MA Jay - before the compound bow how many people bowhunted ?

Its a known fact hunter numbers are going down, isn't it ? Yet bowhunting numbers climbed bigtime in the past 2 decades. Why ?

Hint - it wasn't them using recurves that did it. It was the ease of use the compound bow afforded people. With the compound camne hundreds of thousands of bowhunters. If it went away it makes sense to believe the sheer numbers would too.

This is what I'm using next season:



Now if I can only figure out how to get in my treestand with it.

ma jay that was very well put. good post.

I thought of something the other day. A xbow is not like a compound in another area. A compound can't accidentally go off. It can go off when you don't want it to but it's during the act of firing it. A xbow like a gun lays around loaded. You can't lower a compound down from a tree loaded but you can a xbow. It is an area that makes it drastically different from a compound.

A guy 2 years ago shot his foot lowering his xbow down from a tree.

FWIW, I have no problem with the different manners people choose to humanely harvest prey. I see crossbows more like guns than bows in the sense that they store and release energy to move a projectile towards a desired target. You can stabilize them by resting them on something to attain a more accurate shot. The stored energy is at ready and rest for as long as you want with no physical effort until the moment you move the only part of your body, a finger, to release it. With a bow, you must create the stored energy and hold it steady without the aid of resting it on something and do it with a deer in front of you. Takes a little bit of body involvement besides just a finger. Even with high let-offs, you can only hold it so long and hold it too long the less acurate you will end up being. That all said, I have no problem with crossbows no more than trad gear. I would like to have the time to shoot trad but I have a job and family and don't feel I have the time needed to get good enough to feel like I could humanely harvest an animal. In no way do I think trad shooters are better archers than me. I think most of us feel we could be proficient with trad gear given the time. I also know at the public hunting qualifying shoot I went to, the trad shooters got to shoot 5 yards closer than the compound shooters. Not trying to slam anyone. Everyones got their own preferences. It does take skill to shoot a compound and harvest animals with one. Can it be done by more people with some profiency as opposed to trad gear? I would guess most likely as in todays world we all have things pulling our time and they should be able to become adequately proficient with a compound in less time. But I know a lot of compound shooters who aren't amazingly great with a bow just because it is a compound. But rather than look at compound shooters with disdain or with an attitude that someone who shoots trad is superior, I see compounds as a way to include and bring more people to archery as well as have more animals humanely harvested.

aeroslinger, great post.

I once attended a "qualifying" match/event to be eligible to assist in herd-thinning taking place at a local metropark. It was for archers only.

I hate to even post this, but I was appalled at the low level of proficiency seen by the dozens and dozens of archers that showed up to qualify at what I thought was a test that was waaaay too easy to prove much of anything.

If you want to be amazed, simply work in an archery shop the month before the season opens. It gets down right humorous to see what walks through the door.

--Bob

You just made an excellent argument for why crossbows should be allowed. Why do you want to take that time in the field away from anyone over an equipment choice. Afterall the bow is just the weapon it's really about the hunt so why do care what kind of equipment they are using?[:-]

What if all these incompetant bowhunters switched to crossbows and it allowed them to shoot much more accurately at 20-25 yards. Would that be a good thing ? Or are we, as bowhutners, comfortable with many in our ranks being terrible shots ?