idahoelkinstructor

Fieldmouse even though we have went the rounds before, I lean towards your side on parts off this issue. Most of the people who know me know that I hunt with both weapons as well. I prefer a bow for elk any day of the week. I don't think that bowhunters are better, but I do think that they have learned to pay more attention to all the little, but very inportant details. For some personal reasons but no wanting to go into the lengthy discussion, I didn't bow hunt elk at all this past year. [:@] It almost killed me during september, but I did rifle hunt them in the middle of Oct. Thats something I haven't done in the past 12 years. After seeing how many rifle hunters there were on this general rifle hunt and we were camped 4 miles in on horse back. I was amazed that all the elk wern't shot, they seem to be able to dissapear very well. . Anyway I used elk calls and bow tatics to call in a 5x5 bull elk, to an easy 70 yard chip shot, in the evening of opening day. That bull was the second and biggest bull that I called into me that day. Most hunters had seen a few elk here and there on the run or way off in the distance, and not many elk were shot. I even had a few hunters that I meet on the trail make jokes about my bugle tube and elk calls saying "boy don't you know that the rut is over". When I told them that I had allready called in a spike bull and passed, they said yea right if its true you were stupid for passing up any bull. I just told them that if I wanted to kill a spike I would pack my bow around to make it sporting! Anyway I did learn that rifle hunting elk in a general rifle hunt is a lot more diffucult for the average rifle hunter vs a bowhunter hunting in the rut. And there are a lot more hunters and pressure on the animals during rifle season than bow season. But if the majority off hunters in the area had learned to call in elk, or use bowhunting tactics then I believe there would have been a lot more elk killed. Just my 2cents.