That would be a great bait gun. I definitely agree with you on getting close; there is nothing like it. Although I have hunted in the desert with modern rifles where the shots can get very long I prefer to sneak in on the critturs and get a close shot; whatever "close" is under the circumstances. In Nevada close is often 200 yards (my brothers like to shoot at 400 to 600 yards rather than stalk unless they are using there bows) here in North Idaho close can be and often is 10 feet so it is much more my style of hunting. A lot of our woods here are considered rainforest so it makes for a lot of close work. I prefer to hunt the thick woods with one of my flintlocks or like this spring my "new" 16 bore ball gun. Last year I was hunting black bears over bait with my flintlock mainly. However the day I got my bear was an extremely heavy rain storm (I wasn't even hunting really just replenishing the bait) when I got to the bait a smallish bear was setting near it so I hiked back to the truck (since all I had was my cap&ball revolver and it isn't legal to shoot bears with one here) got my mosin nagant m44 carbine which I had brought because of the rain, snuck back up on it and shot it at 6 paces. I always like to be close because it virtually eliminates the possibility of wounding an animal. Of course a big lead ball helps a lot, so much better than those little .30 caliber spritzers!!!