I think briarhopper said it best.



NOTE: This is not directed toward anyone in particular.

On the other hand, there was one word used in this thread that makes me cringe every time I hear or read it in relation to hunting:

I absolutely deplore that word when used by one hunter to describe someone else's hunting methods. You see, long before I discovered handgunhunt.com, I regularly visited some of the hunting related pages on Facebook, such as Legendary Whitetails, Chasing Trophy Whitetails, and Deer & Deer Hunting. Every fall, hundreds of people posted pictures of their kills, and the administrators would sometimes repost some of those pictures to the main page for everyone to see. Unfortunately, absolutely anybody could join and post, from hunter to non-hunter to anti-hunter. Now, fortunately, the anti-hunters were quickly banned if they caused trouble, but unfortunately it was some of the hunters who caused the most trouble. As more and more people joined these pages, you would see more and more types of these people posting.

There was once a kid, who looked to be about 15 to 16, that posted a picture of his first buck. However, his rifle was in the picture, and there was a guy saying (paraphrased) "Come on, a rifle? You're old enough to pull back a bow!"

There was one guy who started a big argument by posting "Use a gun if you want to kill a deer. Use a bow if you actually want to hunt them."

God help whoever posted a picture of a crossbow killed deer, even if they were young, disabled, or hunting during a gun season.

Then, there were those traditional bow elitist types that knocked everyone else.

Just about anyone was fair game for another hunter to denigrate and disrespect. Most people, myself included, just ignore those naysayers. However, the common theme in all of this was people attacking other hunters because they perceived their method as "cheating", even if that word wasn't explicitly used. In today's world, we are constantly under attack from the media, anti-hunters, and sometimes even non-hunters. We know we're under attack, the non-hunters know were under attack, the media and anti-'s especially know we're under attack. How does it look when, on a public website frequented by millions upon millions, we attack each other?

Look, I don't have a care in the world if other people are impressed by my hunting methods or not. But to call my (or anyone else's, for that matter) completely legitimate, legal, ethical, and in my opinion challenging method of hunting cheating is something I won't tolerate.

I repeat, this is not directed at anyone in particular. I don't believe anyone here has dismissed any form of hunting as cheating, and for that, I thank all of you.