Bow shooting is a pretty integral part of bowhunting though. It's a package deal. If you're not very good at bow shooting, you have to be a lot better at bow hunting. If your effective range isn't any better than 10 yards, you have to hunt just that much harder in order to get yourself within 10 yards. If you can take all your arrows andslam 'em into a bottle cap at 40 yards, then you only have to hunt hard enough to get within 40 yards.

Your shooting skill can make up for a deficiency in hunting skill just like your hunting skill can make up for a deficiency in shooting skill. It's a lot easier, with a compound with sights, fast bows and mechanical releases to work up the shooting skill than it is to develop the hunting skill. There are a scant handful of traditional or primitive bowhunters that have the shooting ability that would even let themdream of taking a shot beyond 30 yards, and most won't even attempt a shot beyond 20.

All the time you see where people who claimone mustshoot 40-50, even 60 or 70 yards in order to be successful on western game. And yet you can pick up a traditional bowhuntingmagazine and see guys who have taken the exact samespecies on the exact same ground with a homemade selfbow and wood arrows from 15 yards and less.

Both are bowhunting, but the methods and techniques are very, very different.