Let me ask you a question? What difference does it make what you're marked as? Is the hunt about you or the deer?

If you're a subsistance hunter, you take anything you can, just like any other predator. If you're a sport hunter, you follow the rules. If the rules say you can take a doe, you can take a doe. They are usually better eating anyway because they're not stressed during the season.

I'm not sure where some of these family hunting traditions come from, but I suppose it might be a good thing to honor them, even if they're only a generation or two old, however, unless somebody knows why "we don't kill does", maybe they ought find out and decide if it still makes sense.

Hunters, even sloppy ones, don't have near the impact on game populations that ski resorts or ranches do. When you add to that the 35 acre "ranchettes" that are springing up all over the place, it's a wonder the game managment people can accomplish anything productive.

Game wardens usually do a pretty good job, unless you consider how in the past they were more likely to bust an indian for poaching than a white, and still do in some areas until traditional hunting rights are finally recognized. But that aside, their game management skills are pretty impressive given the obstacles posed by development or other encroachments on winter ranges or even summer ranges for that matter. Still their science isn't hard and fast and they're constantly revising things to try to keep the conservative balance mentioned above. Sometimes the science works and sometimes it doesn't.

All which doesn't mean too much if you're out in the field in order to get "marked" as a great hunter. I think that's the wrong reason to be there in the first place.

The fact remains that the reason you can kill a deer is more because he or she lets you than any intrinsic skills you might bring to the "arena". I know that's probably going ruffle a few feathers but so what? This isn't about somebody's ego and the egomaniacs, just like everybody else, usually miss all the deer that eluded them successfully while they are relentlessly pursuing their trophy or whatever. They didn't even see those deer, no matter how great their estimates of their hunting skills might be.

So maybe a little more humility is in order, not to mention more respect for the animals? If you've clear on that, the question of who is or isn't marked as less of a hunter will hardly arise, and if it does, you can blow it off without remorse or recrimination.

Edited by - rita on 11/17/2002 00:06:38

Edited by - rita on 11/17/2002 00:08:39