Shorten the NY Gun Season?

[bubba]

oh I will please give us your definition of ethical, I can hardly wait.  Because where the state comes down on it asks for a clean ethical one shot kill so the animal does not suffer.  how does that work with a bow? 

[Culvercreek hunt club]

More ethical...well there is a new elitist spin. I was understanding your opinion but with that comment I can tell you have no idea what the sport is all about....you are wasting your breath...that comment alone clearly defines you

[bubba]

more of a challenge maybe.  More ethical never.  No wonder you wanted 6 or so weeks more archery time alone.  it is by far much more eithical than any other form of hunting.  I will teach that at my class later this month.

[builtright716]

Are there any bow hunters out there? You may be ethical with a gun. Alot of people aren't. How many deer get their leg blown off, or shot in the guts as they run by at 75 yds? If you sit on stand, and have a solid rest, yes, a gun is an ethical choice, sometimes. Unfortunately this isn't the case when after a few days of being shot at, or at least hearing the shots, the deer stop moving and find the thickest cover so the drives begin. Too many wounded deer and mercy kills in my time. Every deer I've shot with a bow has bled out quick and within 40 yds of the shot. But thats because I don't shoot at running deer, or shots out of my range.

[bubba]

I can tstand ti waste my energy on yu any longer.  Your mind is already made up.  Ne sense trying to confuse you with th efacts.  I am still waiting for your definition of ethical.  I am sure it will be a hoot.

[builtright716]

Ethical is the hunters responsibility to the animal to make a clean, one shot kill. Listen, I'm not trying to start an argument, or keep one going. I'm simply stating the reality here. I hunt with my pistol during regular season. I even hunt a day or two during muzzleloader. It is fun on opening day. You can't argue with the lack of deer movement after the guns start banging. You can't argue with the amount of wounded deer as result of bad gun shots.

[SteveB]

Post the proof - not your opinion - that the % of deer wounded by gun is routinely higher then bow. A link would be nice

[bubba]

there isnt one. In fact where I hunt it is the opposite. 

[builtright716]

Maybe its a location issue then. Because where I hunt, there is definitely more wounded with a gun. No question a gun shot placed in the boilermaker is going to drop a deer, just as a razor sharp broadhead slicing through its aorta would. I always find deer during mid season scouting, that have a leg missing, or have been shot in the rear end. I will still hunt with my gun during regular season, but for those of you that haven't really tried to hunt during bow, you should.

[SteveB]

I'm a bowhunter 1st. Still want to see you post the proof of your claimed "reality and fact".

[builtright716]

Im not going to search the internet for proof. It's common knowledge that there are more gun hunters in the woods. Add a weapon with longer range, in the brushy new york habitat, and you are going to have more deer wounded by a gun.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Well let me add these facts to your roster then. I am a hunter. I use a bow..shotgun..rifle and muzzleloader. I have had to shoot two deer in 30 years of deer hunting that were gun wounded ........I have had to turn over five to the DEC that I took in gun season that were sporting arrow wounds and so infected the were not fit for consumption.

You may very well be an ethical hunter but you lack understanding.....the implement does not make one ethical or not....the hunter is solely responsible for that. Unfortunately there are unethical folks in our sport just as in every walk of life. That broad brush you are armed with is just as unethical when you against your own.

Let me take a stab in the dark.......NY BOWHUNTER member?

[covert]

I've seen as many deer wandering around in early winter with an arrow sticking out of their haunch or broken off in their leg as I have missing a leg so you can roll up your "more ethical" and smoke it! 

I am a deer hunter.  Sometimes I use a bow, sometime a ML or revolver or rifle (but not a shotgun anymore) and I know my limitations with each tool and stay within them.  I'm sure that most people do, BUT I KNOW that there are people around who practice very infrequently, and stick an arrow in one and lose it, or shoot legs off and lose them.  The worst one for that I know personally once wounded and lost three bucks in three years, all with a BOW.

Does that reflect on archery as a sport?  Archery tackle as an efficient weapon?  Archers as people?  No, it reflects on THAT particular PERSON.  The person is (un)ethical, not the tool used.

[bubba]

I do bow hunt and with a recurve. I suppose because it does not have cams and sights that makes me unethical too?  I just see you as very narrow minded.  You started this conversation which is a shorten the season thread by saying bowhunters need about 5 or 6 more weeks of alone time in the woods.  Then threw out that bows were the most ethical way to kill a deer.  Well ethics goes much deeper than just a clean kill.  I seriously doubt you understand that though.  I see and chase more poorly wounded deer with arrows than I ever have with a gun.  But I gues I do not hunt with the perfect archer.  I bet the next statement will be you never wounded a deer with a bow and lost it, or a gun either. You are the poster boy for ethics, even though you threw the word out and never really defined eithics other than a clean kill.  I would suggest you learn what it is before you use it. 

[Doc]

So is this thread really turning into a gun hunter vs. a bowhunter kind of thing? I was wondering when things would come to that.

And looking back a page or so, was I understanding correctly that a lot of you consider bow season to be just as disturbing to deer patterns as gun season? That's what it sounded like.

Things are really getting weird on this thread.

[bubba]

1 person walking through the woods with a bow causes just as much disturbance as one with a gun.  Does carrying a bow intead of a gun make one scent free and noise free?

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Doc. No one was saying that gun season was less disturbing. Bubba hit it on the head. The reason gun disturbs and alerts the deer more is by the fact that more hunters participate in gun season....the big BANG aside...lol. I believe most hunters practice the same level of scent control and stealthwhen they carry their gun as they do their bow...I do. I think it boils down to numbers.....and the gun hunters have the numbers.

[builtright716]

Well let me add these facts to your roster then. I am a hunter. I use a bow..shotgun..rifle and muzzleloader. I have had to shoot two deer in 30 years of deer hunting that were gun wounded ........I have had to turn over five to the DEC that I took in gun season that were sporting arrow wounds and so infected the were not fit for consumption.

You may very well be an ethical hunter but you lack understanding.....the implement does not make one ethical or not....the hunter is solely responsible for that. Unfortunately there are unethical folks in our sport just as in every walk of life. That broad brush you are armed with is just as unethical when you against your own.

Let me take a stab in the dark.......NY BOWHUNTER member?

Bubba, its funny that you see me as narrow minded. I was thinking the same about you. Obviously you were in this conversation for the argument, rather than to enlighten others. I never said "THE GUN is more ethical than "THE BOW" or that "Bow hunters NEED 6 more weeks". I said bowhunting as a whole is more ethical.

1 person walking through the woods with a bow causes just as much disturbance as one with a gun.  Does carrying a bow intead of a gun make one scent free and noise free?

This proves you are narrow minded. You could have agreed with the previous post, but you found the ONLY point you could argue instead.

[SteveB]

I never said "THE GUN is more ethical than "THE BOW" . I said bowhunting as a whole is more ethical.

Said it, but failed to back it up in any way but hearsay, rumor and speculation.

[13BVET]

I hunt with bow, shotgun, and muzzleloader. If anything, at least in my personal opinion, muzzleloader should be longer. After all, we pay the same amount for this, as we do for the bow. Also, I tend to see far less deer after the regular season. 9 days just isn't all that great, at least in my opinion.

[fasteddie]

Here is a buck that I shot during late ML season a couple years ago . It had a broken arrow shaft through it's cheek and into its neck .

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Eddie...That looks like an "ethical" shot some BOW HUNTER took > . That hunter is so skilled that they used that tracking string thing.

[growalot]

Wow you did him a favorwhy would anyone take a head on shot!? ???

[builtright716]

WOW. I see the intelligence has completely left this forum. Good luck this year everyone.

[Doc]

Doc. No one was saying that gun season was less disturbing. Bubba hit it on the head. The reason gun disturbs and alerts the deer more is by the fact that more hunters participate in gun season....the big BANG aside...lol. I believe most hunters practice the same level of scent control and stealthwhen they carry their gun as they do their bow...I do. I think it boils down to numbers.....and the gun hunters have the numbers.

Ok, so I guess I probably lost the context of the comments. I know that any gun season generally involves a whole lot more hunter density than bow seasons, and generally when gun hunting, we do not simply walk through the woods just carrying our gun but quite often actually shoot it. Judging from what I've seen during gun seasons, deer really do take a dim view of that bang and generally by late in the afternoon on opening day, a full-out defensive pattern develops. During my bowhunts on the other hand, I am still taking advantage of normal diurnal deer patterns even late in the bow season (unless I am being plagued by small game hunters ..... lol).

Also, most of the bowhunters that I know (not all) simply go to their stand, sit there for a while and then go back home. However, gun season was kind of made for still-hunting so quite a few gun hunters spend their time covering ground (myself included). I'm sure it probably occasionally happens but I think that conducting drives with bowhunters is a pretty rare practice, but not so during gun season.

So again, admittedly not really having looked up the context of the argument, I would say that in general, gun hunting probably does create more disturbance in the deer's world than bow hunting.