Fish shooting

[Gone4Day]

I wouldn’t want to ridicule somebody’s tradition, but this is too funny. It is legal to shoot fish with a gun in Vermont. Trout refuses your fly? Pull out the sidearm and shoot it. :-o

bloomberg.com

 

[RLeeP]

All this tells me is that it may not be an altogether bad idea to either restrict city people to 3-day passes in rural areas or at least make it a felony to provide them with rural real estate listings...

The difference between Vermont and Midtown Manhattan is becoming smaller and smaller with each passing year.

 

[Acristickid]

Hummm... Not just crazy, but levels of craziness with this one.

"On shore or in tree, the trick is to fire off a round close -- but not too close -- to the fish, knocking them out. As the fish float to the top, their white bellies often emerging first, the shooter scurries into the water and retrieves his catch before it comes to. A good shot can stun the female and up to five or six of her male suitors at once. A bad shot can leave supper pulverized. "

 

[JeffK]

Actually it seems mostly like a dig by the old-timers at the hippie/yuppie newcomers. Some of those old-timers like nothing better than a tourist or recent NYC transplant getting all flustered when seeing someone go out fish shooting. There seems to be a big divide with most Vermont newcomers being anti-gun and hunting (although maybe into C&R flyfishing - the famous "Orvis Cowboys") and locals who view shooting and hunting as the perfect past-time. Can't shoot on trout streams and it is somewhat like bowfishing, although pike and walleyes are popular targets. Comes up for a vote fairly regularly. The newcomers always think this is the year that fish shooting will be history, but the locals end up showing who holds the votes.

I don't think shooting a fish will pulverize it!

 

[nimrod]

Good social commentary there.

I grew up near the Vermont border and 95% of my grandparents, aunts and uncles and 30 cousins live there so I spent a lot of time there (including attending college) in my yute.

I don't get up there often but, via observation and talking to my brother who lives there, the place has changed from a rural state with a lot of hard working farmers and other folks to a combination yuppie/entitlement state due mainly to all the recent transplants from Eastern cities who yearn to "get away from it all" and then proceed to being it all with them.

Encouraging to see the true locals are still holding sway in some areas. The first week of deer season was virtually a holiday week back in the day.

 

[Padraic]

Geez, makes noodling look totally normal by comparison. Still, whatever works for them. If you are "gunning" for dinner, I don't see where the method really makes a difference. And although it sounds like shooting into a lake is begging for a bad ricochet, I bet it is pretty safe. Water stops bullets pretty quickly.

I couldn't help but wonder if a black powder rifle would be a good choice. I mean a large caliber, slow moving slug would hit the water with a big slap. That should daze and confuse a limit with one shot. Unless you need the bullet to penetrate a little better than that. But even a 357 is only going to go a couple inches into the water. (The Mythbusters did a show on this a little while ago... Speaking of loonies)

 

[brookieaddict]

It goes to show that Vermonters understand what little personal time we fisher/shooter persons have. The Rainbow wont rise to your #32 Golly Hatchet with a droper,pow,pow smoke him with your .357. Dirty Harry should have made of movie there titled ,Vermont, Bite it or Die Sucker.

 

[FarmerDave]

JeffK wrote:

I don't think shooting a fish will pulverize it!

It doesn't. :-D

 

[FarmerDave]

Padraic wrote:
Geez, makes noodling look totally normal by comparison. Still, whatever works for them. If you are "gunning" for dinner, I don't see where the method really makes a difference. And although it sounds like shooting into a lake is begging for a bad ricochet, I bet it is pretty safe. Water stops bullets pretty quickly.

I couldn't help but wonder if a black powder rifle would be a good choice. I mean a large caliber, slow moving slug would hit the water with a big slap. That should daze and confuse a limit with one shot. Unless you need the bullet to penetrate a little better than that. But even a 357 is only going to go a couple inches into the water. (The Mythbusters did a show on this a little while ago... Speaking of loonies)

Shooting into water at a shallow angle is begging for a ricochet. My hunter safety training in Pa at age 12 stressed that. I’ll take their word for it because even a golf ball will ricochet off of water. I’ve done that more than once.

It sounds to me like they want maximum shock wave, therefore Black Powder probably wouldn’t be my first choice. A smaller faster bullet usually transfers more energy on impact. The Formula for kinetic energy is ½ mass times velocity squared. Since velocity is squared, increasing velocity increases the kinetic energy much more than increasing the mass. The downside is if it does ricochet, it will go a whole lot further.

Bullets do not penetrate water very far, and handguns are worse because of their stubby shape of the bullet. But if a pistol is your weapon of choice, I’m thinking a S&W Model 500 with 350 grain HPs would transfer a lot of energy. But at 2 dollars a bullet, I’d rather use a bow.

 

[Will]

"Shooting into water at a shallow angle is begging for a ricochet. "

You bet. The only time I have ever had a bullet ricochet was as a kid shooting at frogs with a 22. Even a relatively low velocity bullet like that skipped an extremely long way (at least a hundred yards). I could tell because it threw up a very visible water spout way on the other side of the large pond I was on. From that tall splash and the time it took, the bullet must have skipped high into the air before coming down again. I quit that pretty quick. I assume these fish shooters aim at a much steeper downward angle, but it still makes me wonder why there haven't been more injuries over the years.