Sure they are out there but not in the shear numbers that the orange clad ones are...dusting off the rifle from last year and assuming it's on and slinging lead across the field at running deer and if they don't fall, not inspecting to see if they hit one cause they must have missed, they didn't fall....there are slobs in every sport, class, state blah blah but the sea of orange doesn't happen in archery season and I don't hear lead zinging over my head not to mention the richocet I took in my lower back one year. Not to mention all the 3 legged deer I see post season and the ones I find with jaws shot off.......yeah I take a rifle for a walk if I hadn't filled my tags in archery season but it's to patrol the property for orange trespassers and a possible coyote.
Instead of denigrating our fellow hunters I think all us archers should be thanking them for doing the work of managing the herd so we can enjoy what amounts to six weeks of recreational hunting ,where we do very little to contribute to managing the herd. In 2003 archers harvested 34K anterless or 11% of the anterless harvest. But, we harvested 31K buck, which was 22% of the buck harvest. If the orange army didn't harvest 289K anterless archers would soon be required to harvest 3 or 4 anterless deer before we could harvest a buck. Either that or professional sharpshooters would be hired to control the herd in many areas.