Ok, there is a post about what gives hunters a bad name and it's been interesting.

How about telling us what sort of things you think make a GOOD impression on the general public.  I don't mean being PC and hiding the fact that you hunt.  I mean honest public interactions that help non hunters walk away thinking maybe we're not as bad as they thought.

I'll post my own thoughts later.

When a hunter donates his harvest to the food for the hungry. I always try to donate a deer a year to this cause.

Or when you take some time and help the landowner bail hay or fix a fence.

Mike

I always offer to pick up and remove garbage found in the woods or along the road. I typically do it anyway, but it makes people smile.

I offer venison to anyone wanting to try it. I never "sneak" venison on those who dont.

Even the funniest comedian has all his jokes fall flat with the wrong audience.

This will be an interesting topic.

I have found that being willing to help with yard work, or whatever a landowner needs; is helpful. So much so, that they will help you with 'scouting reports' and even sheds that you missed.

In general, just being a mannered and respectful listener; is cause for them to hear you/us out.

Garbage hunting with the blunts and packing out your "game" .

Teaching kids archery at school and in your neighborhood.

Asking permision to hunt and getting along with anyone else that also hunts the same land.  Sending a Thank you card for someone letting you hunt.

Home-baked Christmas cookies and candy to the land-owner who lets me hunt their land + plus the afore mentioned trash pick-up......the cookies are usually a big hit!!

Ben

Using gates and not climbing over fences.  Not using bad language.  Not wearing shirts that say drinkin beers and shootin deers.  Not going in anywhere with blood on your hands or clothes.  Teaching kids the correct way to hunt.  Pretty much anything you can do to help a kid. Not driving around with a dead bloody deer on your taligate.  Have a good defense for what you do already in your head ready to go in case someone says why do you hunt.

i have found that just being me helps. i grew up with a family that would throw a skillet at you if you were dissrespectfull, so i try to just mind my manners and i never get angry at anyone who dissagrees. most people's problem with hunters is that they think we are all two-toothed rednecks that have no respect for anything.

I talk to my landowners a lot.  They're also neighbors (1st and foremost).  I'm the 1st person they call (mostly elderly) when they need something (cattle are out; need some weed-eating done; etc...) and I'm glad for it.

My landowners are some of the biggest animal lovers you'll ever meet.  So I show a LOT of respect as to how I retrieve downed game.  I "sell" my pursuits as "you'll probably never know I was there" (unless I'm making a reuested improvement)....and I try to make sure of that.

Seems to be working.

I don't get mad. I don't take it as an insult when non-hunters are initially unsure (threatened) by my appearing out of the woods onto a trail. I take the time to be friendly and reassure them. Thats the part they will remember.

I've seen hunters spill out of the nearest post-hunt bar or diner at night in full camo and cursing a blue streak. Every other word an F-bomb. Trust me, it does us no good. These are exceptions, but it is what people will remember.
So carry yourself with thoughtfulness and dignity while "on display".  It is what people will remember.

Joshua

I think not dismissing all anti's as senseless trouble causers.  When meeting someone who is against hunting to listen to their concerns and answer honestly and truthfully about how you feel about things.

I used to be a vegan for 12 years.  I even went further when i studied ethics and moral philosophy at university and became a fruitarian - didn't even eat plants either.  I was quite far out there, but for me it was about living a philosophical debate within my own head that i had to work through for myself about where my food comes from and how it is treated.  I wanted to be sure in my mind that as i went forward in life i took the right course in where my food came from.

What i discovered eventually was that intensive farming was the most awful and sickening treatment of animals there is.  So i try as much as possible to steer clear of that.

When i talk to anti's now i am fully equiped for any debate they want to have because i've done the whole trip, even adding university courses on ethics and moral philosophy to back it up.  When i lived in London i had a quarter acre allotment where i grew my own fruit and veg and now that i've moved to the countryside i'm starting to get into hunting, fishing and gathering wild food.  I've yet to have an anti walk away disgusted with me when i've explained my full views on food and what i've learned over the years.

A lot of it is our attitude, and how we're perceived.  Be polite and be respectful of other's views even if they don't always agree with how we get our food.  Listen to their concerns and try to understand what they've been exposed to that has given them those concerns.  A lot of anti's are only that way because they've been exposed to some awful stuff that would sicken even the hardened ethical hunter.  To show that you agree with them on some of their concerns is at least a step in the right direction and hopefully you may find them agreeing with some of your views as well.

To round it off, i know i go on sometimes... what brings me to wild food is that the wild food is conceived and born of nature, it wasn't conceived from a syringe against the animals wishes, or put in a rape rack as pig farmers use to force sows to mate with boars that they wouldn't mate with if left to their own devices.  Wild food is weaned naturally until the young are independent, unlike intensive farmed cattle that are taken from their mothers far too early so that the mother's milk can be used to make profit for the corporations that own most of the farms these days, leaving the young weak and needing anti-biotics to fend off disease because they never got weaned properly.  I take fish with one rod, i don't rape the seas with giant drift nets that kill birds and sea mammals just to put food in corporate food markets to make excessive profits at the expense of the Natural balance of the oceans.  I'm learning to gather wild veggies that grow without the need for fertilisers and pesticides so that i don't have to rely on intensive farmed vegetables that are grown polluting the very Earth that we were blessed to be guardians over.  The list goes on, but i think you'll get the point.

I will finish with saying this.  That since coming to this forum i have met with some incredibly thoughtful, considerate and helpful people.  This is by far the most polite and friendly forum i've ever been to on the internet.  If we show the same attitude to others outside of here as we do to each other while we're here then we can't help but change people's attitudes for the better.

The future is what we all make it.

respect property!!!

When you are talking to someone about hunting and have an excitement in your voice. A genuine love of the sport and the animals.  It shows and mostly is appreciated.
Using terms like "I SMOOOOKED THE PIIIIG" to describe a killing a deer has the opposite effect.


BigArcher

Money seems to work in Texas  

rusty

Leave property as if I was never there, except for the can or bottle that I found and carried out.  Every time I speak with propery owner I ask if there is anything I can do to help out around the farm.  Even though he normally answers NO.  I keep asking, hopefully one day he will say YES.

Topics like these are necessary but they always make me sad.  It's a shame we have to censor ourselves so much.  I don't try to rub things in people's faces, but I hate feeling like I should hide what I love just so that I don't offend someone.  What's wrong with transporting a deer that you killed on your vehicle?  What's wrong with getting excited about hunting/killing?  Sorry, those are rhetorical question..

I think telling people we respect the animals we take has a good impact.
Sometimes I do get puzzled looks from people when I say that because they don't understand how we can have respect for the animals we kill(or "harvest" if we're being PC.)
I explain that I recognize the animal gave it's life up for food and it's a beautiful creature to watch year round, but the need to keep the population balanced along with filling up the freezer or someone elses with meat if they need it, are reasons why hunting is needed. Also the health benefits from eating meat that wasn't fed steroids.
Talking about taking surplus doe instead of trophy hunting tends to go over better IMO.