I Thought You Couldn’t Hunt With An AR-15?
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 10 months ago
Jeramiah Mathis, of the Hamilton, Montana area, has been hunting his entire life, and before he was legally able to hunt, he was tagging along with his Dad while he was hunting and laying traps. Jeramiah wasted no time having his first successful hunt and shot his first deer at the age of 12. His passion for hunting increases with every hunt he does.
Now 29 years-old, Jeramiah went on ”his” first cat hunt up the West Fork on February 10th of this year. He had been out before with his father-in-law, a local outfitter at Rocking W Outfitters in Darby, assisting out-of-state hunters with their mountain lion hunts, but Jeramiah hadn’t ever been the one trying to fill his own cat tag.
Jeramiah’s hunting buddy on this particular trip was his six year-old daughter. “Hunting is in her blood”, Jeramiah responded with when I asked him if his daughter has any interest in hunting when she is old enough. “She is always asking me to take her up in the snow to look for animals” he added. This lucky youngin got to be right there with her parents when her Mom shot her first whitetail and her Dad shot his first mountain lion.
The cat was taken with Jeramiah’s AR-15 sporting rifle. This particular gun is his gun-of-choice while hunting nowadays, and it certainly proved to be effective with this hunt!
You mean you can actually hunt with an AR-15 – or as some prefer, a modern sporting rifle? Maybe it’s sort of like hunting feral hogs, the ones that run in such huge packs that you need a high capacity magazine for them, except that with hogs you take a lot of shots and with the big cat he apparently took one.
And Stephen Bayazes defended his life with one too. I guess you can just do all sorts of things with them.
UPDATE: Rick Keyes comments over Facebook that “I have used mine to deer hunt for 8 years since my last shoulder surgery.”
On February 25, 2013 at 11:51 pm, Rick Keyes said:
Gang to update on what was posted on facebook. I had a shoulder surgery that added 30 screws and took away my ability to handle even a .308 recoil for more than a shot or two. I was not going to let that take away my ability to shoot and hunt. I luckily live in a state where I can hunt with expanding .223 ammunition. So far in eight years I have taken 12 deer with an AR and only one needed a second shot and that was my fault.
The younguns in the family usually use an AR that Pappa loans then until they are big enough for something else. They are light, accurate and have dropped everything the kids have hit.
Would I take one Elk hunting not unless in a survival situation, nor would I take it bear hunting but for most game from Prairie Dogs to Whitetails the AR works great. Whoever says differently already has their mind made up about the weapon or has not really ever hunted.