I see a few problems, and a few advantages, with hunting with a sling for small game. The first one is required area, a larger sling will often require quite a clear area to travel through, and you often don't spot most small animals in range until you are almost on top of them (at least in my case). It seems to me that for accuracy and practicality a smaller sling is required, which makes doing the tennis style throw and the figure of 8 harder for me, but practice makes perfect.

Now I've not hit anything yet, but I've damn well tried. The most effective tactic for someone of my skill level would be one of ambush, waiting outside an animals den for it to emerge. This gives me the advantage of positioning (I can get to a range where I am most accurate) and means I can find a suitable place to avoid detection. I could just set up a bunch of snares, as well. So sling hunting at my modest skill level is not really that much of a good idea.

I'm sure most of you are much better trackers and shots than me, how would you go about bagging something tastey to eat? Just toddle along and plunk it from a tree branch with a well placed shot? Does the rapid spinning of the stone impart it's energy onto the target, making even a small sling effective?

Only if I get to eat the acne encrusted teenager unwittingly handing me a bag of grease and cheese.

     It is a hard thing to hit/kill with a sling on a game animal. It can be done but the kills I have were as much luck as anything else. A fox and a groundhog were both in a open field and I was on a railroad bed. Pretty much the same with rabbits. I had wide open road shots. I missed a heck of a lot more than I hit. All and all a sling is a area type weapon. Sling it at a bunch of the enemy and let God worry about who it hits.  The best I can do with the time I devote to pratice is hitting a big coffee can 1/3 of the time at 20 meters or so. That is not good enough for me to just depend on a sling to hunt. It would be a good way for me to lose weight more than likely.

     In the woods the sling is best used to frighten game to move, hopefully in your direction. Trees and brush preclude much else. A short sling works best. It is a good tool to use in the woods to be able to get a shot at game. I used my sling once to scare a Bear away from my stand.  It was too little to shoot and too dumb to leave.  I don't like them around when deer hunting.

     I am not a big fan of snares. You will be just as likely to catch a housecat as a rabbit. They do work well on trails though, there is no dought about that. If you ain't too picky about what you catch that is. At least with a leg hold steeltrap I can let loose what I don't want. Usually dogs and fox are only caught by their toes and will lay down and not try to twist their leg/toes off.  You can let Rover go usually. Cats will for the most part break a leg in the trap and will need to be dispatched. Nothing worse for trapping than Kitty limping home with 3 legs! With snares most everything is dead when you check them.

lobohunter wrote on Apr 9^th, 2007 at 5:54pm:


That's not what I said, lobo! I know of your efforts in this area, and a few other peoples. It's just most of us are not nearly skilled enough to hit even small game at distances that would make a sling practical.

Hehe, I see! Tell me, do you think if I got better at judging range I'd have a better chance of getting something onto a dinner plate?

I hunt with a sling and hitting and killing is not the point, the fun is in trying something that is nearly impossible. If I wanted to kill I would use a gun or crossbow. To date in only 35 years of trying I have slung and killed 3 ducks 1 rabbit and 6 blackbirds. Impossible no, barely possible, yes.

bigkahuna wrote on Apr 9^th, 2007 at 9:07pm:

bigkahuna
well they are quite easy to make

Just as a hypothetical thought, if you had a solid pouched sling that could hold 20 pebbles instead of one large rock, wouldn't hunting something like ducks or squirrels be easier?  A spray of small, fast moving stones would at least stun a critter enough to walk up and dispatch it, even if the shot didn't kill it.  Might not be the most humane, but if it's my survival on the line, sorry Alvin.