Doc

I kind of like the gun season the way it is. Everybody thinks they are getting a big deal by having all those extra days, but the truth is that hardly anyone uses more than the first couple days of all that time. So we get a long season without any penalty and everybody is happy. And I do agree that if the gun season was shortened significantly, nearly the whole hunter population would enter the "if brown, it's down" mentality. That seems pretty obvious. The pressure would be on to grab up whatever venison becomes available.

So, what is the poundage that your bow is set at?

Ha-ha..... Is this a deer that is in an enclosure that you can shoot anytime you think is right? Where I hunt, this is a buck of a lifetime. I would be actually quite stupid to let him pass, because that for sure is the last time I would ever see him ..... alive. I don't even give a crap what age he is. That rack is a trophy in my hunting area.

I have an 8-1/2" x 11" cardboard backed target with four 1-1/2 inch bulls-eyes inside 3" outer rings for my archery practice. I want to see every arrow inside the 3" ring in order to feel that a particular distance is something that I would consider adequate for hunting. That's what I want. I usually am happy with the results, but once in a while things don't work out the way I want. So far I can keep arrows in that 3" ring out to 25 yards. Beyond that, not really all that satisfactory. So 25 yards is as far as I will shoot in hunting situations. For the rifle, I would like all the bullets to go in the same hole at 100 yards. Yeah right ..... lol. Again what I would like and what I get are two different things .... lol. But a nice elongated hole is nice. The fact is that I am never really satisfied with either the bow or the gun. I am simply looking for a reasonable group that leaves me with a fair amount of confidence when hunting a target that has the ability to move without warning or any of the other variations that don't exist on the target range. There are enough variables posed by actual wild game without accuracy being one of them.

Wouldn't it be nice if the manufacturer's would provide some guidelines as to poundage recommendations?

I have always seen the mechanical blade broadheads as a Band-Aid for poorly matched equipment, or poor shooting form. Otherwise there really is not any reason to dump fixed blade broadheads in favor of something with bunches of moving parts and more options for failure. However, I have to admit that there are some people who simply cannot seem to work out the shooting or equipment problems that send fixed blade heads going off with a mind of their own. When you have tried all else and are on the verge of giving up on bowhunting, the mechanicals are definitely a viable answer. But understand that you are paying a lot of money to open up another door to potential problems. To me it is a "last ditch" solution. It all reminds me of an old engineering adage. Additional parts in a design are a quality and reliability problem waiting to happen. And there is nothing in archery that negates that principle.

Yeah, and the archery opener is just 10 days away. Imagine arriving at your stand wringing wet from sweat, trying to swat mosquitos away without looking like a signal flagman waving his arms around. If this weather persists, I may voluntarily delay my opener. I know, guys down south hunt this kind of weather all the time. But there are some aesthetics to the sport that have to be met for me to enjoy the hunt. And sweat and bugs are not really a part of that. I don't even like 70 degrees....lol. How fast does venison go bad in this kind of weather if you have to take hours blood-trailing your deer (or maybe even overnight). I remember mentioning all that when we struggled and won the additional two weeks of season. Perhaps it is a case of thanks for nothing!

You know, when you think about it, if the sole reason for hunting is to cut animal populations, there probably is no justification for huge chunks of the hunting year being devoted to weapons that really don't do a maximum efficient job of doing just that. I mean why allow people to burn good productive deer-harvesting time using weapons that handicap the activity. I am speaking of recurves, longbows, compounds, crossbows and flintlocks, etc. Do away with all that nonsense and put a real deer hunting weapon in the hands of the limited hunter resource and get a real bang for your buck. Of course I'm being facetious, but just trying to put the idea out there that there are a whole array of reasons to hunt, with a whole array of expectations and internal individual ideas of things like fair chase, tradition, challenge, and yes even some individual judgments of what constitutes fairness. Different choices in weapons represent different reasons for hunting in a certain way to those who choose to hunt in a specific way. We all have our own brackets of limitations that we apply to the weapon of choice and some of that does consider some element of fairness. It's a pretty individualized activity, and people do get some very rigid ideas of how it should be conducted. What a trick it must be to manage that whole hunter population and keep all those opinions appeased. And yet it does have to be done if we are to maintain enough hunters to adequately come up with the necessary side effect of population control.

While you are driving around or sitting at stop lights, just glance around at some of the older (and maybe not so old) car makes and models that have that dangling rusty bumper or those lace rocker panels or the dangling rusty fender flapping in the breeze, and you will mostly note that it is an American car where the manufacturers are obviously relying on the "buy American" sentiments to peddle their cheap inadequate steel and paints. This has been going on for decades. I remember when Japanese cars were worse than any. And then some time after the 1970's the situation changed. The Japanese decided to go on a super quality kick, and the American manufacturers decide to talk about quality but only used that word as a smoke screen to continue cranking out rust buckets. So when I buy cars, I don't pay a lot of attention to how they look new. I know I will be owning these cars for a lot of years, so I look at the proof on, or along the side of the road as to what kind of gluing together I will have to do in the future just to keep the thing together. I've settled in on Honda products and haven't been burned yet.

I assume that you all do some broadhead practice each year just to ensure there are no surprises. But maybe you all don't. Do you do any shooting with broadheads before the hunt? What do you use that work well for targets and do not get all chopped up right away. Do you use actual broadheads or some of the "broadhead simulators" that most manufacturers offer for sale. I use a throw-away very open-cell Styrofoam commercial target that I buy every couple of years from Walmart. I also set aside a couple of actual broadheads for the final testing and practicing.

Frankly, my archery technique requires every bit of conscious intensity and concentration of detail that I can muster. I have to concentrate on physical aspects of step of form and execution, and emptying my mind is the exact opposite of what is required for me to properly and successfully shoot and hit the spot that I am aiming for. I think this Zen stuff would be more appropriate for those that are developing an instinctive method of shooting. With instinctive archery, you are trying to let your senses and natural internal guidance systems completely take over. Pretty much like throwing a rock, a baseball, or a football. No mental checklist is gone through.....You simply just do it and your instincts automatically perform the function for you. I know that instinctive shooting can produce astounding results. I have seen exhibition archers perform super-human shots that have nothing to do with shooting form and aiming and stance and steadiness and other shooting form concerns. It simply is a sight picture and an indescribable execution. If he were still alive, we could ask Stacey Groscup how it was that he could shoot aspirins and lifesavers out of the air, and I doubt he would have anything to say about anchor, stance, follow through, aiming, etc., etc.. In fact maybe he wouldn't be able to explain it at all because it is not a physically controlled process but rather a mental state. That's where the Zen stuff takes over and is used....not the methodical disciplines and check-lists and trained-in repetitive procedures that I am forced to go through.

I always park the ATV just under the ridge of the hill to contain the noise a bit and then walk 100yards or so up to the edge of the hilltop and then walk back on the relatively flat land. I have to say that I too have found all kinds of deer hanging around the vicinity of my parked ATV. I have no theories explaining why, but it is almost as though they are attracted by it. That sounds goofy, but it has happened often enough that I have to think there may be some sort of attraction.

I have re-read my post, and see nothing condescending in there. It was simply an expression of my preferences to experience the excitement of getting close to the deer. Try not to look so hard for something to criticize, and just enjoy the conversation.

What you are complaining about is an opinion, which last time I knew, I am entitled to have. I am not telling anyone to do anything. I am merely suggesting that up close and personal is something that is losing ground in bowhunting anymore and that I personally enjoy that aspect of bowhunting. I'm sorry if that concept offends you, but that is a personal preference of mine which I hope I am still entitled to express. I also should mention that I never entered the word "ethically" into my comment. Nor did I talk at all about legality or safety. I am not sure where your imagination conjured up any of that in my comment. Try not to attempt to read more into opinions than what is intended. Not everything needs to be considered some kind of offense. Consider the points in the reply, and forget about trying to manufacture some kind of controversy.

There is another factor that was mentioned earlier but bears repeating. Bows kill with cutting, and guns kill with areas of flesh destruction. What no one is really equipped to say is just how many of those deer claimed to be archery wounds really turn out to be fatal or survivable. No one really knows if they can't recover the animal. It is possible and even likely that the reason for lack of recovery is that the deer survived. Deer have been butchered and sections of arrow shaft recovered inside. Broadheads buried in bone and healed over have been discovered while butchering. On the other hand, I witnessed a deer with its lower jaw dangling from its head. That one I can confidently say didn't recover unless he learned to chew with one jaw. I'll guarantee that wasn't done with a bow. Exploded bone and muscle does not heal very well, so a gun wound likely will give way to complications eventually.

Lots of pollen in that stuff too as those of us susceptible to hay fever can attest to.

I think that it stands to reason that more deer are wounded from a weapon that is more challenging to shoot. Frankly the whole purpose of the implementation of bow seasons is to provide a hunt using a more challenging weapon.....right? A weapon that is more challenging is likely to have more mis-cues than the latest and greatest techno whiz firearm. Heck, I would expect that flintlocks would produce more wounding than modern rifles. Even the beloved crossbow will likely have more wounding losses than scoped rifles. But here is the catch. The total numbers may not match what you all think is logical because there are fewer people afield with the more primitive weapons, so while the rate may be up on bows and such, the total numbers likely are not. So if you find a dead deer after the season, it is more likely to be a gun casualty than a bow kill.

What initially lured me to bowhunting was the fact that it is an up-close-and-personal kind of hunting. I really don't do anything to change that aspect of it. I am in it for the quality of the hunt and the excitement and challenge and the best way to achieve all of that is by getting shots where you could almost reach out and touch the deer. That's the kind of bowhunt that stands out most in my memories. For me it is not a test of marksmanship. I satisfied that itch years ago on NFAA archery courses and tournament shooting. Now it is all focused on the woodsmanship and actual "hunting" ability required to get next to wildlife and learn their movements and fool their senses to get those amazing close shots. If that all doesn't work out, there is always gun season to reach out and touch someone and get revenge for the ones that simply would not come into range...lol. Why cheat yourself out of those amazing close encounters by shooting a deer that is 30 or 40 or 50 yards away? 20 yards is really good, and 5 yards is great! My favorite bowhunt was the one where a doe came straight to the huge tree I was using as a blind, and I had to actually move around the tree as she went around the other side of the tree before I could actually take the shot. That's the hunt that had the adrenaline really pumping. That was the greatest hunt of my lifetime!

Ha-ha-ha ..... is that the way you would conduct a scientific poll? ...... Using social media? Look, I know that you feel a need to bad-mouth bow hunting in your anti-bowhunting campaign, but at least try to do it in an actually credible fashion. To be honest, I have found a lot more dead deer that came from gun season. Why? ..... probably because there are more gun hunters out there. Nothing scientific or credible about that statement, but simply a first hand observation.

I have found this to be true to some extent. I do limit my practice sessions....not to only one arrow, but I am very careful not to get into a duration where I begin to feel fatigued. I have had situations where getting into marathon type of practice sessions only result in training in improper shooting form and other shooting problems like target panic, flinching, etc.

I believe there are some deer that choose their bedding areas carefully and have learned the security that darkness affords them. They understand that we are out there to get them, and they are not going to make it easy for us. However, the forces of rut may just make him do something stupid that he might otherwise never even think of doing.

As once spoken by a wise man, "A man's got to know his limitations." Look we have not evolved all this way and created all this technology just to not take advantage of it when it makes sense and can maybe extend our enjoyment of the outdoors in a safe and sane way. Yes, I do some rather over-strenuous exercise, and maybe a bit too frequently. And yes I do climb that killer-hill behind the house, maybe a bit too frequently, But I also have an ATV that does the bulk of the climbing these days. That modern-day convenience may just make me last a lot longer than our unfortunate neighbor who dropped dead 3/4 of the way up the hill. It makes sense to me.

Yup, I remember when I used to do that with a $60 Ben Pearson recurve and a few bucks worth of Port Orford cedar arrows. And what was it when I bought my first compound (Bear Whitetail Hunter with the indestructible crow-bar epoxy limbs and 6 wheels)? I think that was somewhere around $80, and that was the bow that I killed the most deer with. By the way, I sold that bow for $100 about a decade after I bought it. Try doing that .... selling any bow for more than you paid for it ....Ha-ha-ha. Ah yes, but then I couldn't watch the pretty lights of the nocks go flying over the back of the deer now could I?.....lol.

With a gun, anything around 200 yards is safe from me. Around here I can't even see past 150 yards and most of the time, 100 yards is looking through a screen of trees, brush and saplings. My longest target range here at home to practice at is only 100 yards. I looked at setting up another bench at 200 and discovered that I would have to do a major tree removal project just to poke a bullet through the additional 100 yards. Why should I sight in a rifle for a distance that I will never shoot?

Well, he didn't get that big by making a daylight target of himself.....lol.