Talk:Game stalker

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Can someone in Britain speak to the use of this term. In general usage is "deer stalking" exactly synonymous with "deer hunting?" Rorybowman 00:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

No. In Britain, the word 'hunting' tends to be associated with hunting with hounds and horses, whether of deer, fox or other game. Shooting game is 'shooting'. Hunting by stealth, though with a gun, is stalking. Another sub-division of shooting is wildfowling, that is shooting duck and geese. Expressions like la chasse are translated as 'hunting' although people are aware that in places like Canada and France, la chasse is used to mean hunting with a gun but the answer to your question is that the two concepts are clearly distinct though not absolutely so. (RJP 13:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC))

Thanks for the clarification. Any chance I could talk you into adding this into the upcoming Hunting Methods section at hunting? Rorybowman 16:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use of term game

I have trimmed the bolded sentence from the following paragraph as possibly erroneous etymology.

Among hunter-gatherers, where their quarry is timid, stalking is a way of livelihood in order that they may eat what they catch. Use of the word game implies that it is being done for sport. Otherwise quarry would be the term used in relation to a human hunter or prey, in relation to an animal hunter. Nowadays, stalking is frequently done for purposes of photography or observation of animal behaviour rather than for killing.

Although the words "game" and "sport" are used in regards to hunting, I believe the evolution of these words in regards to this are not so clear. During the late medieval period (from about when records begin to exist) certain words such as "gentle" (which originally could have the meaning of "high-born" or "aristocratic" rather than the current sense of "tender") were used differently and the euphemism of "game" and "sport" are holdovers from this time which do not fit modern usage. For these purposes the terms game and quarry are interchangeable, but this entry happened to be created with the word "game" rather than "deer" (or as a reference to the type of hat that Sherlock Holmes sometimes wore). I thus think the sentences are potentially confusing. (And apparently need to go find out more about the hat as pennance for this thought!). -Rorybowman 15:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Still hunting vs. stalking

Still hunting is: waiting for the game to expose itself. You keep down-wind and mainly use your hearing to determine possible routes the game will take and visually concentrate on those routes, scanning for motion. Duration wise, walk/wait ratio is usually 1/10 or lower, i.e., walk for a minute and wait at least 10 minutes for a game to expose itself; repeat, repeat, repeat...

Stalking is: actively tracking the game. You mainly use your sight to find tracks and follow them. Keeping down-wind and following the tracks at the same time is simply not possible: e.g., when you lose a track, you try to find it by following concentric circular routes (getting wider each time) around the last track observed. So, when you at last spot the game at a distance, you usually get to its down-wind and switch to still hunting to wait for the game to present the best possible shot angle: its broadside.

195.174.167.47 21:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC) Ferhat Savcı