Hunters need to show some tact

By BRYAN BRASHER
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Later this year _ Nov. 26, to be exact _ I will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the day I killed my first whitetail deer.

Looking back on that day, about the only bad memory I have is the fit I threw when my father and grandfather refused to let me display the 80-pound spike buck on the tailgate of our truck for the ride home.

What I didn't understand back then is that not everybody hunts.

Not everybody wants to see a blood-spattered animal stretched across a tailgate with its tongue hanging out.

In fact, most people don't.

Through the years, I've come to understand the value of discretion and the importance of handling dead game animals respectfully. I've also come to loathe the actions of people who just can't seem to grasp those concepts.

I once sat in line at an elementary school _ waiting to pick up my younger sister _ behind a man with two does strapped to the tailgate of his jacked-up four-wheel drive. Both deer had been field-dressed, which meant their body cavities were open and bloody, and their throats had been cut.

How far removed from simple human decency must a person be to do something so tactless in front of kids, ages 5 to 11?

Speaking of tactless, what are people thinking when they cut the testicles off a whitetail buck and hang them on the trailer hitches of their trucks? Really, it happens more often than you might think.

Who was the first moron who thought of that, and why didn't his friends swoop in to keep him from toying with that animal's genitalia?

Besides making fools of themselves, hunters who do such mindless things deliver a kidney punch to the entire hunting community. They make us all look bad, and they strengthen the will of people who would love nothing more than to see hunting abolished.

College football coaching legend Lou Holtz once offered this valuable strategy for surviving life on earth:

Holtz said that 10 percent of the people are always gonna love you, 10 percent are always gonna hate you and 80 percent are always gonna be undecided. The key to surviving, he said, is keeping the 80 percent who are undecided away from the 10 percent who hate you.

He was talking about life in general, but he might as well have been talking directly to hunters.

Studies by conservation agencies around the country have shown that roughly 10 percent of the American population is pro-hunting. Another 10 percent of Americans are decidedly anti-hunting, while 80 percent don't give a rip one way or another.

Every time you do something silly like letting your kid go into a mall wearing blood-stained camo, you risk sending more undecideds to the wrong side of the fence.

I'm not saying anyone should ever try to hide their interest in hunting. But with the gun seasons getting cranked up, please do some simple things to protect our already-fragile image as hunters.

Keep your tailgate shut.

Clean up the blood before you take a picture _ and certainly before you visit the food court at the mall.

Show off your trophies as much as you want, but only to people who are genuinely interested in seeing them.

To quote another of my favorite legends, Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, "act like you got some smarts."