SwampCollie

I agree. Infact, ethics are intangible anyway. We can have generally accepted best practices, and often we label folks who act in socially undesireable ways as "unethical," but often its a bit of a misnomer. I digress.

At any rate, a trailing course can infact help. You can teach people to go slow. But, it would have to be set up by someone who has seen a whole lot of blood trails, and seen some of them go in odd directions...such as deer doubling back etc. Often, if you know the property you are on, you can tell where a deer is heading (almost always towards water) when wounded, be it fatally or not.

One of the things I would like to see is a running archive of pictures of active blood trails. I lost a few such collections on my old computer when its hard drive took a dump, but its something we could do on here fairly easily. It is alittle bit PG-13, but hunting involves that. Lots of folks get worked up when wound channel pics show up...some are educational...some are just gross....however, there are a heck of a lot of neophite bow hunters who cannot tell heart blood from muscle blood from liver blood. Having an archive of the types of blood trails would be fairly instructive in my opinion. Especially with the season coming up. I'll keep it in mind as I hunt. Lung blood is fairly easy to discern...as its bright and full of bubbles and clots...I usually tell folks to imagine bright pink or red cool whip. The list goes on....but I do agree with everyone that its a skill that is quite often overlooked when it comes to being a successful bowhunter. And most game that is lost could often be recovered if trailed correctly.

AK in PA

I see some took my point. (However facetious.) Acceptable hunting accuracy cannot be measured by anyone else's standards, but by hunter's own comfort level. Allowing others to "test"huntersplaces hunting in general in a position open to attack.

Further, I suspect the very poorest shots may also be the most casual and haphazard of hunters. They might be the types that only see the woods one or two days a year. And if that's the case, they're probably the least likely to set themselves up in an area where they are likely to see deer. So it's unlikely they would have many opportunities to even shoot at game. And if they would happen to luck out and get a shot...if they are really that bad...they are likely to miss entirely.

On the contrary, the hunters who are the best shots may also be the most dedicated hunters, who frequent the woods dozens of times throughout the season. It stands to reason that these individuals stand the greatest likelyhood of placing themselves in an area which contains deer; and by their skill and persistencemay beafforded the greatest number of shot opportunities. (The old 90% : 10% rule.) Since we all know things can and do wrong underthe best circumstances (even Dr. Ashby in his Natal Study, says that shot placement is for all intents and purposes, "random"), it could very well be argued that the most accurate hunters also wound the most game (or atleast no more than "poor" shots).

So it seems shooting tests are designed to solve a problem which doesn't exist, only serves to set future hunting open to attack, and perhaps would most truthfully be best fulfilled by eliminating the hunters who supposedly have "passed".

BobCo19-65

I know there is some real deep discussion going on here, and I'm sure I'm straying a bit. But I think a shooting skills test is finefor private individual/corporate land if the owner requires it, or no-hunting townships("reducing the heard in residential areas"). But other then that I don't believe in it. I think it would be straying from the recreational/sporting side of archery hunting. I don't believe there isa skillsrequirement to participate in other recreational areas.

In my state there is already 16 hours of mandated classroom instruction before an individual can gain an archery license. Only eight is required for a gun. Nothing to drive a car.