Two very interesting points you bring up.

1. Unethical is a complex word.

Is it more ethical to harvest a deer with a long bow or shoot it in the ear with a rifle? Assuming equally good shot placement, it is hard to argue that the long bow is NOT more painful to the animal and a bloodier, slower death. If I were choosing how I was going to die in battle, I vote for the bullet in my left ear rather than an arrow through my lungs.

For the niche of people who hunt with spears (I have only met one person who has actually harvested a whitetail with a spear), how would you react to him telling you that you are unethical because you use a mechanical instrument to launch a projectile instead of your own body strength? Where is the line of what you call unethical?

Or, is it unethical to hunt for sport in general? Should you only be allowed to "harvest" a deer if you are in NEED of food? The word "harvest" does sound a lot like farming.

If you are hunting for food, young does taste better than old bucks. So we should harvest yearlings, like we butcher cattle at a young age. Which is more unethical, to kill yearling does for the best meat or old bucks for the best trophy antlers?

My grandmother shot the first whitetail she saw – male or female – because was not hunting for sport. She was “harvesting” meat. There were no early mornings, deer stands or deer blinds. In fact, you could argue that her vegetable garden doubled as a “food plot.” Was she unethical with her open sight 30-30 shooting from the door of her mobile home?

Why is hunting the mott of oak trees ok, but hunting the waterhole unethical as I mentioned above?

2. Private Property Rights vs. Public Property Rights

I don't think you mean that you would trespass on someone's land to shoot a wild animal? If you do, then how do you rationalize the ethics of that action? PS: You do realize that if you trespass on private land with a weapon you will either go to jail, get a big fine, or be killed by the landowner.

Texas, unlike many other states, is 95%+ private lands. However, the sun, wind, water (not always), and wildlife (not always) are property of the State.

If I choose to raise cows, can you come and harvest my cow - of course not. If I choose to raise quail, turkey, whitetail, pigs, or any other animal - just because that animal also exists in the wild somewhere - does that mean you have a right to harvest it on my land? Of course not. What if I have a natural grove of apple trees and wild berries, are you allowed to trespass and "harvest" the wild fruit on my land? No.

Your comments should serve as a wake up call for those who do not realize the perils facing the future of hunting as a sport, as a food source, and as a symbol of the rugged individualism that has defined America's past. Whether you believe your comments, or are just enjoying stirring the pot, I for one appreciate your posts (as long as there are not personal attacks involved.)

kesoliver's comment above is a good example of how someone uses our website for their enjoyment and community sharing.

Meanwhile, there are other people who do make great contributions of content that takes many hours to prepare, and although not as frequent, we want to recognize those people for their effort to share with our community.

With me at a hospital in California visiting my brother, who's wife has very premature twins yesterday - and thank god everyone seems healthy and stable - and Diana being out of the office with a nerve pinched in her neck - we haven't had a chance in the last 48 hours to verify all the numbers and assign points to past favorites. Hopefully we will get caught back up by Monday.

The bottom line is we want to indentify the most active members of our community and start to use our funds to organize some group gatherings and fun. Hopefully, everyone will be patient as we make this transition and likes the idea of having some fun together.

jason

That was suppose to be funny but didn't work out as such.

The Winner/Loser list is only the results from the Random Winner tool. It looks at the calendar month, everyone who did anything on the site to get at least ONE point is entered into the "raffle". The last day of the month it randomly picks a winner. Obviously, the more points you have the better chance you have of winning the "Raffle". Does that make sense?

Regarding the person with the most points, that is simply that - the person with the most points.

As we add new features to the site, we continue to expand the point system. Yes, there are glitches. Our first priority is to audit the Top 10 Users every month to make sure they didn't do anything "funny" to get so many points. Our second priority is to review and audit the entire system and make sure it is accurate. We are constantly doing that. We find errors time to time that part of the growing pains of the software. We fix those. The good news is that we have a very good database even if your point score is "wrong" today, when we run the audit we can assign the proper points.

An example of this has been that some people got points for uploading a photo to their guide post when in reality they uploaded three photos and changed their mind and deleted them and then uploaded three different photos and changed their mind and uploaded three more photos. They got points for 9 photo uploads. Things like this get pretty complicated to write software to monitor. The good news is that we are all software people and understand how to fix these problems. The bad news is that we can't guess every such situation and depend on our Members or our own Audits to point out when things look funny.

Many of you have really helped by pointing (no pun intended, but I am laughing) out errors in our Rewards system. Also, your efforts to identify SPAM has really helped us keep this site clean. Thank you very much.

Everyone is saying congrats to Matt for being the Random Winner, but please notice that (still pending final audit which is delayed with Jeremy out of town this week), Country most likely won the "MOST POINT" Gift Card

Way to go Country!

And way to go Matt

Since I am not a wildlife biologist, I am going to summarize what I have learned from talking with a wide range of experts.

1. If "meat" really is your goal, and you live in a area with a high ratio of does to bucks, then shoot a doe. The doe meat is going to be tender as Country points out above. There is no reason to shoot a buck, especially one that is not mature.

2. As disturbing as it is, the statistics that Allen mentions at the beginning of this email are about the average statistics going back several years with the TPWD. This is a big part of the motivation behind the 13" harvesting rules that are being rolled out every year to more and more counties. In those counties where this rule has been in place for more than two years, the statistics that Allen mentions dramatically changed in favor of what the TPWD wants to see. I don't like rules in general, but these rules seem to be having a dramatic effect.

3. If you are hunting for bucks because you want horns. One man's trophy is another man's trash. It is very hard to be judgemental. Personally, when someone harvests their first buck with a rifle, pistol, or bow, that buck is special. I have a lot of patience for someone who has invested a lot of time and energy to learn a new method of hunting and in the excitement of the hunt harvests an immature buck because they just couldn't contain themselves. That is human nature. Do I wish the held out for a mature animal. Of course, but the reality is that in the field, alone, with all of that excitement, things are going to happen. Especially when it is a youth hunter. I don't want to be critical of their first harvest. I want them to learn from their mistake. Without saying a word, as that person hunts more and becomes educated, they will learn that what they did was not the best decision and they will carry that with them going forward. I didn't learn much from old grumpy men telling me, "The village idiot would have known better."

HOWEVER, I REALLY GET FRUSTRATED AND DON'T UNDERSTAND PEOPLE WHO PASS UP MATURE DOES, AND SHOOT IMMATURE BUCKS AND CLAIM IT WAS FOR THE MEAT, AND DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO LEARN HOW TO AGE AND ESTIMATE THE ANIMAL, AND IN THE SAME BREATH AGREE THAT THERE IS AN OVERABUNDANCE OF DOES IN THE LOCAL AREA.

Come on people, tell us what you think - you make just as many points rating our advertisement sponsors as you do rating other items - so express yourself!

It is very important our Users like the type and amount of advertisements we allow on the site. Of course, this is what makes our site free, but at the same time if the advertisements are garbage you don't care about then that doesn't help anybody.