Difficulty vs Efficacy

[g8rvet]

"All of this just got me thinking, why do so many hunters wish to increase the level of difficultly even if that "challenge" means increasing the likelihood of wounding and injuring the animals we chase?"

I was pretty much thinking that we, as hunters, already do things to increase the level of difficulty to abide by our own personal ethics.  Rifle shooting on private land is legal in Florida in the spring, but I would never do it.  The key though is your ending.  If increasing the challenge increases the likelihood of wounding or injuring, then any ethical hunter would just not do it.  If someone gets proficient enough to kill with an arrow, have at it.  If they get good enough with anything to humanely kill their quarry, I am all for it.  They can jump out of a tree with a machete as long as they are good at it and I am cool with it. 

I pretty much quit deer hunting because I found it boring.  I did make it last a while longer by challenging myself with muzzleloader, then pistol, then bow.  But the key was I got real good with what I was using.  This was all before Al Gore invented the interwebs and no pictures were taken.

It is all a sport and it is all about the challenge within our own ethical standards.  I am not much for judging others on theirs, as long as a base level of consideration for humane killing and recovery is followed (which is what you said). 

[falltoms]

There are a handful who put in the time and practice to be efficient.   They only take high percentage shots.  They also don't pick up the bow and then pick up a couple of crutches to help offset the difficulty.  These are a rate breed and my hats off to them.

Then others are driven by ego.  They will use a bow but then take advantage of any other equalizer they can find.   They will take marginal shots with a high probability of a miss, or even worse, a wounded animal.   They do this in hopes of getting lucky so the can post a hero shot on social media craving oohs and aaws from their peers.   A vast majority fall into this group and are a dime a dozen.   They are often  easy to spot.  Just look for the war paint, clean, ironed and matched camo.   And usually as many name brand products as they can get turned towards the camera.   Smiles are usually non existent.   There is usually a long read going into detail how difficult of a hunt it was to get the Gobbler to engage their full strut decoy at 10 yards from the blind.   Not bashing anyone for doing it, more power to you.

This one is dead on right

[rgref522]

i lived the challenge hunt attitude briefly.... now i just like stacking bodies and filling freezers.  i still have high standards when i fill tags but the shot and what ensues is just as enjoyable to me as the chase.

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[howl]

We only get three birds per year in GA. I like to hunt turkeys more than I like to kill them. So I do things to make them harder to kill to stretch my season out longer.

[AndyN]

I archery hunt due to increased opportunity. I'm not going to sit on the couch just because I can't take the shotgun.  KS, NE, and SD it allows me to get started earlier. For SD it is an OTC tag that allows you to hunt the whole state vs prairie units where you must draw and can't hunt the eastern 1/2. When I was an IA resident it allowed me to hunt all four seasons instead of just two. I've also found it easier to get permission, especially when livestock are present. But the second shotgun season opens up I put the bow away. As far as wounding I've harvested zero birds with prior archery wounds and several with shotgun pellets in them. I wounded a couple with a bow and I've "missed" a handful with a shotgun.

[Gooserbat]

It's called accepting the challenge. I started bowhunting when I was a teenager and now I rarely hunt anything but turkeys with a gun. 

[budtripp]

I much prefer bowhunting deer. We have a short, congested rifle season in Missouri, as do many other states. More idiots in the woods during rifle. I'd rather observe deer moving naturally than ones running for their lives after being pushed around by the pumpkin army. The season is much longer, I must know how to hunt them on early season feeding patterns, during all stages of the rut, and also the late season survivors. I can hunt in 80 degree weather or -20 degrees. I feel I learned more about the animals and their habits my first year bowhunting than I had all my previous years of only rifle hunting. That being said, I prefer shotgun hunting turkeys. I've killed a few with a bow, and likely will try it again someday. But I prefer shotguns. You can't tell me that sitting in a blind with $500 worth of DSDs and waiting them out is any more challenging than hunting them in the timber with just your camo and shotgun, and its much more fun to hunt them that way.

[silvestris]

Good post budtripp.

[Crghss]

While I haven't bow-hunted turkey yet it's my preferred method of hunting. I like Archery target shooting. I like the stealth required for bow hunting. Being in woods with far fewer people and not as many googan's appeals to me. 

[GobbleNut]

Speaking of bowhunting turkeys, for me there is a well-defined line between using a bow to "hunt" turkeys,...and using one for target practice at living critters.  I will use the following story as an example of what I mean:

In the community I live in, there is a "youth hunting club" that was established by a small group of adults to introduce kids to hunting,...kids that otherwise would not have the opportunity.  A few years ago, our Game Commission misguidedly made it legal to shoot turkeys over bait on private land (we have since got it outlawed again). 

During the time it was legal, these adults were (again misguidedly) taking these kids to private lands they had access to and letting them shoot turkeys out of tent blinds set up a few yards from feeders with their bows.  In summary, those kids were not "hunting" at all.  They were merely taking target practice on gobblers.  The adults somehow thought it was "okay" for them to allow that because they were making the kids shoot them with bows. (I also got wind that some gobblers got away with arrows sticking in them). 

Fortunately, that practice was fairly quickly made illegal again after only a few years, but the moral of this story should be clear.  Again, there is a difference between "hunting" and "target practice".  Each of us needs to look in the mirror and ask ourselves which of the two we are participating in....