In my opinion a great bowhunter is someone who makes the best of the hunting situation they are given. They do the scouting, make the decisions themselves and follow the legal guidelines established by thier state. They shoot the biggest deer they are given the opportunity to hunt. I don't necessarily feel they need to be a nice person, to still be considered a great hunter. They can be a jerk in life, but still be ethical in the woods, and have excellent skills and woodsmanship.

LMAO----sounds like a pretty famous person,with endorsements,a person who dosn't have to work for a living,or won the lottery.Averaging 125 plus animals each year,man thats alot of traveling

A great bowhunter to me is simply a person who I truly enjoy bowhunting with, and whom I would dearly miss when they have passed on, whether or not the person has made numerous kills or killed big bucks.

Average a 125 a year?? There are many great bowhunters out there who won't kill a buck even every year. Some based on selectivity, some based on available habitat.

Josh hit the nail on the head!!

Question? Why do some threads have antler size making the difference between good and great bowhunters. I understand the older the animal the more skill needed to harvest it. But is that really how we judge for the most part? I'm not taking a shot at the people who wrote those threads, I guess greatness is in the mind of the beholder. To each his or her own. I believe that all of us are great with certain aspects of bowhunting whether it's stalking, shot placement, coolness under pressure, knowing the land and where game moves. Or is it that certain people have a more structured work ethic when it comes to hunting, or just a bigger pocket book.

Looked it up in Webster's Dictionary :


great bowhunter - (grat bohunt'r) noun, - 1. Someone who is consistently succesful at harvesting mature deer with archery equipment, regardless of antler score. 2. Someone who also hunts with a sound management and conservationist's perspective.
see also - "captain backstrap"

" a good bowhunter is basically a pretty sneaky guy"
- Gene Wensel, "Hunting Rutting Whitetails"

A great bowhunter is a man or woman who has taken the time to gather around other bowhunters and share their stories of success and failures. A great bowhunter has the opportunity to make other bowhunters better. A great bowhunter is one who can still tell stories of previous hunts years passed and smile and laugh, whether it be a doe or lifetime buck he or she was blessed with that year. That is what makes a great bowhunter.

A great bowhunter to me is someone who has made a reputation for himself/herself based on their own experiences in the woods , regardless of the number of trophy animals , and their willingness to share their woodsmanship and hunting tactics with others. He/she would also be a person that anyone would be delighted to share a campfire with.

It amazes me to see the number of folks who feel that ANTLERS are what makes a hunter!!!! Heck one of the greatest bow hunters even using the ANTLER standard, Fred Bear said that the hardest deer he ever hunted was an old doe!!

There have been quite a few folks here that know what a great bow hunter is and it sure isn't the person who stuck the most or the biggest! My hat is off to all of you who feel that a great bow hunter is an ethical ambassador of the sport. They are some one who knows thier quarry, respects them and takes them in a humane manner. They are people that any of us can count on to represent bowhunting in the proper manner that makes us all proud. They are people who take children and novices under thier wing and teach them the ways of bow hunting. They can in some cases be some one who has stuck a ton of deer or killed a bunch of book bucks, but most of the greats have never stuck a book buck, they are stewards of the land and not trophy hunters or braggards.

Bowhunting is largely a solitary endeavor, that goes unobserved. Even preparation is done in seclusion. It would be very difficult to know who is great at hunting with a bow, and who is might be taking the easy route and who is simply a very nice person who happens to hunt with a bow, getting lucky every now and then.

The person who has very thorough preparation, a good plan and who can accomplish the most difficult of hunting goals, should be considered a great bowhunter. However, other than the hunter himself/herself, not many will ever know went into a particular hunt, and just how good you'd have to be to pull it off.