People that don' t give a hoot what P&Y does falls into two categories. First, they are ignorant of all the work P&Y has done, for their benefit over the years, and continues to do, for which the newbies are just as indebted to the club as the old timers are. OR they are simply selfcentered ingrates.
Amen to that!! I hate to hear people pop off and say they don' t give a hoot about the P&Y or other type orgs. Don' t get me wrong, I' m not a member, I' ve never shot a P&Y deer and probably won' t.(but I hope I do.lol) But I do respect the club for helping bow hunters make great strides in many areas. To me P&Y and B&C are the " Hall of Fame" of deer hunting. Why would anyone not like the Hall of Fame? Sure there are a few bucks in there that shouldn' t be, sure there are some crooked hunters with bucks in the books, HOWEVER, there are some people in any sport' s Hall of Fame that should be there. That in itself does not make the whole Hall of Fame bad. Let me take it a step further. There are alot of guys out there who say " I' d never enter my buck in that stuipd book anyway." Fine, that is your choice, however, the book isn' t about you, it' s about the amazing deer that God created. We know most of the famous bucks by the last name of the hunter who killed them, but we normally don' t know the story of the hunter or know what he looks like. We know the story of the buck. Sorry to get off on a rant but I wanted to add to what Arthur said.
My opinion on the let-off rule? I' m undecided right now. It' s a tuff call. Obviously, the sport is moving in a direction that is not in line with the current rules of the P&Y. Are hunter' s with 80% let-off unethical? I think not. I do however, see why the club has rules and why they make sense. I guess we have to ask ourselves some tuff questions. The way it stands today, I would say that a very large percentage (if not the majority) of new bows sold are 80% let-off. As someone else pointed out, most new bowhunters end up with an 80% let-off bow, for some reason, which is fine. So does the book follow the trend of the sport or does it stick by it' s old rules and start to take in less and less bucks into the " Hall of Fame" every year because most hunters don' t follow it' s rules? The loser' s here aren' t the hunter' s that kill a big deer with 80% let-off but the rest of the hunting world is because without a buck being scored as a P&Y and gaining some " fame" , most of us will never get to see or appreciate this big deer.
Just some of my rambling thoughts. And for the record, my bow is 80% let-off. I wanted 65% but I was getting the bow at cost from the manufacturer and I was not going to be picky.