I've never met a hunter who cared about photography enough to engage in it, and any time one sees my photos they just talk about hunting. It's their thing that they enjoy. I know a lot of hunters and have bumped into a few random ones over the years as well. They ruin my experience and I ruin theirs. At least we are both smart enough to wear fluorescent orange so the whole thing can be avoided.
They are different worlds experienced at different ranges for different reasons. I could see the association before I started shooting... now I don't at all. If you do photography like a hunter, you get shitty photos. If you hunt like a photographer, you miss 99% of your tags unnecessarily. As far as "practice" goes, how much do you need? What skills are there to hone? Once you know how to hunt, you know how to hunt. You know the spots, you go to them. Hunters just dig in, de-scent, and hover over feeding grounds. That's how I've stumbled across them every time... seeing a blind in a clearing. After that it's just waiting for game to show up and then getting a clean shot, which is pretty much just more waiting. Photography only really compares if you're using a blind which most people don't. And if you're using a blind, it brings me back to my point: what skill is there to practice? It's a waiting game. If you're hunting birds, you're just having a dog flush them out and shooting them as they fly away at a far enough range to get decent spread. Again, worthless for photos.
They are completely different hobbies and professions. There is so much more to hunting than pulling a trigger as well. There's retrieval, then processing the meat, and then of course the cooking which they always take pride in. I know hunters whose smokers are going 12 months per year. Is there some overlap in interests? Yes, as with anything. But I've never met a hunter who practiced off-season with photography and in my expeirence, hunters and photographers are very differently minded people.
