Outdoor Ethics

My mother was a great believer in cod liver oil. It was good for what ailed us, we were told, and a dose of the stuff every spring was thought to cure all ills. Oddly enough, I don't remember my parents ever gulping the nasty stuff down.

The buck’s antlers can be faintly seen but it’s past legal shooting time. Don’t shoot!

Hunting ethics, like a double-slug of cod liver oil, is pretty hard for some people to swallow. For many, ethics and especially fishing or hunting ethics, is a word as foreign to them as an ancient language.

Ethics often mean different things to different people, but ethics are always right.

Ethics are tough to explain to someone who has very little concept of such things being right or wrong. Some folks describe ethics as those things you would never do if you knew someone was watching.

But this business of fishing and hunting ethics goes much deeper. It treads on the philosophy that in life, there are laws that must be obeyed. Break those laws, and we face criminal punishment.

Ethics mean different things to different people. They are not laws, but they are generalized rules of proper sporting conduct. They are unspoken and unwritten rules of conduct that sportsmen should follow.

Ethical behavior means believing in and following these unwritten rules. Not because you must, but because common sense and a feeling of ethical action point us toward following them because it just is the decent and right thing to do.

There are a few unspoken ethical things that sportsmen should not do. Shooting a ruffed grouse on the ground while walking a two-track trail is one such thing we don't (or shouldn't) do. It much more sporting to flush the bird, and shoot while it is flying than while it is picking grit.

Shooting ducks or geese on the water is considered unethical for the same reason, especially on the first shot. Mature hunters never do it the easy way; they give game a fair chance to get away. The fairness doctrine is part of the ethics case. Most hunters can see the logic of finishing off a wounded duck or goose before it swims into the cattails.

Think! If you wouldn’t do it in front of someone else, then it is the wrong thing to do.

While being illegal, it also is unethical to shoot a deer with the aid of a light, shoot deer after shooting time has ended, or, as was so commonly done when bears could still be killed during the firearm deer season many years ago, to kill a bear in its den. It is unethical and illegal to shoot a deer in the water.

The law reads that a fish must be hooked in the mouth. A fish hooked off a spawning bed will often swipe at a fly or lure, and be foul-hooked somewhere on the head. Keeping that fish not only is unethical but illegal to boot.

Unethical hunting behavior is a deliberate "winking" at the laws. It is stretching the shooting time before or after it begins or ends, and most people would not do it if they knew someone was watching them.

The only person watching their movements and actions in most cases is themselves. The act of trespassing, and hunting on someone else's land without permission, is not only unethical but also is illegal.

I find it somewhat amazing how many wives have hunting licenses but are never seen out in the field. It's unethical to fill a tag for another person, but it is ethical for me to shoot an antlerless deer, use my tag to tag it, and give that meat to another person. It is illegal to fill your wife's deer tag by killing the deer for her. There is a major difference.

It is unethical and illegal for two or three fishermen to go onto a river, station one or more people downstream from a log jam, and have another person jump up and down on the logs to drive salmon or steelhead downstream to the waiting nets. Slobbish behavior always seems to be a part of unethical behavior on land or water.

I see it every winter when unethical winter anglers catch some tiny bluegills, throw them on the ice, and let the eagles and gulls feed on them. They keep the bigger fish, and kill the smaller fish. So what if it feeds the birds: it is unethical and illegal behavior.

The link between fish and wildlife laws, and ethical considerations, go hand-in-hand.

So much of angling and hunting ethics can be tied directly to fishing or hunting laws and unspoken rules, but ground-swatting a grouse is not illegal. It's just something that right-thinking sportsmen don't do.

Ethical sportsmen develop a habit of thinking about what they will do, and weigh their actions against what they would do if they knew you, me or a conservation officer was watching over them. Their conduct would change dramatically if they knew they were being studied.

I've had countless opportunities to shoot deer a minute or two after legal shooting time has ended. I could try to preserve my dignity by setting my watch back five minutes, but deep down in my heart, I would know that my actions were not ethical, and I would be unable to live with that weight on my shoulders or on my heart.

This business of fishing or hunting ethically is simple to determine. We follow the fish and game laws, think about our actions before we take them, and ask ourselves this question: Is this an ethical act or decision?

If the question cannot be truthfully answered with a "yes," than we've answered this burning question ourselves. What we do next is a matter of ethics and of obeying our fish and game laws.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors