I believe this question can be answered by asking yourself, "what does 'fair chase' mean to me?"

The guy that's gotten me into hunting and I talk about this concept often. I'm a middle-aged man who is still beginning to understand basic hunting concepts. I've only been at this a couple of years.The property I hunt (~120acres) is from asking for permission from someone I knew and then spreading outwards to their neighbors for permission. There's no green fields, no shooting houses and nobody saying where to go to see deer. The terrain is incredibly steep as it borders Smith Lake in several places, which causes a forecasted North wind to come from the SW or East, depending how far down the side of whichever ridge I'm sitting and the vegetation around me. (INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING!)

Nobody told me that crap. I had to go and figure it out. That has allowed me to build up enough confidence in my trials and errors to computer scout Bankhead and kill a deer on my first trip out there..

On days like today when it's storming and blowing, I'd love to have a shooting house overlooking a green field. I would be so much more comfortable. But, right now, to me, deer hunting isn't necessarily about being comfortable. It's challenging to try to intersect the path of a deer in their undisturbed habitat and claim success on that day. Most days I fail... badly! But I put in the effort to go to the deer, on their turf and that has to be good enough on those days that I don't kill or even see anything.

I'm sure that the more addicted I get, the better the chances will be that I will wind up in a house, looking at a long stretch of greenery. I hope that when that day comes, I still get as excited when a doe and fawn walk out as I do right now. These animals are amazing creatures and I don't want to lose sight of the fact that we're lucky to be able to participate in this dance with them, from a climber in a pine or a lazy boy in a shooting house.