My two cents worth . . .

I have a responsibility to make a Clean - Quick Killing Shot. I have prayed for that with every shot I have taken and there have been many. Like everyone else though, I have had my share of bad shots. They are unavoidable and I have lost three animals in some 40 years of hunting.

However, I also owe a GREAT deal of respect to the animal that I shoot. That respect culmanates in expending every effort to track and recover these gratious animals.

I don't care what W VA's laws read . . . I owe it to the animal to use every skill that I posess to track it down. My hunting ends when I get an arrow into a deer and does not resume until the animal is recovered or I have spent the better part of a couple of days tracking it. I will however, while giving my animal time to bed down and bleed out . . . help my partners. Here in WA we are only allowed one deer per year.

This is a question of ethics and sometimes these lessons are the hardest of all to learn.

By 2004, the animal rights FREAKS are going to draft an initiative and circulate petitions for signatures their goal "To declare Bowhunting Inhumane." We will, only by policing ourselves and holding to a much higher standard, succeed by not giving these FREAKS any more ammunition.

Bowhunter