Ahh the internet experts rear their ugly head. Make no mistake, I thoroughly enjoy shooting a whitetail deer. I hope nobody elsetries to hide that just because of a few high road ethicists on the internet. Since most of us hunt 99.999% of the time and shoot during the rest, I suppose anyone who has spent much time in the woods enjoys the hunting part a little more than the shooting!

I hunt very hard guiding, scouting and hunting over 300 days a year. Guiding a harvest count of 30-40 mature deer a year requires a TON of work. This amount of dedication, and in my opinion "Sacrifice" (of personal hunting opportunities) is something I take pride in. When I am able to break away and do some hunting on my own it always has a purpose... not just to feed those who need it... but to control an overflowing population of deer.

The farms I hunt are under a land management agreement, meaning nobody else can hunt there BUT I have to keep things in balance properly for the landowner. In many cases the landowners say "Kill them all" but others just want a healthy herd. When I take to the field to remove does in mass quantities I waiste no time, because I don't have it. A doe and her two yearling doe fawns are perfect fodder for the numbers game I'm manipulating.

After sitting in a specific stand and watching the same 13 does hit a field for 11 days straight it does tend to take away some of the "Challenge" of killing them. But, because of the numbers and my commitment to the property and resource, some of them have to go. I enjoy shooting a muzzleloader, especially at long range, so I often try to position myself for 150-200 yard shots. When those shots aren't available I take any unique shot I can get, such as offset shoulders or double shoulders. Occasionally if a deer is under 100 yards I will shoot it square in the nose, obviously resulting in an instant death and untarnished venison. Havingsmokepolled around 40 deer without even BLOODTRAILING one I consider myself a little beyond "Competant" with the firearm. If any range or shot selection was dangerous to other people or deer, or could easily result in a lost animal I would not take it. This is often the case, but better shots are inevitable in most cases.

Take all this with a grain of salt, because in the end I will hunt how I want and never explain it to anyone. The level of success and experience that comes with YEARS and WEEKS and HOURS in the stand gives a person a good understanding of what they are capable of. One thing I am incapable of is dealing with armchair ethicists who reach WAY out therefor something to argue about.

PS: How does it get any more humane than blowing brain matter out of the skull at 2,000 feet per second? You must be the same bunch that disagree with clubbing seals, drowning coonand knocking cattle? [&o] Don't give me any "WHAT IF" crap, that's justa lame excuse for your poor examples.