ORIGINAL: Arthur P
This is 2007, not 1915, not 1935, not even 1957. Like Chad has been TRYING to point out, ethics and public attitudes are very different now than they were back in those days. The groundwork those old timers laid, the mistakes and successes, is the basis for our code of ethics today.
Anyone who really wants an education about how our modern ethics didn't apply back in the old days, read "The Witchery of Archery" by Maruice Thompson.
Fred Bear was out there promoting bowhunting. Since he wasn't a feakin' IDIOT, of course he used his own products. His primary goal was to popularize bowhunting. His secondary goal was to make a little coin by selling his products to those new bowhunters. He richly deserved a little income from his efforts because he and a few others like him are the primary movers and shakers that got the states to open up bowseasons in the 50's and 60's. If it weren't for them there wouldn't be any bow seasons today.
Arthur P.....Not that you need any endorsement from me but I usually enjoy your posts. In my opinion you're close on this one but if I may...
First, I started bowhunting in 1946, at the age of 11 with a 27# long bow made for me by a friend of my fathers. Hunted for and killed a lot ofrabbits with that bow. Spent the next 25+ years with "primitive" long bows and recurves. You're right about one thing, we found our comfort zones by trial and error. We shot at animals in different situations to determine effectiveness, not ethics. I learned that 20 yards was my maximum slam dunk range, not because of ethics, but because I didn't want to spend hours tracking and maybe losing an animal. Fred, with hif guide and bearers did not have to worry about it. Point of illustration, I believe in 1959 I was stillhunting a swampy area with a 50# Herter's recurvewith Herter fiberglass arrows and Herter 4 blade BH. That combohad to weigh 1000 gr..Anyway, I spotted and worked within 40 yds of a very large buck so I drew and aimed (instinctively) about a foot above his back. The arrowwould have hit him but he heard the release and calmly backed up about a foot and let the arrow hit the water right next to him. He then walked off. I immediately learned that I needed a new arrow combo because hay bales and deer behaved differently at 40 yards.
So anyway,I grew up during the Fred Bear heyday. I will neither pay tribute to him nor castigate him. I view him simply as a promoter of his products, doing the thing he loved.Trying to lay all of these ethical attributes to him and those that followed (like me) are in my opinion, preposterous. He was a hunter, usually guided (in unfenced areas) to a position where he could kill game that could be photographed and promoted. There was no internet, DVDs, CDs and early on, no TV. We learned by doing and hadlittle thought about what future hunters were going to think of us.Like today, we each had our own ethical standards.
In my opinion, Walt Disney did us the major injustice by humanizing animals via Bambi, Dumbo, etc.. Chidren who grew up learning that lovable Bambi's motherwas killed by a mean hunter began the process of anti-hunter sentiment and has been reinforced by the steady parade of animals in human form ever since.