“The most important measure of hunting success is how you feel about yourself.”

– Jim Posewitz

If you have ever spent time shooting the breeze with fellow hunters during a rainy day at deer camp, you may agree with the following observation. As a rule, most hunters don’t spend much chat time discussing the ethical hunter. That’s not to say that most hunters are unethical or insensitive to the concept of fair chase. They just don’t talk about ethics. Discussions about the best deer gun, or the biggest buck you ever saw, make for much more interesting topics. Ethics can be a topic too elusive or airy for gab sessions at deer camp.

Still, most deer hunters who were “brought along” by a father, a relative, a friend, or a hunting safety instructor, have been exposed to hunting ethics, wittingly or unwittingly. My Dad, for example, taught me not to take a low-percentage shot at a deer.

“If you can’t make a clean kill shot, don’t take the shot,” he cautioned me as a youngster. Your Dad may have urged you to practice shooting with your rifle in order to hone your marksmanship skills so that the odds of you making a clean kill would be that much higher. Far too many hunters don’t even take the time to sight in their rifles before deer season.

In short, we were learning to hunt ethically, to be ethical hunters. We just might not have used the term, or applied a name to our behavior. Maybe we thought of it as merely good sportsmanship.

Hunting ethics have always been an integral part of the hunt. Today though, with such a drumbeat of anti-hunting sentiment and high-power politics by animal rightists threatening our hunting heritage, a dialogue about and appreciation for hunting ethics among all hunters is crucial. In fact, given the outlandish and inordinate power of a single incident to shape public opinion in our media-intense society, the future of hunting rights is irrevocably connected to the behavior of each and every hunter.

What is an ethical hunter?

Hunting ethicist Jim Posewitz put it like this: “A person who knows and respects the animals hunted, follows the law, and behaves in a way that will satisfy what society expects of him or her as a hunter.”

A story. One October afternoon in Western Colorado, I sat near a creek in the late afternoon overlooking a well-used elk crossing. Not far from where I sat – maybe 50 yards – there was a four-wheeler trail. The stillness was soon broken by the sound of a four-wheeler coming down the trail. Abruptly, the engine sound stopped. Three rifle shots rang out. Then I heard two excited young men talking about the shots they had just taken at an elk. I gathered from the conversation that they could find no blood or hair, and they remained uncertain as to whether they had hit the animal. I was not the only creature listening to the hunters. Their elk, a young bull, had stopped on the other side of the creek within eye shot of me. It’s ears were at full alert as it looked back toward the direction of the voices. Both of us were wondering what the next move of the four-wheeler hunters would be.

Imagine my surprise. Neither hunter left the four-wheeler trail to look for blood or hair. They never set foot into the dark timber! Together, they somehow concluded that their shots were clean misses and they drove away on their four-wheeler. The young bull soon departed the creek bed, apparently unscathed. Out of curiosity I followed the elk’s track a way (I held a cow tag) and then backtracked it easily back to the four-wheeler trail. There was a clear track. With very little extra effort, the four-wheeler hunters could have at least stepped into the timber and tracked their quarry a few hundred yards to make sure that the animal had not been hit or wounded. What a deplorable performance by two young men who, I assume, consider themselves hunters!

These “elk hunters” dropped the ball. They shrugged off the cardinal ethical rule for the conscientious hunter. It is this: the ethical hunter knows that his obligation, to his quarry and his hunting heritage, is to do everything possible to pursue a wounded animal, find it, and dispatch it as expeditiously as possible.

How could these four-wheeler hunters feel good about themselves? As Jim Posewitz writes at the beginning of this chapter, “The most important measure of hunting success is how you feel about yourself.” This is where ethics and the ethical hunt comes in. It is said that ethics is how you behave alone in the field. It is what you do, or don’t do, when no one is watching. It is between you and your conscience.

As hunters, most of us at one time or another have pushed the ethical envelope. Perhaps we have broken a hunting regulation, or stepped across the line when it comes to the concept of fair chase. In some cases, the ethical boundary can even be blurred, when we are not even certain whether our behavior as a hunter is or is not ethical.

A hunter who at least is mindful of the fact that there are ethical considerations to every hunt is off on the right foot. And a hunter who constantly weighs his own ethical behavior while afield is a credit to his sport, and a model for others.

The ethical hunter will ask himself three questions: 1) How do I think? 2) What do I value? 3) How do I conduct myself?

If you answer these questions honestly, and behave in a way that you feel good about yourself, all of your hunts – kill or no kill – can be successful.

For the aforementioned Colorado four-wheeler hunters, their hunt failed the successful hunt test the moment they made a bad choice and failed to follow up on the elk they shot at. To this day, they may not recognize this fact. They may even have bagged an elk later on in their hunt. In the realm of ethical hunting, however, they failed miserably. They are neither a credit to themselves nor to the hunt community.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].