Story by Shane Jahn

Ethics:  moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity. That’s one definition of the word “ethics” and it fits today’s topic, especially if when discussing the “conducting of an activity” portion — surrounding handgun hunting.

Handgun Hunting Ethics are no different than any other form of legal hunting. Whether with bow, crossbow, rifle, muzzleloader, or handgun, they all must be used appropriately. Hunting with anything involves ethics of behavior and activity.

As hunters we have responsibilities for ourselves and the game being pursued. If you’ve never experienced wounding or losing an animal you are lucky and, at the same time, maybe a little unfortunate. “Lucky” in that you do not know the sickening feeling of an errant shot that does not kill the animal, at least not immediately. “Unfortunate” in the sense you are most likely one day closer to experiencing such a terrible event.

If you make it through your hunting career without having ever lost an animal, you are extremely fortunate. I would not wish the feeling of wounding game on my worst enemy. I certainly do not wish the agony of a poorly placed shot on any animal, no matter if we are talking about prairie dogs or bull moose. They all have a right to die as painless a death as we can give them. We, the hunter, owe it to the game to shoot our best.

I lost an aoudad on a rifle hunt years ago. The quartering-away shot was fatal, breaking the off-side leg or shoulder. I know because I shot the ram on the right side and the guide said upon impact that the left leg started swinging. Recoil of my 7 Magnum prevented me from seeing this, but the audible whack of the bullet confirmed contact.

The bad news was this happened right at sunset and the sheep did not drop. He made it over a rise, and we could not find him in dusk’s low light. Next morning we found blood, but it stopped.  Aoudad and javelina sign littered the countryside in the area. We could not track the solo ram. We learned later he was not far from where we stopped our search, dead up under a juniper tree.

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