hunter as a sadistic, bloodthirsty slob who ignores game

hunter as a sadistic, bloodthirsty slob who ignores game laws and private property rights, blasting away with automatic (assault) weapons at every animal seen, trampling and trashing the environment, endangering fellow citizens and pushing specie after specie into extinction.

Fifty-five years old now, I started to hunt when I was in my teens, hunting deer for the first time in my midtwenties. I’ve hunted in Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia and Saskatchewan. Moving from Florida to Virginia in 1988, I have found that, in the Commonwealth, as in other states where I have hunted, there is a small percentage of hunters who fit portions of the PETA caricature. The vast majority do not.

I kept a log of my days afield during the most recent Virginia muzzleloader and modem firearms seasons for deer (November 6, 1995 thru January 6, 1996). I used a Knight, 50 caliber in-line black powder (single shot) rifle and a Remington bolt action 30-.06.1 hunted only on private property where I had permission and only during legal hunting hours. I left no litter behind whenever I excited the woods.

1 hunted on 24 different dates, often remaining in tree stands from pre-dawn darkness until dusk. I sat in temperatures ranging from 10 degrees to the 50s, in fog, drizzle, rain, sleet and snow, marveling at nature’s wondrous variety of sunrises and sunsets. During those hunts, I observed 55 deer (including four bucks), 58 squirrels, 10 flocks of geese, four turkeys, three blue heron, two red and two gray foxes, two wood ducks, two red tailed hawks, one beaver, one weasel and one raccoon, in addition to smaller non-game animals and birds.

Shooting my rifles only six times, I killed two bucks and three does. Given the numbers of animals seen, my season was not exactly the wanton