Sorry, but that's nottrue at all. Subsistence hunting isentirely different. A subsistence hunter who passed on a fat, dry doe because he wanted to stoke his ego with a large rack wouldn't be welcomed back home. I'm not making the point just to argue, but to point out that I see some big cultural differences here. So the question really is whetherthe obsession to shoot big bucks is corrupting bowhunting as you know it.

When I first took up archery in 1970, there were very few archers where I lived and we were considered to be irresponsiblebecausewe were treatingthe serious business ofputting meat on the table into a sport. If it wasn't for our ability to buy a second tag during rifle season,I have no doubt that archery would have been outlawed. Even at that, there were strong objections - we were spooking the deer, we were wounding deer, etc. But since all tags were either sex back then, our success rate was pretty good even though we were all shooting recurves. So as long as we broughtextra meat off the mountain, we were tolerated.

As the populationand affluence grew, (affluence being a major factor in this issue),we started seeing non-locals showing up during the hunt, followed bycomparatively wealthy out-of-state hunters. That's when I was first introduced to the whole concept of trophy hunting. After all, affluent people can get meat anywhere.

Times have sure changed. But one thing is as true today as it ever was - the rack on the deer you shoot is as much a matter of luck as it is skill - sometimes more.

Archery was once abouttakingpride in one's hunting skills. For me, taking pride in the size of the antlers is a poor substitute and a bit of a fraud. But that's me, and after all, there's a lot of hunters who've never known anything but the value of antlers and so would have no clue what I'm talking about. That's a cultural difference.