Here is the deal. We have become a flat out lazy society anymore or at the very least a society with too many distractions that afford us too little time to dedicate to certain activities. But I prefer to call it laziness. We want instant gratification. We want success now so we can snap a digital picture and move on to the next shiny thing that life puts in front of us.

Woodsmanship is ... in general ... a thing of the past. No one has time to learn it and no one has the desire to put in the time it takes to actually "hunt" down an animal. I see it all of the time. My business partner is an instant gratification person. He pays big money to go on fishing charters off of Florida so he can pose with a giant fish. He tells some great fish stories and lets you know what a great fisherman he is, when in actually his charter guide did the hard part of the work. He pays every year to go out rifle hunting in Nebraska or Wyoming. Fully guided, just show up with his rifle. Every year he shoots a dandy whitetail or mulley or elk ... all while the guide holds his hand and his 300 WinMag drops the animal at 300 yards. Just ask him and he will tell you what a "great" big game hunter he is, yet he hasn't been able to kill a deer in Indiana in the 10+ years that I have known him. He is excited about rifles in Indiana because in his words "he can finally reach out there and get that buck".

I'm not saying that shooting a rifle cannot be challenging. It certainly can. I have a world of respect for a guy who can center punch a steel plate at 500+ yards shot after shot. But come on, how hard is it to really get within 100 yards of a whitetail? And if he is beyond your range, well isn't that part of hunting? Some days you win, some days you lose. The hunts where the deer wins are a lot of times the best memories. I cannot tell you how many great hunts that I have had when that buck skirted me at the edge of my range and I didn't like the shots offered. Just this year, I had probably the most exciting hunt ever with my daughter as a real nice 10 pointer hung up at 35 or so yards and I wouldn't let her take a shot with her Xbow because I didn't like the small openings and angles presented. Man was it exciting. Sure a longer range more powerful weapon could have taken him. But the best part of the hunt was the flat out adrenaline rushing through us and the thought that we were going to get back in there the next night to try to get him. We never got him but neither of us cared, the rush was there and so was the memory. Maybe he comes back to play next year.

I see this rifle garbage as just making deer hunting easier. Really, how hard is it to lay your .308 on a shooting stick and drop that buck at 200 yards? Not too difficult. That isn't hunting ... that is target shooting. All that is is getting you in and out of the field as fast as possible. That will sell a lot of tags alone for the State. Make it easier to achieve instant gratification and you will sell a lot more tags to your customer base. Next thing that customer base will go "man that was easy I think I will buy more tags and drop a couple does". Don't try to tell me that HPR's won't increase the number of deer taken. They will briefly for certain. Then the overall number will drop like a rock after a couple of years because the overall herd numbers will get depleted ... FAST. The herd has spiraled downward the past 3-4 years already, watch it snowball out of control once HPR's are allowed to be used.

It is a joke. The entire deer hunting formula in this State is an absolute joke right now and we ... the deer hunters ... as a generalized whole are too blind to see it because it is all about the instant gratification that we seek.