Great Aim

>>Night was falling and rain was on the way, and Tom Chase and his son were pushing through a swamp in North Florida, tracking a deer. Chase had shot the buck—his first with a bow—and it had taken off. If they didn’t find it before dark, the rain would wash away the tracks.

"We jumped the poor thing twice, and it ran very deep in the swamp," says Chase. "We tracked it two hours in the swamp." Finally stymied by the dark, they returned at daybreak, picked up the trail and found the dead buck, which is now mounted in the Fort Myers office where Chase practices as a personal injury attorney and mediator.

"Even a well-struck deer may run 100 to 200 yards with an arrow in it. You have to be committed, and you have to practice and practice, because you want to make as merciful a kill as possible," he says.

Like other enthusiasts, he uses a black-powder rifle and gun as well as compound bow so he can hunt during all three seasons, and he shares a hunting lodge in North Florida with other families.

The sport is widely misunderstood by opponents, he adds. "There is so much controversy about hunting," he says. "You have to be an activist."

"There’s a difference in what we perceive in our sport as hunters and killers," says Chase. Killers generally don’t even bother with venison, he says. "True hunters want to be out in nature and want to conserve wildlife. Hunters pay millions in taxes that buy millions of [acres of] conservation property."

Hunting also teaches an appreciation of life and safety, he adds. "When they see an animal that’s been [killed], they see it can’t be taken back. [Hunters] have far more awareness of the delicacy of life and how important it is to be careful with dangerous things."