You think there isn't a difference packing everything in on your back, working hard all summer getting in shape to do that, eating rehydrated foods on a propane burner, sleeping in a small cold tent and walking everywhere vs riding in on horses, having a wall tent set up with a stove to keep it warm, hot breakfast and suppers, riding horses all around the mtn etc ?

Good gawd ........ you've never been elk huntin have you ?

BobCo19-65 There is a huge fear to call one kind of hunting more difficult than another.

I don't know why that is, becaue it most certainly is true.

People who shoot self bows are far mor accomplished that I am, their kills have more meaning because of the WAY they're doing it. More respect is due to those guys. I got no problem with that, because I'm comfortable with my own challenges, but I will NOT take anything away from what those guys do. I'll not try and say my hunting is just as difficult, it most certainly isn't and to try and elevate myself to the challenges of what self bowyers do is wrong.

It just is.

And thats not to say my challenges in my choices of hunting isn't worthy, they most certainly are, just like yours is and everyone else.

But I'm not afraid to step up and say that a bowhunter is doing it harder than a rifle hunter, a OTC backpack hunter is doing it harder than a private land outfitted hunt. A self bowyer is doing it harder than a Mathews shooter etc etc

I think those are universal trues - and the accomplishments of the guys that choose the harder route shouldn't be covered up just to make others feel good, or whatever the reasons might ne.

I might go back to a compound. If and when I do, I'll not for one minute pretend that my bowhunting is as hard as a guy with a recurve in his hand - it most certainly will not be, and when I use llamas in Colorado to elk hunt, I'm not doing it nearly as difficult as the backpack hunter is.

That just is