A very important decision that a hunter has to make is whether or not to take a shot to harvest a resource. Sometimes you only have a split second and other times you may have 20 minutes or more. It all depends on how you hunt. Is your intent to harvest game (meat) or harvest a trophy?

A hunter hunting big game (deer) wilth dogs will shoot at literally whatever is running in front of his dogs. This is for two reasons: first, to get the dogs back, and second, to get the meat. Not all dog hunting groups shoot everything that runs in front of the dogs, but if dog hunting, the possibility and probability of shooting at anything is much higher that not shooting.

A hunter hunting from a treestand position does not have this problem. Usually he/she has minutes to watch the animal and this gives them the opportunity to size up the animal to determine if the taking of that animal would be beneficial to sport hunting and trophy management in particular. With Still Hunting you have more options and more time to make the decision on whether or not to take the shot. With Dog Hunting, Trophy Management and Sport Hunting is of little to no concern. You shoot at whatever the dogs find. Still Hunters can be selective in their decision to harvest or not to harvest.

Why even make the decision on what to harvest? Because the laws of North Carolina places restrictions on what and when game can be harvested.