First of all, Im not trying to degrade you, but you made a comment that seemed silly. Making it seem like a tracking job would take little time and that hunting for another animal was more important. You probably know this to be untrue, but lets not spread that idea to young impressionable posters/readers just to make a point.

Second of all, you're right, I hadnt considered a deep river or scuba diving. Im not a certified diver so I guess that deer is gonna be fish food. hehehe...All kidding aside though, I dont have any deep rivers to contend with around here. Though we did find one of my uncles bow kills in a river. The rack was just barely sticking out of the water. Spoilage is a concern, but I still try to find them as long as I think there is a chance to recover something. Maybe they didnt die right away, and the meat has only laid for a few hours etc. I try my best, thats all Im saying. Two days is usually the bare minimum that I can live with. If I were to look less, I dont think I could look in a mirror. Granted there are exceptions, but as a generel rule...Thats all Im saying. If your (or anyones) general rule is to look for an hour or two, than YES I do have a problem with that.

As for earning my respect, you may not want to, and you certainly dont have to. But it feels a lot better when people respect you in this life, and being a moderator on a hunting forum, I would want to portray hunting and myself in the most positive, friendly light that I could. Apparently this isnt one of your concerns though.

It certainly does but as you well know this is the internet and there is only so much that a person can learn about another through this media. There are many people here that just come here to aggrivate or irritate or take negative stances etc. so that being said I am not going to spend my time trying to earn the respect of every single person here. I am just not going to do it. I don't live my life trying to please other people and trying to make others like me and to be honest I feel sorry for those that do. I do however try to paint hunting in a positive light as well as this website and I don't think I misrepresented either one by saying that I disagreed with your generalizations that anyone who would shoot two deer before tracking the first one was unethical. Now to get back to the point at hand, do you still think it is unethical if I heard a deer crash but didn't see him crash?

I think a person could be mistaken and better recover the deer before they shoot another. If the hunter heard it crash, and its certainly dead, than it shouldnt take that person very long to go and recover it before climbing back into the treestand.

Hearing a deer crash, and seeing it laying dead before you are two totally different things. I honestly dont see the need to shoot two deer in one stand sitting, but as I said before, if its legal, and you recover both deer, its fine by me.

If killing two deer hinders a persons chances at recovering either deer, than perhaps they shouldnt be shooting two in one sitting. Its the less ethical thing to do.

Maybe you do show hunting in a positive light, and I understand it must be difficult to please everyone. I dont know you well enought to judge, but this time, I think you under-emphasized the importance of a thorough tracking and recovery job. In my eyes thats wrong, and its one of the main reasons anti-and non-hunters look down on bowhunting. Make every effort to recover each and EVERY animal you shoot and they will have less to hoot and hollar about. But shoot one, track it for a bit, and then attempt to shoot another, and we certainly give them something to hoot and hollar about.

Just remember to make it clear, that the recovery of every animal is more important than how many you shoot or how big.

Have a good one---Matt

No we just disagree. I don't personally feel they are mutually exclusive. I think you can shoot two and still do a thorough job of tracking both. If you shot a doe and were sure you made a killing shot and 15 seconds later a 180 class buck runs in, you aren't going to shoot him? Now that may be an easy question for you to answer here but I wonder if it would be as easy while you were in the stand. It's one thing to preach your ethics from the pulpit but do you back them up in the stand. I am just telling you what I have done what I will continue to do. If that doe is dead she is going to be dead when I get there and giving her time only helps my odds. If you think it's unethical then you shouldn't do it because ethics are determined by the individual not by society or other hunters. The anti hunters don't think shooting deer with a bow is ethical at all, no matter how you go about it. But you don't want them deciding your ethics for you, do you? You probably wouldn't appreciate being called unethical by them just like I don't appreciate being called unethical by you because my personal ethics differ from yours. I may have been guilty or not emphasising the importance or tracking but no more guilty than you are for jumping to conclusions and being to quick on the trigger to portray another hunter as unethical. JMO

Most any hunter would agree that you used a poor example to defend your case of shooting several deer. Simple as that. If I were you, I would have retracted it and come up with a better reason.

Did I jump the gun? No. Did I ever say you were un-ethical? No.

The scenario you depicted, put all the emphasis on shooting another deer, and no concern as to why you couldnt find the first one. Thats un-ethical, in my eyes if not in yours. You never said you did that, so I wasnt calling you unethical, merely the example. That example in most instances would be unethical. Unless as you pointed out the deer fell into a deep river or off a big cliff etc. But what are the chances of that?

As for the antis, feel how-ever you like, but there is no denying that the majority despise hunting because they believe we dont recover animals. Thats the stats they are always throwing around. So if you are going to give an hour tracking job on an animal that could otherwise be recovered, you are lowering our recovery rate, and giving them a better reason to dispose of our sport. I dont want that, none of us should.

As for my ethics, of course you would question them. I cant prove it, but I can assure you that I wouldnt shoot the 180class buck....I would feel like a total a-hole but, hey, thats life. I do what I deem right, not to mention it wouldnt be legal, and I would fear that I may lose one of the animals due to greed. There are plenty of reasons not to shoot him.

I know its easy to sit here and preach, and then go and do something totally different. But thats not what I do. I care about this sport, and I dont like hearing non-sense. What you said about shooting a deer, tracking it and not finding it, and then climbing back in your stand to shoot another one, tells me two things. You most likely didnt give it your all to find that animal, and secondly you place the majority of emphasis on shooting game.

Maybe thats not the case, but from that example it would certainly seem that way. In my opinion there is a very weak, if any, case for shooting two animals in one sitting. Im glad to see that most hunters frown upon that action.

I had the same thing happen to me but it was a guy fishing some water that wasent open yet. It was not that big of a deal but he keeped more fish then he was alowed and acted like it was his rite to be there, and do what he did. I told him if i ever saw his car in the woods agin I would burn it up, he thinks i was jokeing. I am not much for fighting but I was vary close to putting the boots to that guy.

Some people need a shot to the face every now and then.

I don't need to come up with a reason. It's legal in some of the areas that I hunt and I will continue to practice it if see fit. What my example did an excellent job of pointing out was how quick you are to judge and or label someone without knowing them or the circumstances.

We'll have to agree to disagree here because I think most of them despise hunting because we are shooting animnals and they think that is wrong. I don't think lost animals helps our case in any case but I am not advocating that in any way. You chose to fill in the gaps in the story with negatives rather than positives. Again, you were to quick to jump the gun and try to label someone or a practice as unethical without having the details.

It's nothing personal it's just when people prop themselves up to be so selfrighteous there is usually falls short of the truth but again this is the internet and you can claim to be, say, or do whatever you want and there is only you there to know if you are being truthful as I have been. But again it's easy preach ethics in the forum but it's different to practice them. I hope you do practice what you preach.

Again you are trying to put a negative spin on what I said. I never said that I lost a deer and climbed back into my stand. What I did say is that I have never lost a deer that way but you conveiniently chose to overlook that statement. You are again jumping the gun and filling the gaps with negatives and jumping to incorrect conclusions. If you would like to continue the conversation, I would invite you to do so by email.

Email sent SA.

There is nothing wrong with shooting a bunch of deer before you recover the first. I use to do drives way back when and that's what you did if the herd came through. I no longer do drives because I've relised how dangerous they are and I don't gun hunt anymore. I will not hesitate to drop multible deer in one sitting if I so choose. It was legal when I did it and it is now legal to drop as many antlerless deer as you want during bow season. No extra tags required. I have every intention next season on dropping six deer in one morning hunt from my stand this fall.

I want to reiterate that I don't support this guy shooting five and not recovering a single deer. I will recover my deer.

You can shoot as many deer as you have tags for in KY. Unless they changed it this year.