This is hard to pick one but I would say that maybe my ethics on taking a high percentage shot. I am a fanatic about many things that many of my bows hunting friends do not worry about. But if I had to pick one it might be taking only the best shot.

Last year my son and I were sitting on the ground in a little clump of pine trees. We had a decent 120 or so class buck appear walking right at us. He stopped 15 yards in front of us and proceeded to work on a scrape. He stood in front of us for a minute or two working the overhead branch, pawing the ground, working the branch, and then the next time he bent over to paw the ground he was looking right at us and new something was wrong. He jumped over a log and looked back for a second before he took off and was gone for good. My then 10 yr old son asked why I didn't shoot him and I told him the straight on shot with a bow is not a high percentage shot. I was hoping he would turn broadside while working on the scrape but he never did. My son then asked if I would have took that shot if he would have been a real huge buck. I told him that the size of the deer does not matter when it comes to taking the right shot and no I still would not have shot. We did not get the deer but it was a great learning experience for my son and it was also awesome for him to get to see a deer making a scrape so close to us! I also will not shoot a deer straight down below me from a tree stand. I know the shot works OK for some people but I also know that a deer hit in only 1 lung can live for a long time and it's not for me.

Following all legal laws is not enough ethics for me. There is no law against shooting too far, or not practicing, or shooting a dull broadhead, etc…. We need to police ourselves and decide our own limits because we owe it to the animals we hunt to make every effort to make a quick humane kill.