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Comment by rcurry | Hacker News Reader

I’m a predator hunter and do most of my hunting at night. The reason they don’t want you using lights is that deer are mostly crepuscular creatures and so jacklighting them gives you a huge advantage. I see trophy bucks at night every time I’m out after coyotes - the same animals would be really hard to sneak up on during daylight hours, when their senses are more highly attenuated to avoiding threats.

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I get that using lights makes it easier, the part I don't get is why it should be illegal for it to be easier.

It would make sense to me if there was a "hunting league" like the NFL or something which had rules on what you're allowed to use, but why should this be a law?

It feels like making RVs illegal because they make camping too easy. If you want the challenge, just don't use them?

Because all hunting laws are (or should) be to either a) keep people safe or b) to give the animals a fighting chance, to keep it more "sporting". There's a lot more to hunting than just killing animals, in fact that's a tiny percentage of what you're out there doing (scouting, tracking, hiking around, sitting still for hours, etc). All of the "sport" part of hunting goes out the window if you can simply spotlight deer after dark and knock em over.

And if you wanted to know the REAL reason these laws exist, it's the same reason that gyms over-sell memberships. In many places, including where I live, the state wants your money, but don't want EVERYONE with a license to get an animal, because that wouldn't be sustainable. There are places where more tags are given out, and special hunts are provided to do actual population control, but I'd wager that a lot of states don't have that level of problem, and simply want the cash.

So there ya go. It keeps the "sport" of hunting alive, and generates more revenue for states because they can sell a ton of tags that don't get filled.

Over-selling tags for profit generation sounds like a problem that needs to be taken care of.

I'm a hunter, and it's not a problem at all. You shouldn't be successful every time, and there should be some dang rules :) The state is doing exactly what they should be, given the circumstances. In fact, I'd expect a state with a game PROBLEM to do the same damn thing!

If I was successful every time, I'm not sure I'd enjoy the game as much. And if you've ever hunted, you'd know that you can do everything right and still walk away with nothing to show from your time. That's how it goes, anything less and you end up with killing and not hunting. I appreciate the meat in my freezer, if/when it comes, but being able to guarantee it isn't what I signed up for.

Plus, that "over-selling" is money into outdoor conservation, as long as it's not mismanaged to hell I don't care that they get a little extra. If you start moving that money into other bullshit then sure, we have an issue. But most of us like the outdoors and want to keep it around.

I guess, and give me some rope here because I’m not a deer hunter, it’s that trophy bucks make more trophy bucks.. if you make it easy to cull them then you lose the next generation.

Deer are pretty smart, but they are crepuscular which means they feed at dawn and at dusk, when it’s harder for predators to see them. Using lights gives a hunter a huge advantage.

Because it's basically pouching?

I’m not against hunting - I think it’s hypocritical for anyone who eats meat to tsk tsk at hunting.

But doesn’t a hunter with a gun already give you an unfair advantage over a deer?

The unfair advantage is over other hunters.

Hunters would prefer to hunt by daylight, for the most part. If light-hunting at night were allowed, that would be the only way to take the best game, because as the comment you're responding to notes, it's much easier.

So everyone would be forced to do the thing they don't want to do, if they want to take a deer at all. That's a bad equilibrium, what we call "not sporting".

Seriously, your post was the second one talking about an unfair advantage.

As a non hunter, I was thinking of hunter vs deer not hunter vs hunter. That makes perfect sense.

Makes sense.

Not trying to be a jerk, believe me, but try it some time. Deer have this mysterious ability to f*cking vanish during hunting season. In one town I lived in 3M had a plant with a little pond that was fenced off. During deer season all the deer would hop the fence and hang out at the factory because they knew nobody was allowed to hunt there. It was hilarious.

Sounds like natural selection. The ones that had that intuition survived, and the ones that didn’t were removed from the gene pool.

I'm always entertained by how deer will wait at sidewalks for you to stop or drive by (excluding the dead ones).

Edit: https://i.imgur.com/IssfH8d.jpeg

I would be afraid to eat meat from those animals as they were drinking water from "3M fenced pond".

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