I grew up learning to hunt in Wisconsin in the 60's and early 70's.
At that time, you could lose your gun and your truck if you so much as leaned your gun against the truck, or laid it un-cased on the tailgate.
Baiting of deer was absolutely illegal and would get you lynched!
We didn't hunt from box blinds. There was a
lot of debate about the ethics of hunting out of a tree.
Then at 17 I moved to Virginia. Oh My Goodness! They hunted deer with buckshot (unethical!!!) and chased them with dogs! I wanted to vomit!
I was only in VA, and peripherally exposed to these heresies for a year before heading off to be a Marine.
Fast forward 9 years and I am graduating college in Wisconsin and heading to Texas to start my career in the Chemical Industry (is THAT ethical??
).
All of a sudden, I am surrounded by box blinds AND feeders! Except unlike Virginia, I stay exposed to this for much of the next 30 years.
After 12 years of being subjected to this new culture, but never participating (I went to Wisconsin and Idaho for my hunting fixes) I get invited to hunt on a vendor's lease in Texas. He has box blinds and feeders.
I sit in the box blind and listen to the feeder go off. I feel kinda guilty. I'm cheating. Then a bunch of pigs come out and I cannot shoot one. I rationalize that if I can climb down out of this stand, get my hind feet on the ground, and then shoot one, I will.
So against the rules of the lease (now who's being unethical??) I climb down the ladder. About the time I hit the ground the pigs scatter.
It is about a half hour before dark, so I figure I will just sit there at the base of the blind and wait for dark and the ride home. 10 minutes later a large sow comes out of the brush and starts scarfing corn in my direction. I crouch low behind some tall grass and watch this sow eat corn for several minutes until she gets about 10 yards from me, at which time I placed a 235 gr Speer Semi-Spitzer through her head.
Pretty soon after the hunt, I have some really tasty sausage in my freezer. My wife says "you can go hunt pigs any time you want".
And so it goes.......
Now, truth be told, I would rather hike up the Stoddard Trail into the Frank Church Wilderness and live like a caveman for 5 days and not see an elk, than to sit in a box, sweating, swatting mosquitoes and hoping for an animal to come get some corn.
But I can't get to Idaho too readily and it takes me 6 months of working out anymore to get in good enough shape. I do stand a chance to drive 5 hours to a friend's place to sit in a box. If nobody else is hunting, I can even say poo on the box and still-hunt. But often times you have to sit in your box so as to remain safe and not botch someone else's hunt up.
So I guess what I am saying is, our opinions on what is acceptable can change. Time, age, infirmities, peer pressure, available opportunities...they can all take a toll on your self-imposed standards. And that is not necessarily bad. Not considering anything about what is legal here...that stuff is cut and dry. We're talking about the "judgment call" stuff.
In 1975 I would never have sat in a box looking at a feeder 100 yards away. I did so in 1997. And I have done so since.
In 1997 I was a lot more judgmental about hunting and religion than I am today. I still have very strong views on both, but I am less likely to automatically think everyone else ought to see these things the same way I do.
As always, my $0.02.
Tim
