RE: Ban compounds from archery season - thoughts ??
<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote<font size=1 face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
You get anything this year so far with your Traditional gear? Not being sarcastic, just wondering.
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' size=2 id=quote>
Ah, Charlie wins the prize. Maybe all of this is bitterness there Stealthy????
Stealthy, methinks you need to get in the woods, clear the cobwebs from the old noggin, and move on.
I own both a compound and a recurve. I hunt with the compound. Why? I am much more profficient. Could I kill with the recurve? No doubt, but I do not carry it in the woods. Why not? I can not meet my own expectations of the skill level one should have to be in the woods, and I have more respect for the animals than to just fling arrows around. There are an awful lot of archers, both stickbow shooters and compound shooters that have absolutely no business in the woods.
I am talking about guys that from 12 yards would have a hard time putting 6 of 10 shots (which for me is unacceptable, 9 of 10 is acceptable) in an 8 inch circle at 15 yards. For the wheelie shooters it is a lack of dedication and practice. For the trad shooters, generally the attitude I have come across in my area is "that is ok, it is tougher with trad equipment let's go hunting."
Compound shooters or trad shooters, which according to many I have run into at shoots and on the LW you are not since you did not make your own bow, cut your own cedar trees for arras, etc, that are strictly archers and never tote a gun in the woods typically have a higher degree of dedication than other hunters. What seperates them is their limitations due to their chosen gear. Their are not enough differences between wheelie bows and trad gear to warrant seperate seasons. Now, tell me, why is the eletist attitude so rampant among trad hunters (with the exception of the majority on this board), the LW just smacks of this attitude, as does the magazine you quoted above.
Now, the state of Georgia legalized xguns for the archery season this year. Fine, I am ok with that although my personal opnion is that xguns are ok in the general season but have no purpose in the archery season except for the disabled. What I ran into was dozens of guys buying crossbows that had previously no desire to hunt in the archery season. When I asked them why not just get a compound, the overwhelming answer was that it takes too much time and practice to become proficient with a "real" bow, shoot 2 arrows through the xbow, site in the scope, no more practice. Furthermore, ever single person I talked to said the xgun would be put up once gun season came in. Maybe it is different in your area, I am sharing personal exprience in my little part of the world.
So, using my area as the example from the paragraph above, I ask you 2 things:
1. Are these guys bowhunters, or just hunters? Realistically, and according to them they had no previous desire to dedicate themselves to becoming archers, but when the state gave them a weapon they did not have to practice with they were all for it.
2. Using my area again as the example, do you really think you will convince me the crossbow is an archery weapon? It takes no dedication, attention to details, attention to form, or, and most importantly, drawaing on an approaching animal to master and become a proficient hunter.
Finally Stealthy let me relate this little story , since compounds are inherrintly easier. I just returned from a week of hunting in WV. In camp there were 6 of us. 5 of us shot wheels during the week and one longbow shooter (Chekmate Crusader that he shoots quite well I might add). The longbow shooter practices year round and dedicates himself to knowing his equipment. Of the 5 compound shooters I was the only one with the same level of dedication. 3 of the other 4 went out 2 weeks before, spent big $$$$$$$ getting their bows "tuned" and shot them the Sunday prior to the first hunt the following morning. The other 2 never shot his bow prior to hunting, and had no shots during the week. At 18 yards I was stacking my Muzzys in a 2 inch circle grouping quite well, I practiced with the Muzzys even though I hunt with Mechs, and yes, they all hit the same place. The other 3 struggled to hit the target at 18, so I pulled it back to 12.
Results for the week: I was 1 for 2 with a big doe (misjudged yardage on the other and sailed right over her back). My dad was 0 - 0, with no shot opportunities. The rest of the camp was 1 - 18 with one dead deer, one gut shot never recovered, two grazed deer that did not die (both were seen later in the week), and 14 misses, with multiple missed shots on at least 3 deer that they admit to. Please tell me again how much easier a compound is than a trad bow. Now, If xbows were legal and those guys were carrying them, I have no doubt there would have been many more dead deer in camp last week.