I messed up a deer hunt & shared the video... some people didn't like that.
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- The title pretty much says it all. Recently, I was out hunting Sambar deer in Baw Baw, Victoria, with my friend Pete from Baw Baw Adventures, filming the hunt as part of season 1 of the Australian Huntsman. During the hunt, I took a difficult neck shot on a Sambar hind. The animal dropped, but then jumped back up and took off into the bush. What proceeded was a 2-hour search as we followed the blood trail until it entered private property that we didn't have access to. At this point, our options were to illegally trespass onto a property with our firearms and continue the search for the animal (a property that we had been given explicit instructions by the owner not to go on), or regrettably end the search. Out of respect for the law, we did the latter.
I recorded the entire hunt, which, if you haven't watched it, you can check out here: • Would YOU take this sh...
If you want to watch the other other episodes in season one you can check them out here • The Huntsman - Season 1
Since the release of this video, I have had a number of people, both publicly and privately, criticize and challenge some of the behavior I exhibited during this hunt. This, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing. In fact, when communicated with the right heart, criticism can be extremely positive and transformational. The issue is with the ill-informed comments based on assumptions and lack of information or the comments produced in bad faith, which are intended to shame and tear me down rather than offer wisdom or correction for the sake of growth.
I felt it was important to film and release this follow-up video for three reasons.
Firstly, the 17 minutes of video documenting this hunt does not fully represent the entirety of what happened. It doesn't share all of the information about how it went down or how, for instance, the property owner was contacted about the animal and how requests for entry were made.
Secondly, I learned a lot of lessons from this experience. I made mistakes on this hunt that in the future I want to avoid. It's important for me, therefore, to own these mistakes. Given I publicly share information about my hunts, I also feel it's important that I publicly admit my mistakes and communicate my desire to learn and grow.
Finally, some of the biggest criticism that I have received on this video is that the video should never have been released in the first place. That the video paints hunters in a bad light and could damage how we are perceived by the wider non-hunting community. This I couldn't disagree more with, and I cover the reasons why in this video.
For those of you who don't know more or follow my hunting journey, I feel that it's important that I communicate that I am committed to the proliferation of positive hunting culture throughout Australia, this being one of my life's goals. I am also committed to personal growth, learning, and transparency. With this in mind, I will continue to create content that both educates and provides an opportunity for all of us to grow. Life is messy, people are messy, and sometimes content is messy, but that's okay. We shouldn't hide the mess, sweep it into the corner, and pretend it doesn't exist. This just creates larger issues further down the line. We should be open and honest about the address, seek to control the narrative, and do our best to find a solution. As long as we choose to think the best of and encourage each other, committing ourselves towards growth, then we can rest assured that the world will be a better place.
To everyone who supports me and what I am doing in the Australian hunting space, thank you. Your kind words and encouragement strengthen my resolve and remind me that people are fundamentally good, and that goodness can be called out from those who choose not to show it.
- Chris
You forgot another good reason for posting: that it shows inexperience hunters the consequences of taking a shot that you were uncomfortable with.
So they can be careful with shots and only take the shots they are 100% sure off.
The option of not shooting you also didn't mention enough. It would have solved the problem before it happened. We are not hunting to feed a starving family, so we don't need to take chances.
Great points Henrick, I should have mentioned both of those points more. You're 100% correct
As one of those people that criticised you, I’m glad you took it as intended. Opportunity to do better. I can see why some people would say don’t show the realities when it’s less than perfect. I think you did the right thing in posting and as you say this is your journey, so thanks for sharing so honestly.
Your comments were great, delivered in the right spirit, with the right heart. Thank you for sharing them. I've learnt a lot from this experience and owe it to people like you 👍
What a great bloke, why cant all hunters have your attitude. Here in south aus im on a property and we are now with neighbors are eradicating all deer mainly because of poaching is now so bad. Property owners sadly see it the only option left now.
Thanks Dazza. It's really sad that so many property owners feel that way, especially in SA. I feel like the SA government has put a lot of pressure on hunters which has led to a lot of poor behaviour with poaching. It's a sad turn of events and I hope that we don't see the dame thing happen in VIC. The government needs to learn that hunters can be a key part of the solution when it comes to game management. Don't turn them into the problem. Thanks for sharing your thoughts mate. Spot on :)
I think it's simply bad optics for the wider hunting group and feeds into those who want to destroy what we love.
For the sake of the bigger picture it would be best taken down.
Share it in the private FB page amongst those of us who can appreciate your point and perspective, and maybe learn from it, not publicly. The damage potential is huge.
Thank you for your feedback and concern. I appreciate it.
I'm torn on this issue because you're right. This is what the anti people can use to propagandise this issue, but for newer hunters, the video is a good lesson that will help hunters be more ethical.
Thanks and agree . As property owner I would be grateful to be told of a
wounded animal and how it got there on my block , even if it was note in the letter box. Better for me to know why its there than presume that someone uninvited is hunting in my
backyard . Just my opinion or 2 cents worth.
Great point Steve. I'm not sure if I mentioned it in this video, but we did call the property owner to let them know. I agree, an unexpected dead animal on your property with a gunshot wound would not be good.
There are always keyboard warriors who want to sling their aggressive 2-cents for the sake of appearing more experienced, or to satisfy an ego trip.
The fact is; it’s quite obvious from all your YT content that you’re an ethical, considerate and cautious Hunter who always puts your best foot forward.
Shit happens, and things go wrong. You weren’t out there shooting everything that moved and getting yourself all hyped up on blood lust.
As always, I appreciate your content and even more so; I appreciate that you’re open about your successes and failures.
Happy hunting.
Thank you mate, you're words mean alot ad I know you've put in the time an effort to get to know me through these videos. It makes me feel a lot more comfortable when people like yourself share their opinions who have followed along with me in my journey and have a sense of the kind of person I am. Thank you mate.
Yes, you made the right decision
Cheers, thanks Joh:)
Hey Chris, I'm glad that you posted that video. I quite enjoyed it, despite the loss of the animal. The kill isn't everything, far from it. If I've learned anything watching your content, it's that you're honest about what you're doing; you show the bad and the good and tell it like it is because that's the experience.
So you took a shot you didn't normally take because you'd been thinking about trying it, and your shot was off because you're not practised in that shot. It happens. Don't let it discourage you from trying again. When we try and fail, the best thing we can do is try again. If it's a shot you think you might take in the future, then you owe it not just to yourself but to future animals to become proficient at it. It sounds like you've already thought of some ways you could have improved the situation and that learning is so important.
Yes, the animal was injured and got away. This happens, as you've previously shown. Were the circumstances great? No. Did you to your best, given the situation? Absolutely. Following it into an area that you've been told to keep out of would paint all hunters in a bad light. A lot of folks forget that. Everything we do out there reflects on the whole community. To add to what you said, there's no 'Oh just this one time' or 'No one will know'. While the animal's well-being is important, what's more important is the community. By breaking rules or laws, more legal restrictions will be put in place, more property owners will say no to people hunting their land, and the legitimacy of hunters who do stick to the rules will be tarnished.
Ultimately we all make mistakes, intentional or not (and especially in the heat of the moment), but what's important is that we remain ethical and learn from the experience. You're 2/2 on this one, Chris.
Sil, as always, your wisdom and the way you choose to communicate is a blessing. Sometimes, it's hard to know if I'm on the right track in what I do. When I receive comments like yours that echo my own thoughts, it's always an encouragement. I need both critics and supporters if I'm going to find the right path that helps me achieve my goal of helping improve Australian hunting culture. So thank you for helping me and investing in what in trying to do
Hi Chris I agree with you that the whole truth of hunting is important to show. It is also positive to document your thoughts and feelings behind the hunt.
I further agree that a person's rights trump an animals right. However it is noted this doesn't mean a total disregard for animals.
To me, any person who disagrees with this comment can not be a hunter nevertheless live in a house or eat food as all these activities rather take animal lives or habitat.
100% agree with your thoughts on hunters commentary on social media. Our comments and conduct as a community are judge by non hunters on our social media comments.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you for your support Phil. I appreciate it, especially given your knowledge and insights into the Australian hunting scene and political environment. Hope you're doing well!
Good man. I agree wholeheartedly that whilst the hunt is the thing, you absolutely have to respect the landowners wishes. You just never know if there are animals, people or anything on a property you have been told to stay out of. Better to be on the right side of the law and the property owner. It might hurt to not be able to take the animal, and it definitely is not great leaving an injured animal, but we are going to lose all of our rights if we traipse over private property uninvited.
Spot on Sean. Couldn't have said it better myself. 👏
I think we need to stand up for what we doing not to hide we are hunters and we proud of that,miss a animal or wound animal is part of it ,
Nick, you are spot on!
Personally I dislike the neck and head shots as they often turn out like this. Even though the head and neck brigade will tell you they never miss.
I payed for a Kudu Bull in South Africa after it got up and ran from a neck shot.
An expensive lesson
Ah no! That sucks. That would have been a very expensive mistake in deed! It's the last time I will every do a neck shot for sure! I just got back from a Billy hunt in the central highlands of NSW. I had a massive billy lined up for a solid 2 minutes, had a neck shot, but no vital shot (he was broadside with a tree covering his front shoulder). Suffice to say I didn't shoot him. Didn't stop me shooting the billy who walked up behind him though haha.
I've commented on your origin video, I also said that you should've kept looking for the animal until you had no leads to proceed any further.
In this video you are saying that you are against poaching and you are going hard at it! I did not see anyone commenting anything about you poaching deer? My initial suggestion was you should enter a no good zone if you were confident you'd find the animal. Now, this could be done in many different ways, ask the owner for permission? If the house is 800m away and you went another 100m in, is that really going to make a difference to the owner? What I'm trying to say is that at no point did I imply that you should poach or do something illegal.
If we are going to look at this situation from legal/illegal, ethical/unethical perspective then your shot on this animal was unethical. But then again I'm not into that kind of thinking, being a sambar hunter myself I know how things roll in the bush, its all part of the hunt.
I have a feeling that you've tried to make yourself a victim in this video, that's why you've gone saying all that crap about poaching etc... No one suggested you poach so there was no need to even mention it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts again mate. Apologies if this content came across as victimising, not my intention. I understand your points about going a little further, but I do think that's a slippery slope that can lead to future actions where someone could justify outright poaching. Going a litter further in that situation could be the equivalent to a 'white lie, but it still wrong would have been wrong and would have set a president for illegal behaviour that I'm not comfortable with. But I do see your point. The fact that we did contact the owner and still didn't get permission further reinforces this point in my mind that had we proceeded to hunt the animal on that property after the fact, would have meam we were poaching. But that's my opinion.
My goal in producing this video was not to play the victim card, but own some of my mistakes (like the shot, and not focuong on the hunt when follwoimg the bloos trail), bring extra information forward that I didn't outline in the precious video as well as outline why it's important to share information like this.
I hope o havnt offended you in doing this, I have valued your input.
Hope you're doing well mate.
- Chris
Knock on the door explain circumstances and ask for a permit?
Hi there. I wrote this in the video description, but I forgot to mention it in the actual video, we did call the property owner and ask for access.
We are all human mistakes happen
Thank you Matthew 😊
Shit happens.
100% correct. You can try as hard as you want (and you should) but it will still happen from time to time. The measure of a person is how they react, and what they do afterwards.
Wait a second, at your 15 minute mark you state “I never ever produce content that’s controversial for the sake of it, not interested in that, or click bait or anything like that”
You literally published a video suggesting you encountered poachers while on a hunt, when it turns out the were legal shooters on a neighbouring property. What a joke.
You accuse these people of being poachers, find out they are not, but decide you will just run with it for the sake of views.
You even state in your comments that it’s good for attention and it’s poses as a question. But you knew the answer to that question so why ask it?
You constantly contradict yourself, even your views on sambar apparently never presenting in full profile. I’ve been sambar hunting for nearly 20 years and I would say over 75% I’ve shot in full broadside profile.
Your inexperience in these areas does not qualify you to be giving out constant bad advice to beginners.
I appreciate you want to share your journey in learning to become a better hunter and get that message out, and you can put together some well edited footage, but you shouldn’t be giving advice when it’s clear that you are clearly not educated or well practised enough yourself.
Hi, you've raised a good point about the Qld hunt video I posted last year. I'm not sure that everyone would agree that it was click bait. Both the video title and the thumbnail present the topic of poachers as a question, not as a fact. It was an honest question and true to the content. It's not like the videos thumbnail or title says, "poachers ruined my hunt," with the thumbnail having a picture of a poacher on it. If you clicked on the video because it was interesting l, framed as a question, I would argue that it was indeed interesting. Click bait offers false promises. This video documented an encounter with what we thought (and could still have been) poachers. The title perfectly represents the content, which is not click bait.
I am 100% beside you on going onto someones property fall stop without permision by the property owner regardless on whether or not you have wounded an animal, anyone who says anything else has no idea about the law, you go into anywhere you do not have permision to enter to hunt , you WILL loose ur firearms and ur license to own or shoot firearms ever again if ur caught, i suspect there are a few keyboard big game hunters making claims they no nothing about, the only thing i didnt like about that video is the shot u made , i dont like neck shots or head shots, but in saying that if you are very confident in ur shooting accuracy & abilty that is an option although risky , i think most hunters if not all have lost an injured animal, nothing is guaranteed in hunting and its not a good feeling. cheers
Thanks mate, good to know I have the support of hunters on that property decision. Ive been amazing at home many people has saod "you should have kust gone into that property." Crazy! The number of people who thought it 3as ok to break the law and ignore someone's rights wqs staggering. You're right, too. That shot was too risky. Next time, I won't be taking a shot like that. Thanks for sharing mate.
Hi Chris, thanks for this video. Personally I think the video should be removed. What you need to understand is the general public can and will run with this type of controversy. Those with a beef will, those with no issue, you will basically not get the support. Just look at where we are heading with land closures, firearm licenses etc. Those that should stand up don’t. So we go through the steps of the shot to the end. Sure, it’s difficult to get a clear shot of the whole animal, but mate, you could not make an ethical shot with the minimum view you had. We could all see that hence why you are getting so much feedback. That shot shouldn’t have been taken. So now we have a wounded animal for at least 2 hours. The sound of that unfortunate deer wasn’t pleasant. Had it been me, I still would have at least tracked the deer further. I doubt very much that deer would have survived with what we were hearing. A possible slit of the throat could have ensued. What if the land owner found a wounded deer by gunshot on their property without any contact as to why? Cheers mate.
Hi Alan, all great points.
Just to clarify a few things, I might have failed to mention the video. The land owner was contacted about the possibility of the wounded animal being on their property that day.
I agree as well that it would have been a good idea to push a little further towards the property in the search, but not at the expense of breaking the law or moving against the landowners' wishes. That would not only have been illegal and immoral, but had it gotten out (which these things do), the optics would have looked terrible for the hunting community.
Regarding the use of the martial by anti hunters and your opinion on taking the video down. I believe that many of the issues that we are now facing are a result of us not being open about things like this in the past, and now we are seeing the skeletons we've tried to hide come out. Anti hunters will always find something, somewhere to use against us. What's important is us getting ahead of them, taking control of the narrative, and being open, honest, and authentic about hunting. For too long our large Australian hunting organisations have presented the public with a cookie cutter clean and fluffy version of hunting, and when the public see the poor examples of a select few we then look like a bunch of liars. We need to be honest and authentic with the non hunting community about our lifestyle, communicating clearly why its wholesome (the good and bad) if we ever stand a chance at building trust or repport with them.
The modern audience sees through the BS and finds no connection or comradary with anyone who's being anything less than authentic. I believe we need mortal and ethical people with influence and good communication skills to step up and help represent our community. If we want our lifestyle to continue, if we want a seat at the table, if we want public support, we can't keep doing what we've been doing the last 50 years. We need a change.
ANYWAY rant aside. Thank you for your wisdom, Alan. I really appreciate it. You've made some great points and given me food for thought.
P.S. I won't be taking a shot like that again, difficult or unethical. Regardless of how different people see it. I'll want a higher rate of success for future shots. I want to be better, i want better for the animal too :)
Hi Chris, I agree with Alan here . I don’t believe it is the right representation of hunting . It doesn’t happen all the time and shouldn’t.
I believe it will be taken the wrong way. I understand you’re trying to show people how to deal with something like this and I think you have the right idea . I just don’t think this video is the right way about it. The gasping sound of a wounded deer is not the way of showing the public that recreational hunters are ethical.
Chris, thanks for the reply mate. What is needed most is every one of us needs to make a stand for our rights in this sport. Unfortunately there are only a few. I put forward the question in a hunting forum as to what concerns people would have if all rights of gun ownership was removed. I got one response. This person said the lack of responses was my answer!
@@sallybluett-boyd9510 yeah that portion of the video of the deer struggling to breath at least should be edited. Cheers mate.
Parks vic killed hundreds from chopper and on foot dont care about wounded animals,so why hunters should think about ethics? Its just one animal there is millions sambar in vic
It's a very good point and a confusing narrative for sure.