NorthernMN

I can't believe anyone here is so ignorant as to have opinions that bow kills deserve more respect that any other kill. Is bow hunting hared than rifle hunting? Maybe for you it is. For me it isn't. I see more deer when bow hunting. Rifle season lasts for 9 days. 9 days of a blaze orange army surrounding me no matter where I go. I managed to see 1 deer for the entire 9 days but saw hundreds of hunters. Archery season last for over 3 months for me. I almost never see another hunter. For me bow hunting is easier. I have taken 4 deer so far this season with my bow. I only saw 1 deer during rifle season. Easier with a rifle?

I should respect someone's bow kill more than a rifle kill? How many threads have we all read this year that are titled "Made a bad shot on my buck, can't find it" or something similar? They were shooting farther than they should have, or later than they should have, or got too excited, or whatever. So that trophy that is hanging on their wall was recovered 2 weeks later when the crows led them to what was left. That should get mere respect than a rifle kill that was harvested cleanly at 100 yards? I hear too many people talking about rifle hunters as a group.

I could say the same thing about hunting with a bow. There is no excuse for not being accurate with whatever weapon you are using.

This attitude that bow hunting deserves more respect than any other form of hunting is disturbing.

micdundee

silentassassin,

I will keep this short and simple, YOU ARE AN IDIOT!

silentassassin

I think the jump from gun to bow is a tremendous one where I don't see that much of a jump between compound and tradititional equipment. Not to mention all of the extra time in the woods that bowhunting gives as compared to no more difference in time for hunting with traditional equipment. All of the same elements are there but with more inherent accuracy. If I am going to gun hunt it is going to be with the best shooting equipment that I can put in my hands. The same goes for bowhunting. I have had a tremendous amount of big deer withing 40 yards that I was unable to shoot at with a bow. If I had been gun hunting I could have killed 98% of those deer I would imagine. On the contrary, of the deer I have killed with a compouned, 95% of those could have been killed by a competent person with trad equipment. However, I haven't gotten to the point that I am comfortable to limiting myself to the distances at which I am proficient with traditional equipment. But, that's definitely the next level and I am sure that I will end up spending at least part of my season on that side of the fence. Good question though.

I have killed one that grossed in the low 190's but he only netted 176.

I am not proclaiming to be the worlds greatest hunter here. I am sure there are several guys here that are better hunters than I am. However, if someone fancies themselves as a good hunter then why not challenge themselves and pick up a bow. I will tell you that I don't find anything impressive about Milo Hanson considering the fact that he killed a deer that was being driven by other hunters. I don't think that takes any particualr skill set. You put someone else in that spot that was a decent shot and it's called the John Doe buck not the Hanson buck. Where as if it had been taken from a stand by a bowhunter the accomplishment would garner much more respect from me.

That's good and you should be. However, I will continue to give more respect to those trophies that you take with a bow and less to those that you take with a gun. My opinion shouldn't matter in that anyway and I certainly wouldn't offer anything but congratulations on any of the kills. I just wouldn't put as much emphasis on the acomplishment in my own mind if it was not a bow kill.

Mic,

I think that if that is the most intelligent thing you have to say then you have already proven who the idiot is. I do have a question for you though. Is everyone that disagrees with you or doesn't have the exact same value system as you an idiot? Good hunting!

silentassassin

Northern,

The major difference would be the fact that you are able to kill the vast mojority of the deer that you see while gun hunting while you aren't only able to kill a small precentage of the deer you see while bowhunting. But, for some data to back up my opinion why don't you go to your states DNR website and see if they give a break down of kills. In my state although bowseason is 4 1/2 months and gun season is only 2 weeks there are roughly 100,000 deer killed during gun season compared to less than 20,000 killed during the 4 1/2 month bowseason. Also, hunter success rates are close to 20% points higher for gun hunters. In my mind those numbers in themselves speak volumes.

atlasman

I didn't mean to imply that poor accuracy was ok with weapons other then gun. I can't tolerate poor shooting of any kind because all you have to do is practice to avoid it. Poor marksmanship is the DIRECT result of laziness.

bscofield

SA, the jump from compound to longbow is larger than you think it is, IMO. Your distance changes, everything is intuition shot... incidently I had made mention of making your own long bow, your arrows, your broadheads, etc... What i meant by that is that I don't think your taking your opinion to it's fullest extent in how you hunt. If hunting in a more difficult way is a valid form of measuring "admiration" than you should feel like you were not doing what you could to make it as much of a challange... UNLESS, your hunting method is a matter of preference.

Incidently, I don't know what everyone else feels about this part of it, but I've always said (and still feel this way) that putting yourself on the big deal is a HUGE part of killing it. And that part is, in a large part, dependant on the hunter. People get lucky all the time. It seems like more gun hunters do but that's just because there's so many more of them in woods then bowhunters... IMO.

Micdundee... seriously man... [:'(] Can't you keep things civil?

silentassassin

Northern,

There is actually a bigger discrepency then I remebered. Here are the numbers from my state in 02. Notice not only the overwhelming difference in the number of kills but also in the percentage of bucks to does killed by archery hunters verses gun hunters.

Archery Kills
Buck Does Total
2,816 4,118 6,934

Crossbow kills
Buck Does Total
1,245 1,570 2,815

Modern Gun Kills
Buck Does Total
53,921 41,266 95,187

bscofield

SA, do you have available the # of hunters?

silentassassin

Well it's some of both. With any thing there is a law of deminishing returns. A point at which it is not profitable to go below. While I do think bowhunting is inherently more challenging that gun hunting I think going below the compound level would be going below that law of deminishing returns, IMO. We could take that argument all the way back to the spear level but again I feel like the compound level makes hunting whitetails inherently more challenging yet still provides you with an extremely accurate and deadly weapon.

silentassassin

bscofield,

I will look for those numbers in a bit when I get back to the computer.