AlongCameJones

He gave me some of his early 1970's Outdoor Life magazines to read in 1978. There was a feature on bow hunting in one of them. I asked my grandfather, a strictly rifle-only deer hunter, what he thought about bow hunting. He said, "Go on kid, get out of here!" He frowned upon scopes on hunting rifles too and thought only idiots would fire a 22 at a deer.

So, my grandfather was not a man to make a grandson enthused about archery. I do know hunting deer with a bow is much more prevalent now than in 1978. I once read an older dictionary. Under HUNT, one of the definitions had to do with killing animals and birds with a GUN for sport. No mention of bows. Too many cartoons, TV shows, movies and children's storybooks over the decades have portrayed hunters (modern American men of European decent, British, European settlers and colonists and Europeans) with guns. A bow is not something automatically thought of to me whenever HUNTING is mentioned in the context of an American sportsman or a sportsman of the European-language-speaking world. I think of archery as primitive, medieval or tribal. Of course, the utterance of Robin Hood or William Tell doesn't plant visions of guns in my head either. I think of muzzle-loaders as a bit quaint too.

Does anybody else here think modern sport hunting is chiefly stereotyped with weaponry than goes BANG? For most of my 57 years, HUNT has gone with GUN as BACON has gone with EGGS.