Gov. Tim Pawlenty has taken a drubbing from hunters for not tracking down a deer he shot on opening day of Minnesota's firearm deer season.
A headline on deerhuntingchat.com calls the possible presidential candidate a "slob hunter" for wounding a deer on Nov. 7 and then leaving for a Republican fundraiser in Iowa before the animal could be found.
One contributor wrote: "What kind of slob hunter goes out opening morning and shoots a deer knowing full well you won't have time to retrieve it or tend to it? One whose presidential ambitions override his hunting ethics, that's what kind."
The-deer-hunting-guide.com says: "A responsible hunter, who is also an ethical hunter, will be prepared to spend hours trailing a wounded deer; even come back the next day if needed. You must make every effort to retrieve a wounded animal. It's the right ethical thing to do."
Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association and an organizer of last weekend's hunt, said Pawlenty and his hunting party did everything they could to find the animal.
After the governor shot the deer at 7 a.m. from more than 200 yards away, he and his brother Dan, an accomplished hunter, went to where they last saw the animal.
Finding blood but no deer, they returned to base camp for breakfast and to consider their next move.
Due in Iowa that night for a fundraiser, Pawlenty left while others took up the search. By dusk they had found nothing and stopped. There has been no sign of the animal since.
