Define ethical ? Is ethical shooting targets in the 290's and going into the woods and wounding deer ? Some of the best target shooters suck at killing deer. Some of the poorer shooters on the 3D range fill all their tags every fall.

IF you are suggesting that poor shooters give up their choice of weapons ........ and IF crossbows allowed them MORE accuracy then why aren't you FOR allowing crossbows i the name of ethical shooting ?

I went 6 years I think without missing with my compound. I picked up my longbow and started shooting. I went to 3 3D shoots and placed #3, #2 and #4 overall in them I think it was. My shooting is pretty good - I'm not afraid to go against anyone when my neck aint hurting

Anyway, I cleanly missed a very large bull the first day I took my longbow into the woods. Clean missed him at 25 yards. Never, ever would I have missed that elk with a compound or crossbow. I then went to KS and one afternoon missed a nice buck (I know what happened there) and then 30 minutes later drilled a 140" + 5x6 buck.

I figured I had this trad thing master at this point. I'd taken my learning lumps, missed twice but killed my 3rd buck clean.

This fall I was hunting again, a new bow (another bow) this time, and I clean missed the biggest buck I ever had a chance to shoot in AR. Aftre that 20 yard miss, he came right under my stand. I was 12' up, he was 15 foot from my tree ........ and I took the shot. Instead of drilling down in between the shoulders, I missed and hit only the off shoulder. I never found that buck.

So I'm now 1-5 on shooting with a kill, 3 misses and a wound. NOT GOOD. So I'm in Kanas, huge buck country ...... and my shooting (practice) sucks. I knew what to do - and I picked up the compound, practiced one night and 3 days later killed my non-typical buck.

So ... do you think I should hunt with a recurve this fall ? Well, I sold that new bow, I've got a Hoyt Gamemaster recurve now, and up until my shoulder/neck pains I was shooting it very well. Assuming I'll be physically able to hunt this fall and I'm sure I will be, I'll be hunting with my recurve. I'll be picky on my shot selection, and recurve accuracy isn't compound accuracy by any means. But my personal ethics, my personal challenges. If I was looking for a bow to maximize my chances at filling a tag ........... I'd buy me a Mathews Q2XL or another one of the longer ATA risers Mathews, I'd shoot a whisker biscuit and weighted carbons tipped with expandables and shoot a single pin, adjustable sight.

But its more than the shooting aspect - its the personal challenge, the setting of goals, the accomplishment of doing it "the hard way"

and how does all this tie into crossbows ? Compounders look down on them because they're easy and don't require as much dedication and practice and never once think that trad shooters could say the same about them []