In the class I teach the majority of the course is spent teaching hunter ethicsand how to improve us as hunters image to the non-hunting public who in reality hold our hunting lives in their hands. 10% of the population are Hunters, 10% are Anti-Hunters, and the other 80% are non-hunters who vote and control weather we hunt or not. One wrong move on our part can turn a non-hunter into an anti-hunter. We will never change the minds of the antis but we can prove to the non-hunters we provide a valuable service to the community and show them we as a majority are good law abiding people. Not beer guzzling law breaking rednecks like the anti's like to make us out to be.

The other large part of the course is going over treestand safety. You'd be amazed at the number of people who do not use safety harnesses at all, or do not know how to use their treestands in a safe manner.

Of all the people I have taught in the 3yrs I have been teaching not one said this course was useless. And they all said they atleast took one thing away from the class.

Page 6 and the list of valid reasons against is on page ? I aint needin no skoolin fer nuthin! Speshully not to kill no dere wit no boe an arra!

thats what i say

Opposed to it. It ain't rocket science and that's what mentors are for.

Mez--"As for the sports example, we went from pee wee football to men running into one another at 20mph. Also, from your example I assume we are to do away with all outside coaching, officiatingand guidance for the young athletes. Just turn them loose and let them play. "

I used this example to show that bowhunting is one of a million things that people do each day that can be dangerous....should everything else be regulated and a test be taken in order to partake in it? I say NO. I played football for 17 years and coached highschool football for 3, so no that is not what I am saying. I just used the example to make a point of all the ridiculous rules/"trainings" that everyone thinks we ought to do all the time.

Brett

I hope that comment was made as a joke

If anything the football analogy proves the opposite. If you don’t practice, you don’t play….



Actually in football, you receive a whole lot more training than if you take one 8 hour bow hunting safety course. Think about it. You have practice every day during football season (even most youth teams practice a couple of times a week) learning from in most cases multiple coaches… Hours upon hours of hands on training really.

If new bow hunters won’t take 8 hours to learn about tree stand safety, proper and ethical shot placement, basic bow safety, blood tracking techniques, etc., then they shouldn’t be allowed to bow hunt.

I’m probably a little partial because I am a certified archery education instructor and I see how much that even many of the new bow hunting adults don’t know…

i'm for it . education can not be a bad thing . someone just starting can get knowlege of safety and the staes laws governing hunting.

for it...

Whether you like it or not, and under most situations, it assures some degree of general proficiency.

Not everyone has a mentor. There really aren't enough to go around. How many on herereally had a mentor to teach and help them with bowhunting? I know I started with no help. I bought a bow that had a draw lenth 2 inches too long. I had 4 different sized arrows with different broadheads on them. I never shot a broadhead into a target for the first 5 years I bowhunted. There was no internet. I didn't know Bowhunter existed until I was out of town and saw one at an actual large bookstore. There wasn't anyone that I knew in my surrounding area that bowhunted. I learned with no real help. I would guess this is a common scenario around here.

Just look at some of the posts that show up on here during hunting season. Should I take a head shot, should I take a frontal shot, I shot at a deer and not sure where I hit it. What does it mean if the arrow is green. I found half my arrow with blood on it, looked around for a few minutes and can't find the deer, etc. Need I go on? These threads pop up every year and I don't think most of them are jokes. The common reaction these get is basically you are a slob or an idiot an shouldn't be hunting with a bow. Nice mentoring guys. The people that actually need help get belittled. These same people may have been on here showing a picture of a deer they shot rather than asking a stupid question had they been required to take a course on the basics.

Many here think the courses are stupid, to you that have been in the woods your whole life, yes they may be. I would bet every single person on this message board would learn at least one thing if they took the class. One of the things critical to the survival of our sport is recruiting more people to participate. Once again, a lot of these people have no knowledge of archery equipment or hunting and there aren't enough mentors to go around. The courses are very helpful to this type of person. Helpful to the kid who doesn't have a dad to teach him and his mother doesn't know anything about it. I think it helps with out image as hunters as well and that is NEVER a bad thing.

So go on and belittle the classes and what they may teach the same that you will belittle the people who really need them next fall. That is a constructive solution.

I sat in on one whenthey first started it, even though I had been bowhunting for over 10 years at the time, because I supported it for the kids. Also sat in on the gun hunters safty course with my oldest son, even though he was an Iraq Vet and had hunted all his life with me in Mich he still needed it in Kansas to get his license. It didn't Hurt one bit, actually had a good time!