SCRIDER your thoughts sound a lot like mine before I started bow hunting. I can assure you that you will make a GREAT bow hunter. Why? Because like me, you want to make sure of your shot and recovery of the deer. There are a lot of yahoos out there that could care less, they do not practice enough, they sling arrows or lead at any opportunity they have and could care less if they wound one or can' t find one, they just move on to the next opportunity.

I am not going to lie to you and say you won' t stand a better chance of wounding a deer with a bow than with a gun, you will, but from what you have stated as long as you have practiced enough and limit yourself to shots into the vitals within your abilities you will have little to worry about.

Be it gun or bow there is always that possibilty of wounding a deer and losing it, but I can tell you that you are like me and will reach a point where you know your limits and will stay with in them the probabilities of wounding one and not recovering it will be very low for you.