only on elevation, longitude, lat. temp., humidity, an real time barometric pressure, but downloads this every 3 seconds to my GizSOG so, at the press of the ranging button, it spits out an up to the second (okay, 3 second) solution. I can then input that instantaneously by dialing my elevation turret as indicated before doubling checking the latest HyperFalcon wind inputs and dialing the windage turret to correct for it. Bingo. Dead on every time out as far as 1,454 yards. I won’t risk at shot past that and every one I’ve taken so far has been dead meat.
Reply from DeerStud: Does anybody here know where I can deer hunt this fall? I can trade a week of possum hunting around my place .
Reply from GAWDHIMSELF: You, my friend, are an idiot. Anyone with half a brain should know you need at least a 250-grain .338 caliber bullet at a minimum launch speed of 2,900 fps to cleanly take a deer at that distance. If you’re going to play with the men, get rid of your boy toys.
Reply from Geezer: What’s all the fuss, kids? Get yerself a flat-shootin 7 em em mag and stuf it fulla 175grains Bronzzpoints. Zero for 500 yards and hold dead on. At 7 emem mag speeds Bullets won’t drop morn 3 inches out to 700 yards unless yer at sea level where ther’re more graivty than in the high country that’s god’s country. I ain’t misssed a deer in 40 years. Bang flop everytime. Whimps shoot 6.5s.
Reply from TackDrivinMan: Do it the hard way or do it my way — a Leissovsk 2-45x60mm Rangfinder scope with 37mm main tube and on-the-fly reticle selection. Input your B.C. and M.V., download the Leissovk BallisticPro software to your scope, and use the Peregrine Hurricane 3000 Extreme 12.4 wind meter. Bluetooth simple. Backup battery in the Hurricane automatically takes over if the first one dies! Put the lighted reticle dot on target and break out the barbecue. Dead-on every time to 1,800 yards. I can’t believe some of you are still messing around with those Plain Jane scopes. This is the 21st century. Act like it!
Reply from Traditional Hunter: Download the Stalker app, pair it with your 3-9x40mm laser rangefinder Stalker scope, and strap the Stimulator 4000 to your neck. Set it for your bullet’s maximum point blank range. Aim at any target. If it falls beyond your MPBR, the Stimulator will shock you into stalking closer. Stalking directions not included. Consult any cat. Dipsticks.
Re-reply from Skepticworldpiece: Seriously, dude! A Volvo?
Reply from Annonymour: What kind of sick psychopath would shoot a deer??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!