Besides being in the field for my job, Hunting is mostly the reason I spend time in the field while not at work. I love to hunt. As a kid it was often necessary to hunt with the old man just to help make ends meet but now it’s all for the fun involved. In fact I get just as excited for the opening of Deer/Moose/Grouse/Duck/Goose season as I do for Christmas. I don’t need to hunt as I can easily afford to buy meat. There is just something about casting and reloading my own bullets and using them to stalk and hunt an animal that is very fulfilling. I also butcher my own game and the first steak or maple sausage that comes off of the BBQ tastes just a little bit better knowing that it was all done with my own hands. Any respectable hunter does not shoot at anything that moves. Just like everything else in life the bad actions of the few paint a bad picture of everyone else. I do not hunt for trophy as I feel no need to impress anyone with exaggerated mighty hunter stories and I would much rather harvest a big fat doe than a buck in the rut because the meat tastes better and is usually much more tender. If a trophy happens across my path then of course I will take the shot. I despise poachers who waste meat only to take an animal’s horns or fur. If I kill it, then the animal gets used to the full extent possible. Besides using the meat I have a friend who takes the fur and uses it for fly tying, and the rack goes to another friend who uses them to make knife handles. Even the heart, kidneys and liver get eaten unless they appear tainted.(makes one hell of a pie!!) I have no problem with the killing of an animal so long as it is a clean kill. Like any respectable hunter, my heart sinks when a bad shot results in a crippling shot. I have only done it twice but most people who hunt have made that bad shot despite their best efforts(just not all will admit it) I get really mad when a hunter gives up on a wounded animal without first exhausting every possible method to end its misery. I ended up staying in the woods overnight once because of a shot taken just before last light missed its intended mark and hit the Deer in the guts. As soon as I saw the animal’s reaction (he arched his back like a cat and ran) I knew I was in for a long night of tracking. I waited for a few hours to allow him to bed down and bleed out and then with the aid of a blue LED light I took up the trail. It took me till the next morning to find the sucker where he had finally died some 300 m from where the shot was taken but I would have felt horrible to have not ever found him. On another occasion despite the fact that the deer was a perfect angle and well within my ethical range, the deer moved at the instant I pulled the trigger resulting in the bullet hitting the guy’s leg. A deer with three good legs can still cover ground fairly fast and before I could follow up the shot he was gone. I spent the whole night and most of the next day looking for it but because of the rain there was no blood trail. Feeling really bad about it and just about to give up I happened across another hunter who had saw that same deer in the morning and had shot it. I was relieved. I think IMHO that if you respect the game which you hunt and try your absolute best to give it a clean, quick death and every possible amount of effort when you take a bad shot to prevent it from suffering needlessly then as long as the meat is not wasted there is nothing you should have to feel bad for.