RE: R Guided & Private Land , Really Hunting????????????
Hunting is a personal and should remain that way. Hunt where you like to hunt and hunt an animal that fulfills your personal goal, be it the freezer or a something like killing a little bigger deer each year.
All of the record books are full of guided animals and high-fenced animals. Public land or natural private land will rarely be able to compete with high-fenced, year round fed, mineral supplemented, genetically enhanced deer. Leave the record books to the managed ranches and those with more money than time. Record books are a wonderful promotional gimmick
for the sport.
There is nothing morally wrong with shooting a Booner off a corn feeder, at a high fenced managed ranch, out of some else's stand. The deer is likely to have a nickname and an ear tag, but who cares. It is adeveloped asset, no different than a steer.
If someone wants to do this and put it in the book -GOOD!
This type of hunting is not what I choose to pursue. I think it's a stretch to call it hunting, but...
Think of the money -the TV shows, the ranches, the guides, the catalogs full of gear. This type of hunting attracts the armchair outsdoorsmen who have large expendable incomes and homes in the suburbs. These guys are the massivepolitical and monetary support that will keep hunting legal and viable.
Those of us who like to get into a little deeper level of hunting can be guides, or just strike off into the National forest. Also most "armchair hunters" eventually move on. A lot of them will tell you that theraghorn from the National forestis really their favorite trophy - overthe 350 bull from the game ranch.
Yes, the ideas are different, but we need to get along for the sake of the sport. If the only hunters are those who are willing to go it alone in the wilderness for weeks at a time to get an animal, then we will be a small and lonely group. A group that will soon be extinct.
Hunters, shooters, fishermen, sportsmen, and even farmers need to stay united and not be divided by issues like game ranches, archery vs. rifle, feeder hunting, etc.
Let's not force our views on each other. Respectfully disagree - and hunt your own way.