At what moment is a hunting license necessary?

I don’t have any idea as to why would you go around the woods with a rifle if you’re not hunting.

I have shot a rifle in the woods while wearing an orange cap. I was shooting at cans and plastic bottles. Of course I didn’t need a hunting license.

If you go out intending to shoot at animals, get a license. There’s a lot of work that goes into managing wildlife. Pay your fair share. Don’t be a weasel.

If you are hunting anything that has a specific season and/or you need tags to hunt then any animal that falls under this criteria is under hunting regulations. Gook luck explaining to a fish and game warden why you are carrying a rifle in the woods in the middle of deer,turkey or bear season and you are unlicensed claiming to just be shooting tin cans. Uh huh, likely story.

I live in a major wildlife/hunting area here in the Sierra Nevada high foothills and I have no mercy for poachers of any kind. If I see you taking aim at a deer or a turkey or even a squirrel without permit I will bust your ass. I once called in a neighbor for shooting Woodpeckers. All birds in CA. except Pigeons, Starlings and House Sparrows are protected by law. I have run more than one dickhead hunter off my properties over the years.

In many states, you can be fined or arrested for being armed in the wild without a hunting license. Same for fishing. So, I would say a hunting license becomes necessary the moment you enter the wild with arms.

The Crow has it, intent (as you claim) is not important; if you have the ability (a gun and ammo) to be hunting and are in the woods, you are hunting. Target practice done at a rifle range.

Sale of any license, hunting or otherwise is just a way for the Political State to
A- Control your behavior
B- Take your money at the same time
A perfect scheme

@josie No, It is a way to regulate how many animals can be taken while protecting the populations from the great white hunters that would kill any and everything in their sights if they could.
It is a means of protecting our natural resources from gross and negligent poaching and the revenue goes to wildlife management I am not a fan of sport hunting at all but legal, responsible hunting for food and/or survival needs needs to be regulated as well.

YES, intent matters. I go shooting in Michigan. I wouldn’t shoot a squirrel if it climbed on my target. I don’t have a license and nobody would bother me shooting in the woods.

Get the local regulations if you aren’t sure, don’t type your uninformed guesses on the Internet.

For example:

“A Hunting License is NOT Required When…Target practicing or sighting in a firearm at an identifiable, artificially constructed target, and there is no attempt to take game.” -Michigan DNR 2016 Hunting and Trapping Digest

@josie You obviously aren’t a hunter. People who do hunt understand that game is not an infinite resource and gladly contribute to maintain a viable game population.

Or maybe you’re a poacher. On the respectability scale, hunters see poachers as about on the level with a drunk giving blow jobs behind the dumpster at 7–11 for beer money.

@coloma
Regulated by whom?
Your wiser-than-you masters?
You accept the arrangement as long as it suits your tastes.
You disapprove or resist when it does not.

@Call_Me_Jay
Read my posts before you judge

^^ Hunting for fun isn’t same as hunting for food / survival.. don’t you think so?

I am thinking of this in strictly a legal sense. I’m vegan.

Hunting and fishing licenses provide revenue for wildlife conservation and by law only this. I always buy my licenses and never poach.

@josie Wrong. I am a steward of wildlife, I worked in wildlife rehab for some years and have lived on rural country/mountain properties for the last 25 years. As I said, I am not an advocate of sport hunting but….the “wiser than whom” is not the issue, the issue is, hunting aside. state and federal lands and their species need to be protected and managed.
WTF..should we not have driver licenses, building permits, smog tests on our cars? As @ARE_you_kidding_me said, hunting and fishing licenses provide revenue for wildlife conservation and are the reasons for licensing hunters.

@Ltryptophan From a legal sense, get the regulations for your area. The PDF I linked above is for Michigan. That same book is available at most gas stations in rural Michigan.

I also go fishing in Wisconsin and Colorado and it’s the same – the fishing and hunting regulation books are freely available at gas stations and available online.

Yall are off topic. The question is not about pretending to not be hunting, while really poaching. No. The question is: “When are you hunting?”

Are you hunting when you buy a deer blind at Cabelas?

Are you hunting if you go into the woods without a firearm, but with a tree stand?

I’m sure I can just find the law and read it.

Not necessarily. Many photographers and naturalists have portable deer blinds and tree stands. If you are not armed, you do not need a hunting permit.

Yall are off topic.
Are you hunting when you buy a deer blind at Cabelas?
Are you hunting if you go into the woods without a firearm, but with a tree stand?

It’s disingenuous wankery and navel gazing to pretend you don’t know the answers to those questions. Boring.

I gave you an exact on-topic answer (for Michigan) above. You aren’t attempting to take game? No license needed.

Until you kill something you are just strolling in the woods with your gun.

Until you kill something you are just strolling in the woods with your gun.

Wrong. You go out to shoot a deer, you get your deer license beforehand.

Millions of people do it. It’s not a big deal. It’s not oppressive. You do it.

^^ yeah obviously but legally you have done nothing illegal until you actually “hunt” as in harvest you quarry.

^^Fish and Wildlife officers will disagree and you will pay a pretty penny to prove your innocence in court, possibly having to mortgage your home. I agree that one should actually commit a crime before one is accused of doing so, but the reality is that America has changed rapidly into a state bent on making good citizens felons, thereby removing their civil rights and making them servants of the probationary and parole systems—and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.

@Espiritus_Corvus The number of people with loaded high caliber rifles wearing camo out in the woods who DO NOT intend to shoot animals and will be arrested is precisely ZERO.

The question is about a problem that does not exist. Stop with the dumbass paranoia and “libertarian” bluster.

Omphaloskepsis, seriously? My topic steering was not directed at one person.

Watch who you call wanker. Your mom. ...Taught you better.

I’m not a hunter, so I can’t speak with a great deal of knowledge on the topic. However, I would say that as a general rule it is a bad to really-bad idea to go walking around in the woods in hunting season “wearing camouflage”. Good hunters are trained to clearly identify their target (and background potential shooting area) before they take their shot, so “good hunters” wouldn’t simply take a wild shot at some unidentified noise in the woods that “could be a deer”. But not everyone armed and in the woods during hunting season – and likely to shoot – is a good hunter. So if you’re going to be in the woods during hunting season it’s still a good idea to wear blaze orange so that at least you have a chance of being seen by hunters and on that basis “not shot at or toward”.

I do know a little bit about fishing licenses, however, and some of the same principles apply. Anyone can be “in a boat” on a lake or river during fishing season, and no fishing license necessarily applies there. However, if you’re on a boat with fishing tackle and bait or lures, then you’d better have a license, because the presumption is that you’re there to fish. The legal presumption is that if you have the equipment then you also have the intent, and just because the game warden finds you currently fish-less only means he caught you in time, or you managed to discard the evidence.

@CWOTUS Are these your rules of thumb, or is this your careful analysis of the law on the books.

Rule of thumb, @Ltryptophan. I’m not going to walk through a likely or potential non-combat shooting gallery disguised to blend into the background. Unless you were talking about the fishing thing. I got that from friends and family who fish pretty much whenever they can.

I almost took an arrow once riding some logging roads with my horse during bow hunting season. Freaking arrow zinged right over my horse and I and ricocheted off a tree about 6 feet behind me. Never did find out who the asshole was, I galloped out of there and back onto the trail. Who the hell mistakes a HORSE and rider for a deer?

Must have been one of those redneck bubbas with their 100 pak of Coors lite in the weeds.
Another friend of mines horse took a bullet to the neck he lived under the same circumstances some years ago, pretty fucking scary when you can’t even go out to ride your horse in a wildnerness area without worrying someone is going to take crack shots at you.