1) Field Safety

As a Professional Hunting Guide, the boundaries of your ethical standards will continually be tested. Certain types of hunters will always want you to compromise your professionalism. They think that, because they paid for there hunt, that you should be willing to scrap your ethics for them. They think that you somehow owe it to them. Most hunters are not like this. There are some, however, that think that money will buy everything for them.

This type of individual will encourage you to hunt out of your area, i.e., on the wrong side of the fence, and do many other things that will compromise your ethical standards.

So we are back to right and wrong. What side of the line are you on? We are not just talking about the law here. Ethics are much more than that. Just because a certain thing is legal to use while hunting, does this make it ethical?

There are two types of ethics that can be studied as they pertain to our industry.
1) Ethics pertaining to the Guide/Client relationship.

2) Ethics that pertain to the legal, versus ethical hunting of game animals. These are moral issues.

Both types will be discussed here.

In ethics pertaining to the Guide/Client relationship, the following lesson with cover this completely, and you will see how your ethical professionalism will be tested on that level. I would like to cover the moral aspects of hunting big game here.

Ask yourself this question; just because something is legal to do, or use for guiding, does that make it morally correct to do it? Case in point; when I am guiding archery hunters, I sometimes use decoys for hunting Mule Deer and Antelope. I used to have a Client from Florida who was a retired cop, that had Parkinson's Disease. He used to hunt with me every year for as long as he was able to. One year, he came on an Antelope hunt with me. I really wanted to help him get a buck, as he had been failing fast over the past few years. I found a decoy that you could stalk behind. I had not tried this one before. We stalked a herd of Antelope, and closed to 30 yards from a nice buck. Tom shot, but missed. Due to his illness, Tom was only good out to about 30 yards, so we had to get close. A little while later, we did another stalk, and Tom was successful harvesting a good buck at 25 yards. So I was 2 shots for 2 stalks, with this decoy.

I had watched videos of hunters struggling with this particular decoy. They were making rookie mistakes, like not watching the wind direction, and making noise, etc. The point is, if you give a professional hunter, someone like me, a tool like that, and a seasoned bow hunter with no physical handicaps, I could potentially kill everytime. But I have to sleep at night. When I got home I put it away. I felt so bad for quite awhile, and my wife told me, "Don't ever use that again." You see, even though it was legal for me to use that decoy, it was not MORAL for someone like me to use it. I felt GUILTY. It is hard to explain, except for the decoy violates an almost ancient trust that the Antelope have relied on to keep them safe. I can not mention what kind of decoy it was, because I don't think it is fair to hunt with it, even though it is legal.

So, in your hunting career, if you are doing, or using something that almost feels like its giving you an unfair advantage, even though its legal, it should probably give you pause. If something like that doesn't give you sleepless nights, then you will probably never work for me as a Professional Guide.