Last year the author began his season with a fine Osceola gobbler. It was an omen of tough hunts to come.

A true hunter's mantra goes something like "It's all about the experience. Taking game is just a bonus." I believe this to be an appropriate approach to who we are and what we do, but sometimes it's hard to live up to. Especially if, somewhere along the line, you foolishly allowed yourself to believe you could make a living writing about hunting and guns and stuff. You see, when you take a great leap of faith like that, you aren't exactly selling your soul to Satan but you are selling it to your editors, who are at least demonic in demanding results.

Indeed, it's wonderfully satisfying to smell the pine needles and watch the sunset, but ours is a results-oriented business. Only once in a great while can you get away with writing about "the one that got away." Years ago, when I was the demonically demanding editor of this magazine, a reader explained this to me with succinct clarity: "I don't need your magazine to tell me how to be unsuccessful. I can be successfully unsuccessful all by myself." So much for sunsets and pine needles.

So editors expect their writers to produce stories about successful hunts. This means that a high failure rate is very poor business. Anything engaged in as a business is somewhat different from the same activity indulged in as a pastime. Some compromises are inevitable, and I suppose it's up to the individual writer as to just what those might be. Very few of us actually break any rules--certainly not the smart ones--because we have far too much to lose. Most of us don't lie to our readers (although we may not share each and every painful detail)--most of us. I'll never forget showing up in a deer camp when I was still green. "We'll do our best," said my host, "but don't worry. If you don't get a buck we've got one in the locker you can pose with." I didn't, but I haven't forgotten who did!

My primary credo as a writer came straight from John Wootters, who admonished me as the "new kid editor" to always "be true to my readers." That was damn good advice, and I think I have been, sometimes to a fault. I tend to tell about all the mistakes and misses, but there isn't always room to tell about all the good shots.

Unfortunately, as a hunting writer (rather than as a hunter) I haven't always been true to myself. My compromises haven't been about breaking rules or creating deceptions, but about consciously prioritizing the story over the hunt. Since failure is a (mostly) unacceptable story line, there have been many occasions when I've sacrificed an animal for the story. I've taken bucks and bulls and boars--and occasionally even rams and billies--that didn't meet my personal trophy desires but would make a dandy story.

This doesn't mean passing until the last minute and then settling. This is foolish because you're betting the farm that there will be a classic last-day, last-light finish available. No. It's more a matter of putting aside your own desires and understanding from the beginning what the goal is. My goal is always a story, but the degree of compromise varies depending on whether it's my hunt or somebody else's hunt. Television has made all this even more complex. With a TV camera present, compromises must include things like: Is the camera in position? Is there adequate light?