Folk's I just want to know what everyone believe's is to be the ethical range for harvesting an animal, either while hunting open area's? Also range for hunting in wooded area'?.Please give me a range of your choice and your reason for choosing that range .


nubo

i guess it up to the shooter and his accuracy. me 40 yards in a pretty open area.. i like setting my stand 20 -30 yard from travel areas

I would say

open: 35 - 40 yards max

woods: 30 - 35 yards max

assuming the animal isnt locked onto you and will not jump the string really hard

Mehunt, I agree with you. Many archers are competent at longer range, but there are too many variables at extended range targets. Animal movement, small branches or twigs and wind come into play. Sure you may make the shot, but the chances of a poor shot are also very good.

For larger game like Elk and Mule Deer - 50 Yards.
For Whitetail and Turkey - 40 Yards.

twenty five to thirty for me

There is absolutley no standard for this........really.
Even the same animal at the same yardage standing in the same spot can make for 2 very potentially different outcomes.......is the animal alert?, relaxed?, bedded? Exactly broadside? etc etc. A bedded animal at 35 yards can be a much easier shot than a wired one at 20 and so on.
Also individual skills and type of game your after changes this quite a bit.......A moose standing broadside at 40 yards is a very different shot than a deer in the same position.

The situation, animal position, size, lighting and everything else I can think of can make a shot that is easy one day, impossible the next.

Everyoen out there just needs to take all the variables into consideration before trying a shot on a game animal that might have seemed easy on it's 3D foam cousin a month earlier.
Maybe a decent rule of thumb would be, take whatever range you are comfortable with on the range, and realistically knock 5 or 10 yards off that for effective hunting yardages.
But like I said........every once in a while that bedded buck laying out there at the very edge of your comfort zone is going to look a lot like the "bedded buck" 3D target you were shooting a few weeks ago, and it's up to you to decide if you can do it, and I am not going to tell you that you can't.

Why can you take longer shots on moose and elk and such, but for deer you need them to be 40 yards or less? I'd think you couldn't kill a moose or something of that size, because they are so big?

DK,
Cause I am 6'3" tall shooting a 30" draw length at 70# with about 78ft lbs of KE.
And I know I could make that shot.
The kill zone on a moose at 40 yards is emmense and not exactly a tough shot for a decent shooter. A shot that could be bad enough to be a non fatal hit on an animal the size of a whitetail, could still very easily be well within the kill zone of an animal that size.

Like I said, what is OK for ME........might not be ok for YOU, or someone else. The person doing the shooting has to understand their abilities and equipment, apply them to the situation at hand, and live by those rules alone.

"At or near 30 yds."