I have always tempered my killing with respect for the game pursued. I see the animal not only as a target, but as a living creature with more freedom than I will ever have. I take that life if I can, with regret as well as joy, and with the sure knowledge that nature's way of fang and claw and starvation are a far crueler fate than I bestow.

You can learn more about hunting deer with a bow and arrow in a week than a gun hunter will learn in his entire life

A downed animal is most certainly the object of a hunting trip, but it becomes an anticlimax when compared to the many other pleasures of the hunt.

I hunt because I love the entire process: the preparations, the excitement, and sustained suspense of trying to match my woodslore against the finely honed instincts of these creatures. On most days spent in the woods, I come home with an honestly earned feeling that something good has taken place. It makes no difference whether or not I got anything: it has to do with how the day was spent.

If some of our teenage thrill seekers really want to go out and get a thrill, let them go up into the Northwest and tangle with the Grizzly Bear, the Polar Bear, and the Brown Bear. They will get their kicks, and it will cleanse their souls.

I feel like one of God's chosen people, having had the opportunity to share, with many fine companions, these varied and lovely realms of our natural world.

The very remoteness kindles the imagination of the adventurous hunter. From the top of any mountain the challenge extends far and wide, until the mountains meet the sky.