For some reason, in 33 years of bowhunting whitetails, it has never occurred to me, to shoot when a deer was 30 or 40 yards away. My longest shot has been 23 yards. I' ve also never lost a deer. That said, I don' t care what yardard other' s shoot at.

I don' t use a range finder. I don' t use a peep. My arrows are medium weight with fixed blades, although for most of my hunting years, my arrows were very heavy. Even so, my hunting setup is not the reason I limit myself to shorter ranges. I do it naturally. I believe I can lure the animal in closer if it appears to be headed away. I use a combination of scent, grunts, doe bleats or rattling, depending on the exact situation. Whenever a buck doesn' t come in close, I never think, " dang, I should have taken the shot farther out" . I always think, " what could I have done differently to have gotten it closer?"

I' ve always considered myself a hunter not a shooter. The hunts I remember most are the ones where the animal was closest. The elk at 12 yards with a recurve is forever fixed in my brain. A whitetail doe at 6' was an unbelieveable rush. I not even sure I would enjoy killing one at 40 or 50 yards. For me the hunt is everything and hunting is the art of getting close.