12/30/2001 .... According to the advertising slogan, "Image is everything". That statement certainly rings true when it comes to the sport of hunting. I was driving down a well-traveled blacktop highway the weekend of Minnesota's deer opener when I spotted a party of hunters drawing a doe in the ditch.

There were two things about the scene that bothered me. First, it appeared as if the deer had been shot from the road, which is illegal. In reality, the hunters had probably taken the deer in the woods and dragged it to their vehicles before getting out their knives, but the perception was it had been killed from the road. Second, while drawing a deer is a necessary part of hunting, doing it in full view of a steady stream of passing vehicles is unnecessary and thoughtless.

Either way, the hunters could have dragged the deer 20 feet and their actions would have been hidden from public view by a thick stand of cedar trees.

So why did they choose such a public venue to do the job? The best bet is they didn't think twice about the image they were projecting about hunters and hunting.

Based on the US Fish and Wildlife Service's participation estimates and the latest census, about six percent of all Americans hunt. I'd guess the percentage of people who vehemently oppose hunting is about the same. That means that 88 percent of all Americans—roughly 250 million people—don't hunt but also aren't opposed to it.

That also means that 9 out of every 10 people who witnessed the opening-weekend scene in that ditch were non-hunters. I have no way of knowing how many were offended by what they saw, but just one would be too many.

Sportsmen are always the first to decry the antics of the animal-rights, anti-hunting crowd. But it isn't just the antis we have to fear. As the old comic strip character Pogo used to say, "I have seen the enemy and he is us."

Hunters who are concerned about the future of their sport need to understand how their actions are perceived by others and conduct themselves accordingly.

I'm not suggesting hunters should shrink from public view. No one should be ashamed of being a hunter. On the other hand, there's a time and a place for everything.

Hunters dressed in dirty, blood-stained clothing who show up at a family restaurant and loudly describe their kill in graphic detail are very likely offending non-hunting customers.

Hunters who go our of their way to display dead animals while driving cross-country on heavily traveled freeways only perpetuate the negative perception some non-hunters already have.

It's not that there's anything illegal or even unethical about prominently displaying dead animals or appearing in public places covered with blood. The problem is that these thoughtless actions are likely to cost us votes when hunting is tried in the court of public opinion.

If the hunting fraternity hired a public relations firm to spiff up its image, the agency would probably try to portray sportsmen as people who care about the future of wildlife and the environment and are more concerned about fair chase than the kill. I'd like to think most sportsmen fit that description. Unfortunately, our efforts in behalf of conservation aren't likely to make the 6 o'clock news. What is likely to make headlines is the waterfowler who gets nabbed with a truckload of ducks, or the deer hunter who is arrested for shooting at a decoy set by game wardens to fool someone into shooting from a roadway.

Aside from turning in poachers, there's little law-abiding hunters can do to stop the illegal actions of the minority.

What we can—and must do -- is monitor our own actions, doing everything we can to portray a positive image of hunters. The best way to accomplish that is to consider how our appearance and conduct will be perceived by non-hunters whenever we're in the public eye.

The future of hunting is in our hands.

Babe Winkelman is a nationally known outdoorsman. Watch his award-winning "Good Fishing" television show on Outdoor Channel, WGN-TV, and the USA Network.