But it's really not that much more, unless you have a taste for very cheap unscoped rifles. You can pick up a very decent Parker Hunter Mag, with basic accessories ready to shoot, for less than $500, which is about what you'd spend on a Savage 10 and a bargain scope. On the other end, you could go with a new top-of-the-line Mathews or Bowtech which, with good accessories, will run you a touch under $1000, give or take $100 or so. This is about the cost of a Browning A-bolt or Remington M700 BDL with midrange glass.

What I look at are the definate benefits ofbowhunting that more than makeup for any slight additional cost of gear. InIowa,and most other states, the archery season is very long compared to the gun seasons.Our archery season starts on Oct. 1st and runs until the middle of Jan., with a roughly 3 week gap inDec for the two shotgun seasons. Archery seasonalso runsright throughthe peak of the rutand provides the lowest pressure levels onthe deer. $1000 to allow me to hunt almost three months out of the year is worth it to me.

Mike