ORIGINAL: gzg38b

This topic really gets me fired up. [:@][:@]

I read way to many "HELP - Hit one but coudn't find it!" posts to believe that so many people are effective at 40 and 50 yards. IMO alot of bowhunters are toowilling to risk wounding animals.

I've only shot at 5 animals with my bow but I've killed all 5 because they were all under 15 yards. I know I'm not going to miss at 15 yards.But at 35 and 40 yards, I might hit the vitals 8 times out of 10. Sounds pretty good until you consider that that's a 20% wounding rate. That's unacceptable to me.

I think most bowhunters think it's fine to wound one 10% or 20% of the time. There are 500,000 bowhunters in my state. If our wounding rate is 20%, then that's 100,000 deer annually that are wounded and not killed.
I can shoot nice groups at 60 yards in my yard but that's not the point. I absolutely refuse to shoot a deer if I'm not 100% certain that I'm going to hit the lungs. And 9 out of 10 isn't good enough. Therefore, 25 yards or less is my limit.