Responsible hunting -- it's something hunters should have been taught since the first time they picked up a gun.

Never point a gun at anything you don't plan on shooting.

Never carry a loaded gun in a vehicle.

Always treat a gun as if it was loaded.

Lay the gun down when crossing fences, an the list goes on and on.

But there are other rules for hunting responsibly. Laws and rules that sometimes go unchecked.

On a trip through the back roads south of McCook on the last day of rifle season, Brad came upon a gruesome and wasteful sight. The bodies of two deer laid in the ditch, they hadn't been field dressed, their bodies were laying on top of one another as though they had been pulled from a vehicle and left to rot. The only thing missing was what must have been considered their trophy heads.

I became angry, as did Brad. There are so many people who could have used that meat. So many families who could have filled their freezer with enough food to keep their children fed for a few months. Instead, that meat lays rotting in a ditch, left there by irresponsible hunters that give hunting and hunters a bad name and give organizations like PETA an excuse to fight against our rights to hunt.

Jeremy did a little out-of- season hunting of his own a few days ago. His weapon, however, was a 350 -- Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup. He was on his way home from work, just after the sun set in the western sky, when a 4x4 whitetail ran across the road.

A car was coming at him and he couldn't swerve to avoid the deer. He struck just as it leaped to the ditch. Striking it in the lower back legs and the stomach. It was the best rack we've gotten all year.

He called the State Patrol and received a salvage permit. It's hanging in our back yard, waiting to thaw before it gets processed. This will be the fourth deer we've processed. It will be going to a deserving family that will make good use of it. We dressed out seven antelope a month ago. We have three more deer permits to fill during muzzleloading season. Some people enjoy gardening and canning -- I guess my passion is hunting and making jerky.

I just hope that the jerks who can't follow the rules of the sport don't ruin it for the rest of us.