He had been using his ATV to haul sugar beets and shell corn to the clearing for the past two weeks.  Using a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit to guide him, finding his stand in the pre-dawn darkness was a snap.  He had put a doe decoy in place in the clearing and had sprinkled doe-in-heat lure around it.    To kill his own scent, Tom had washed with special soap and shampoo.  He had washed his hunting clothes with a scent killing detergent and sprayed his boots with a scent eliminator.  To be on the safe side, he was wearing a pair of coveralls with an activated charcoal liner to insure an errant breeze would not give him away.  As he waited, he scanned the clearing with his night vision binoculars to check if anything was moving yet.  

To avoid being surprised, Tom was wearing a head set with a built in sound amplifier to detect any faint sounds his prey might make before it came into sight.  Next to him in the blind he had his two-way radio and was in communication with his buddy who was 600 yards further down the ridge from him.  Also beside him, he had two other tools that he thought might come in handy.  One was a laser range finder that would enable him to determine the distance, within plus or minus two yards, to any deer that might try to skirt his clearing and cross the big open field that he could see through the trees just to the north of his blind.  He also had an infrared game-tracking unit that could, based on detecting the body heat of game, indicate the location of big game at distances greater than 100 yards even in heavy brush.  Yes, he was ready like had never been ready before!

It was almost anti-climactic when Tom shot a big 8-point with wide-spreading heavy main beams later that morning.  Although it was, by far, the biggest buck he had ever taken, Tom was puzzled that somehow he didn't feel the tremendous sense of elation that he thought would accompany such a feat.  In fact, looking back he felt a lot prouder of the fork horn he had outsmarted two years before.  He remembered how, in the snow, he had cut smoking hot tracks leading from a fresh rub. Tom had trailed the small buck for several hours and had finally taken him by paralleling 20 yards to the side of the tracks. He surprised the buck as he button-hooked back into Tom's sights while trying to check his back trail.

Computers, cell phones, video recorders, DVD players, digital TV, satellite based weather reports, fiber optics, advanced plastics and literally thousands of other developments!  Technology is impacting our daily world at an ever-increasing rate.  And the world of hunting is no exception.  In fact, the high tech gear our hunter, Tom, used is but a fraction of the developments that have come on the market over the last few years.  And more high tech developments are appearing in the hunting world almost daily.  All of them are designed to tilt the playing field a little more in favor of the hunter and to increase his chance of success.  Maybe it's time to ask ourselves how far down the technology path we want to travel before we run the risk of reducing the "hunting" element of the sport to the point where all that's left is pulling the trigger.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not anti technology.  I strongly support many of the new developments that have come on the market in the past several years.  For example, if by using a laser range finder a hunter can reduce the chances of wounding and losing game due to range estimation errors, that's a great development.  Likewise much of the new technology, if used for the purposes that are advertised and promoted, are good hunting tools.  Infrared-based game finders are good examples.  By utilizing infrared to detect even small differences in temperature from background levels, these devices theoretically enable a hunter in thick cover to find and recover downed or wounded game that would otherwise be lost or suffer a slow lingering death.  On the other hand, if a hunter sits on his stand and scans the surrounding thick woods with such a device hoping to detect an approaching game animal before it comes into view, then a different set of ethical questions come into play. 

In still other cases, I suspect that some of the new technology does not perform in the field quite as well as the advertising would lead you to believe.  For example, I think that anyone who relies solely on some of the odor elimination or suppressant technologies and hunts with a reckless disregard as to wind direction will most likely end the season with an empty freezer.  At least as long as the hunter insists on exhaling while he hunts.  Finally, however, there are some technology developments that have great potential for misuse.  While night vision telescopic rifle sights may be acceptable for varmint hunting, their use in big game hunting is hard to justify.  Any conventional scope of modest quality has more than enough light gathering ability to allow for accurate shooting during legal hunting hours in the vast majority of hunting jurisdictions.  And at a lower cost to boot!  

Indeed, in spite of the potential for misuse, none of the new technology developments by themselves are likely to substantially tilt the playing field so far in the hunter's favor that any game species is threatened.  I have enough confidence in state and provincial game managers to believe that long before that were to happen, the technologies would be banned or regulated.  Also, at this point in time, it doesn't appear that technology developments have hurt hunting's image in the eyes of the public.  (Despite a recent article on this topic in Sports Illustrated magazine) But a positive public perception of hunting is critical in this age of animal rights activism; and we need to continue to remain sensitive to the public's perception of fair chase.  So, what then is the danger in the ever-increasing flood of new technology development in the world of hunting?  The answer rests in what we as individuals want and expect out of the hunting experience.

For years hunters have tried to articulate their reasons for hunting.  When all is said and done, however, I think most people hunt because the actual hunting experience itself is very enjoyable and satisfying.  The fellowship of good friends certainly adds to the enjoyment of hunting.  However it is not the primary factor for most.  Good friends can be enjoyed and appreciated in the comfort of one's home, or on the golf course, or for some, at the corner tavern.  While getting game meat for the table is also a big plus, it too is not the primary mover for most of us.  Anyone who thinks to the contrary has never gone through the terrifying experience of calculating what his game really costs on a per pound basis.  Likewise, simply the harvesting of an outstanding trophy is not what draws most of us to return to the mountains or woods year after year.  If that were the case, we could layout our money at a game ranch and be done with it for a lot less time and effort.  Sure the goal of everyone's hunt is to successfully shoot game.  And everyone dreams of someday taking "the king of the mountain".  But most of us are very satisfied to take a good representative head.  And I'm sure I'm not alone in counting many unsuccessful hunts (in terms of harvesting game) as some of my most enjoyable and satisfying.

No, what really keeps most of us coming back year after year is the enjoyment and challenge we find in the overall experience of developing and pitting our skills and knowledge against a wary adversary under fair chase conditions.  Those skills involve much more than simply making a clean kill at the moment of truth.  It involves learning as much as we can about our quarry, not just from books and magazines, but also from being in the field and observing first hand.  Preseason scouting trips to learn the terrain of our hunting area and game movement patterns add to the experience.  Developing stalking skills to enable us to get within sure killing range of our quarry is part of it.  Developing the skills to dope wind direction and wind shifts and using them to our advantage, the ability to read and interpret sign, the ability to track game, all of these and a myriad of other factors go into our enjoyment of what we call hunting.

The danger, then, is that if we are not careful we can unwittingly end up substituting technology for hunting skills thereby cheating ourselves out of some of the very factors that go into making hunting the challenging and rewarding sport we love so much.  Each individual has to decide where the line is.  Everyone has to decide for himself whether a given technology or group of technologies will truly enhance his hunting enjoyment or rob him of a valuable aspect.   Each must decide which help to make him a more ethical hunter and which chip away a little bit at the concept of fair chase.  What you decide will determine whether you return home after your hunt with a sense of pride and satisfaction or with a hollow feeling inside.