I have noticed, lately anyway, that when I am speaking to a 'hunting ranch' or an outfitter that they seemed to be very relieved when I answered their question 'What are you hunting with, rifle or bow?' by saying rifle.

When I asked some of this about this they stated that they have had issues with bow hunts in the past. When pressed harder they stated the issues were related to wounded game, which required long tracking sessions, or lost entirely. They stated this was not typical with rifle hunts.

Just curious if anyone else has had similar experiences.

Kent

No first hand experience but it does not surprise me in the least.

I have noticed this not only here in Colorado, but also In the RSA. Some western states have a more liberal bow season than rifle, thus encouraging hunters to take up the bow. Seems to me this would cause beginning bow hunters to wound more animals. The manufacturers hype doesn't help the situation either. I think Oregon requires a specific archers course validation to purchase a tag for the first time. I have seen several animals with arrows stuck in them in the field. I assume this is because the hunters'shot was too long & the arrow didn't have the velocity to pass through.

In the end, what it comes down to is that these farms have so many head of livestock to sell. A guy with a gun will bop one, on average, much quicker than a guy with a bow. So, you can get more hunts out of a stand, more hunts out of a guide, more hunts out of your lodge. Less complaining, happier customers.

All that aside from the wounding / recovery thing. If I ran an outfit like that, I'd sure as heck have a tracking dog handy..... But, personally I think the wounding ratio is pretty even. People tend to stretch their abilities, be it with a rifle or a bow. Lots of wounded animals with rifles and pistols, too. It's the nature of the game. Coyotes gotta eat, too. JMO, Dutch.

The worse case I ever heard was when a former friend complained that he had already wounded and lost 5 Elk. I told him he was going to have every coyote and magpie in the county following him around, but it really isn't a laughing matter.

I think Dutch is onto it.
As far as having to track wounded game, that's one of the downsides of being a guide.
In my sixty years (almost) of hunting, I have never seen an arrow sticking out of an animal. I'm sure it happens but if the animal isn't lethally wounded, one of the first things he does is try to pull the arrow out.

I have found many dead deer with arrows in them in the So. Hills of Idaho, when I was with the Forest service...Many of them fever and drown them selves and can be found near or in the Beaver ponds. I have found fewer deer that have been rifle shot, but they usually don't last as long and don't make it to the infection/fever stage is my guess, they die first and in a more inacessable area perhaps..

My son is a lion, deer, elk, guide and they prefer gun hunters. Especially with a lion. A wounded cat with an arrow sticking out of it is very dangerous for the dogs. And every fall they end up tracking several bow wounded animals whereas the gun hunters rarely wound. And if they do, a follow up shot is right at hand. They work hard to get thier hunters close for either weopon. Even gun hunters they try to get them in good shooting position before letting the hunter take the shot.

I think Dutch sums it up. It is the same way in this country. The Outfitters here though are happy to take thier money.
Guides that I know don't even refer to the hunters as archers. They call them 'Hunter with his WOUNDING STICK.' (Personally, I feel that is un fair to refer to archery hunters)
I think archery hunters that pay $10,000US for a big game hunt might tend to compramise a little and take chances they would not normally take. Same thing happens with rifle hunters except the guide is in more control with a rifle hunter in my experience. It is easier to tell a client to wait for a better shot, for example, when he is right beside his hunter with gun in hand than if he is 100 yards away on his final stock with his bow.

Daryl

if outfitters feel this way they should charde same price for either hunting tool.

Personally (being a bow hunter) I feel that if I am paying a day fee that if I choose not to take a shot because the conditions or animal isn't right it's my duty and call.

In Africa the business is game wounded or on the ground and the funds that go with it. I perfer to be confident and make a quality shot or not shoot at all. My first trip I took a couple shots that weren't high percentage and missed so no wounded game, but as the week wore on the PH was a little concerned (No animals no money) that I "wasn't having a good time" since I hadn't filled the want list.
On the contrary as I had some nice stalks and got close on a number of ocassions just no high percentage bow shooting chances and knowing the low sucess percentage bow hunting i was extremly happy.

There was a study done in a controlled area several years back I believe in Wisconsin. The findings then were that the wounding loss where the animal later died was about the same for rifle hunters and archers. My observations over 30+ years of hunting with both weapons bear that out at least with whitetails which is where most of my experience lies. I think the overall wounding rate is higher for bowhunters but I think animals are more likely to recover from an arrow wound than one from a rifle. I think there are a lot of gun hunters who fail to follow up their shots if the deer doesn't drop on the spot. I don't like to ever see cripples lost whether it is a big game animal, ducks, pheasants, etc. All hunters have an obligation to take responsible shots and follow them up. I don't like seeing propagation of the myth of pin cushion deer from bowhunters.

Jeff

Hey Guys,
Good to see a tread like this. I am almost - ALMOST - anti bow hunting. I feel the trouble stems from the fact that as stated here there are more liberal ( shitty word ) seasons.
Living in Pa. I see the normal 2 to 5 wasted deer a year. A few will still have an arrow in them. A few will be rifle gut hooks as well. My personal biggest complaint with the archers is a statement that is already in this tread.

To paraphrase - some will get away, it is the nature of the game, the coyotes got to eat, blah, blah, etc......BULLSHIT, This the prevailing mindset of the string gun crowd that I run acrossed.
This is nonsense and 100% unresponsible. There is no excuse for losing game, NONE. We have a 100% recovery rate on rifle hunts. Most years we don't have to track any. In the archery camps they are tracking every day with some years a 70% recovery. This is unexceptable. This is not the guides or outfitters fault. This is the stickflingers fault.
I have hunted on and off with a bow for years and never NEVER taken a shot over 20 yds. NEVER. I here this bullshit about being prepared for a 75 yd shot as it may be your only chance. No it is not. That is not a chance. That is the perfect recipe for disaster. If you are competent to 35 yds great. I am not. I have seen very little sucsess at 40 yds. And from there out is nightmareish. 10 to 30 yds is hunting, Past that is just shooting and wishing. And the smell of failure.

Where I guide in Wyo. the Elk rut is archery only. Every hunter we had this year SUCKED with a bow. Thank god they all -ALL- missed bulls, some as close as 5 yds. They read a article about big bulls, bought a bow and now are archers. They don't have any shooting skill or any field skill. They are no more archers than they are Brain surgeons. This pisses me off to no end. Believe me I have rifle hunters that are just as unprepared. I have always work alot over extra to pay for my hunting. Now that I am alittle better off I hunt more. I still remember what it took to come up with 3000.00$$ for a deer hunt. Now I guide these people who are wasting 3 to 5500.00$ on a hunt, showing up unprepared, no field rifle (bow) skills, in piss poor shape and then right a chat room how the outfitter fuckem' over. They really screwed themselves.

Please, this is all simple stuff.
Do your homework
Use the approriate weapon ( i.e. no .243 for Elk)
Practice til it hurts
Then practice more for the hurting
Get in some shape
cut back on the smoking and sweets and walk alittle.

Sorry for the ranting,

ED

I tried bow hunting when VT first opened it as it added a season and we could also hunt does in a buck only state. So I bought a Ben Pearson recurve and tried it.

I did not practice much. Somehow I had the incorrect belief that if I was a good shot with a firearm then I could shoot a bow well also. In my case this is not at all true.

I did get a number of shots at deer and missed them all. Some were close. It was really great hunting however.

Now the state of CT requires that one pass a bow hunting course first. There are other requirements as well such as your name must be on every arrow. The season in CT starts in Sept and runs for months and has multiple deer on the tags. CT has a lot of deer and they are pretty big as well.

I am not here to judge the sport at all. I will leave it be. Just to say that it's really very difficult as compared to hunting with a gun.

E O, must have been a rough season, eh?

Personally, I don't throw sharp sticks at animals, but I recognize, too, that we live in a free country. I also recognize that inherent to hunting is **some** wounding. Even wild predators sometimes wound.

That said, sometimes I wonder if people don't feel BETTER if they get a shot off, even if they have no chance of success. Killing is better than shooting is better than going home empty handed, type of thing.

Yesterday, I counted 11 rifle shots while elk hunting -- and not an animal on the ground at the end of the day! Lots of "Hail Mary" shots at rear ends through the timber. While the 4-wheeler is still idling......

I don't like it anymore than most here, but it seems to be the current status of the hunting culture. JMO, Dutch.

Hey Guys,

Sorry to sound so negative. Hey Dutch, actually it was a good season so far, just a few extra dummies this year.
It is just that this is reaccuring problem in the circle I travel through and it really smokes me.

Again sorry for sounding off so loud.
ED

As long as it costs 1/10 to 1/3 of the per-capita income of the wealthiest country in the world to go on a guided hunt, people will "stretch" their limitations. If you are familiar with external ballistics, you know that the chance of success goes down exponentially beyond a certain distance.

But if that's the only chance you're likely to have, and you already wrote the check????

What would you do?

I personally don't bow-hunt, but might start some day. It would sure be nice to mix in a morning of deer-hunting on those October dove weekends in Texas, wouldn't it?

I doubt I'll ever try to shoot anything bigger than a whitetail with a bow. I just don't have the time it would require. If I want to "test" my skills and sneak within 20 yards of an elk, I'd just as soon have a gun to shoot him with when I get there.

Just my two cents.

Will you all please list the outfitters you are speaking for?

To me, your outfitters are not very "ethical". They know bow hunters just "wound" and they still provide them with a hunt. Guess money is more important than wounding game, in their minds.

GTR

Ed:

You're my hero. Keep up the good work and accurate reporting ! For some, the truth hurts.

I'm trying to gain access to a large piece of private land with abundant whitetails.

The owner doesn't charge for access, but just wants some hunters to thin out the does before the deer eat everything within reach. Permission is hard to come by. The owner wants to be as sure as possible that the hunters allowed in follow safe hunting practices and kill cleanly. The first question asked is "Bow or gun?" If you answer "bow," you're out of the running because the owner has found too many deer that were wounded by archers and escaped to die. On that parcel, at least, gun hunters have a far better record of killing cleanly/recovering wounded game. That would correspond to what I've seen while small-game hunting on suburban land, where deer can only be hunted with bows. Everyone becomes an archer out of necessity, but fail to learn the basics of their craft, and end up wounding and losing a lot of deer.

Hey Guys,
Great to see all the opinions on this tread. These are the type of important observations that need to be hashed out.

As far as naming outfitters, it is of no importance, in that it has no bearing on the skill level of the client. The over whelming number of clients are honest and straightforward, most underestimating there skill level. But we will always have clients who state to be in better condition than a Navy Seal, shoot better than Carlos Hathcock and has the woodscraft of a Upper Plains Souix. So yeah if someone "may" imbellish the facts "slightly" it is the outfitters fault. NOT. I am not being critical of the critique I am just stating that there are numerous variables that invovled in the client/outfitter relationship.

ED

I have hunted using every legal weapon in Oregon. I believe less wounded elk are recovered by RIFLE hunters in Oregon than bow, lets not even discuss muzzel loaders. When you shoot an elk with a rifle it is scared from the rifle report and usually tries to run. With a arrow you can slow the animal down by calling to it, sometimes it'll walk right back toward you a lie down. I have killed only two previously wounded animals in my life, both where from poorly placed rifle shots. Hit any animal in the guts and you'll have a hard time finding it. Stuff any projectile through the vitals and you'll get it. Archery hunters on average practice thier art more than any other hunting type. Rusty rifles and a sixpack of beer wound alot of game.

Hey Rogue6,

In fairness of this thread, lets not forget the differences in the actual hunter numbers involved. Here in Pa. where I unfortunatly reside we sell over 400,000 archery tags. Yes 400,000. Remember now to that we sold 1,128,000 hunting licenses this year. There will be a ceiling on antlerless tags this year at 615,000. These are staggering numbers, but they are just numbers. In Texas where I have alot of experience guiding there is over 1,000,000 licenses sold. It is tough to know the number of archers involved as that is not easy to find down in the Lone Star.
But it is alot. I have very little experience hunting in Oregon, only in the eastern 1/3 and not since you went to a lottery for Elk. I hunted the last time the last year you could buy a non- resident tag over the counter. Hunted up in the hills above Prospect. Anyway my point is that there didn't "seem" to me to be near the hunter numbers that I have seen in Pa. or Tex.

All of this huffing and puffing I am doing means that while I am sure that you are genunine in your observation of wounded/recovered game, trust me so am I. I see this stuff year in year out. This is not for me to stand on a pedestal and pound my chest and belittle you, surely that is not it at all. It is just that I am in the field around hunters and hunter activity approx. 150 days a year. Being in Pa. Wyoming and Texas, with the huge hunter numbers, I see more of what we are speaking of. I see alot of non resident hunters as well. It is just the law of averages in my circumstance. If 5% of the archers are poor at it then that is the multiplier to use, or it may be 1% or it is 50%. Whatever it is we use this as a basis. Now you hunt in Oregon or where ever( please ROGUE6 don't take this personal I am just using your reply as a springboard for an example, it can be anyone hunting anywhere) or Wyoming for that matter. Now you may see 50 (???) hunters in a season. So now take that 5% and we have 2 1/2 that are not proficent. I am exposed to around 350 per year, if we use the same 5% (I think it is more like 25%) that is 17 1/2. Now when you hunt the beautiful big pine forests of coastal Oregon up in the hills above the Rogue or the Siuslaw or maybe Cow Creek you may find those 2 1/2 wounded and unrecovered Elk. If you hunt where I do on tightly controlled private land we will see most of the 17 1/2 that get away. There are just more of them to stumble over.

Again please remember this is not a personal attack on anyone, I am just reporting on things as I see them. I just feel there are too many instant archers and would truly love to see a system of testing -ALL- hunters before they can hold a license, much like Western Europe. But this is the land of the FREE. I charish that very much. I surely don't want to live like we are in western europe, I just want us to police our ranks alittle and keep dialogue such as this alive and well.

ED

Still goes to the point that there are outfitters, which have been spoken for here, that are basically worried more about money then about the animals. I would like thier names.

Matter fact since everyone knows everyone so well, please tell your friends, that are outfitters, to post here the names of thier companies and that they do not want bowhunting business. I will keep it on file.

GTR

GTR makes a good point. If the outfitters don't want the bow hunters, they shouldn't take their money. That's simple enough.
Too, it would be great if it was a perfect world and all the pilgrims showed up fit, well equiped and well practiced with their chosen weapons. But they don't. Its called a professional hazard. We all have them in our respective lines of work. You either learn to live with them or find another job.

Here are some of the outfitters I worked with. Some are out of business and some are operating differently. Some of these where bow hunting only.

Bucks and Bulls N.M.
Bull Mountain Col.
Grand Slam Col.
Dream Mountian W.V.
Drea m Mountain N.C.
Tryon and sons Maryland
Lob Lolly Hunts Maryland
Texarkana Adv. Tex.
Holly Knob Tex.
Kingdom of God Tex.
Texeco Managment Tex.
NX Bar Wyo.
High Unita Ut.
Coburg Adv. Aust.
Coastal Cattle Aust.

There was a procentage of archery related problems at all of these places. Again it is not the outfitters fault if you come to camp with poor archery skills. Should there be a truth in discloser clause when you sign on with an outfitter. Hell yes the outfitter is taking the money, that is how his chosen line of work operates, money is charged, services rendered, bills are paid.

There has been stated that it matters not what you hunt with that a projectile in the vitals you have a dead animal, well yeah that is correct. The issue we are skating around here is getting that projectile in the vitals. There is a perception that this is not acheived as often with archery tackle. It is still the same story that an obsidian tip in the heart is better than a .460 in the guts. I am not arguing that an arrow can't kill, hell early man wiped out the Mammoth and I don't think Roy had his .460 ready that early. This is not deadliness it is being deadly.

I am trying not to be abusive with this thread but I think that my train of thought is getting acrossed.

ED

I will not name any names! The just of the conversations I had, was that there was a much greater liklihood of 'hard' work with a bow hunter versus a rifle hunter. It was a combination of having to get bow hunters in real close, tracking a wounded animal,which is a fore gone conclusion, possible arguments over lost game e,g, who's fault was it and I want my money back, etc, etc.

Basically, the consensus was that bow hunters required more work on the outfitters part, and typically more headaches in customer service.

For the record, I only allow gun hunters to hunt my farm, when I do at all, and never bow hunters. I have shot several, and I am talking about 10s, of deer with arrows in them over the past ten years. Heck the last one I shot had an arrow shaft healed over that transfixed it gut. Seriously, you could see through the damned thing, the animal was body pierced, which makes me wonder how long before teenagers start doing this.

I am also one of those assholes that will let a wounded deer go after I shot it with my shotgun. The reason, the damned things are varmits as far as I am concerned, and if I track down and tag that wounded deer I won't be allowed to legally shoot another! I am not a sport hunter.

Kent

Hey Kent,

You summed it up with the first part of your reply, they are too much work at times.

Just to had a little fuel to the fire, last evening we tracked a "HARD HIT" deer. The archer/shooter wasn't even sure if it had horns or not. This is a buck only farm. 7 1/2 hours later I found the belly shot doe. I bumped her at about 3:30am and she ran 5 yds into a non hunting area. Nice feeling to sleep on. I will go in today with the property manager and retrieve her.
Great stuff, makes me proud to be from Pa.

ED

I can't take it any more. I just can't believe what I'm reading here.

Irresponsible, stupid, unethical people are the same whether they have a bow, muzzleloader, or a rifle in hand. The problem with bowhunting came when they made the seasons so much more liberal, encouraging a bunch of half-assed wannabe rifle hunter converts to hit the field unprepared for the rigours of bowhunting. Unlike a rifle, you can't leave your bow in the closet until a week before the season, then pop a couple beer cans for "practice" and call it "good enough." You've got to be dedicated, you've got to practice hard, and when you're in the field, you've got to know your limitations and be willing to pass on animals when your limitations are exceeded. Few people have the wherewithall to pass on a shot that's just a "couple yards" beyond their limit, especially if it's at a big animal. That's where the problem comes from - not from the bows themselves - but from piss poor judgement of the boneheads carrying the bows.

I've bowhunted - it's damned hard compared to rifle hunting, and it's easy to let yourself slip into making bad judgements. It takes a lot of dedication, something most of work-a-day Joes aren't willing to commit to in today's instant gratification culture. Everybody wants things to come easy, and when they don't, they just half-ass it and hope for the best. That's when animals get wounded.

I stopped bowhunting because it takes enough more commitment to do it right that it only allowed me to hunt one species per year - and still do it RIGHT. I can effectively hunt three or four species per year on the same vacation time with rifle/muzzleloader. Simply put, the level of dedication required to be competent enough with a rifle is lower than the level of effort required to be deadly with a bow. It's not that tough to put yourself within rifle range of a big game animal, but try closing that distance from 250 yards to less than 40, and you have your work cut out for you. If you're not willing to make some major sacrifices, you'll never really be good enough to make it happen, you'll get discourged, and you'll make a bad shot and wound an animal.

That's what happens. Bows and arrows are extremely effective when used by competent hunters within their established limitations. Unfortunately, there are a lot of incompetent "bowhunters" out there making idiots of themselves and causing many of us here to badmouth the whole lot. A bit close-minded if you ask me...

Rant off.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

What I left off was this. They also said that the rifle hunters did not come with the 'chip on the shoulder'. They were referring to the bow hunting is sooo much more demanding than rifle hunting since it is 'primitive'.

I have bow hunted, and for me anyway, hitting a pie pan at 30 yards with a bow and arrow is by far EASIER than hitting the same pie pan at 120 yards off-hand with a high power rifle!

I just do not buy the BS about bowhunting being a far more demanding skill level as opposed to a rifle shooting. Hell I shoot a bow with my fingers, NO TRIGGERS, this is supposed to make it REAL hard.

The truth is that a bow hunter shouldn't take a shot past 35 yards. The other problems mentioned are: 'buck fever', range estimation errors, incorrect hold under/over due to shooting from a tree stands, etc. These are the same damned problems a rifle shooter faces if he is shooting at 100+ yards, uphill/downhill, with cross winds, etc. Ranging is far more difficult too at rifle ranges!

Anyway, this is the 'chip on the shoulder' these gentlemen were talking about.

Kent

No point here, just an honest question, if I may. It is stated above that some feel the bowhunters, generally require more work for the outfitter. Yet, many of the daily rates I've seen, for both the U.S. and Africa, seem to be markedly less for the bowhunter than those of the rifle hunter. This seems to be contrary to the above statement. No?

So your arguments are, that gun hunters, that are trying to take advantage of early seasons and bigger bag limits, are the problem. Well folks those are not "bow hunters". That are sh*tty gun hunters that seem to think they are much better with a bow.

Take a person who hunts 95 percent of the time with their bow. They will be way better "killers" than the gun hunter that hunts with a gun 95 percent of the time.

GTR

I will still argue that if you know outfitters that really think bows only wound, they should not take bow hunters period.

The bottom line on this issue for me is that all hunters, irrespective of their choices to use archery equipment or firearms, must act responsibly and respectfully toward the animals they pursue. It matters not what segment of any population you choose to focus on, you will find examples of irresponsibilty and improper behavior. Thus, it matters not whether you focus on archers or gun hunters, you will find that certain percentages of them cause wounding due to irresponsibility. Broad generalizations do a disservice to all hunters and divide us to the detriment of us all. We should avoid this at all costs.

I have hunted since I can remember, first with firearms and, starting in my teens, with archery equipment. I hunt almost exclusively with a recurve bow now, primarily because of the challenge associated with getting close. Getting within 40 yards if I am shooting a compound or within 20 yards if I am shooting one of my recurves is a personal mandate. Doing so maximizes the ability to make a responsible shot. I have rifles with which I am confident of delivering responsible shots at in excess of 500 yards distance, but I am still going to try to get as close as possible because I prefer the experience of doing so and doing when possible is responsible.

I have taken big game animals numbering into the 100s in North America and in Africa with both guns and bows. My experience is that recovery prospects are almost exclusively a function of shot placement whether you deliver a bullet or an arrow. I have failed to recover fewer than 5 animals in forty years and I attribute those to circumstances completely unrelated to weapon choice.

Others have had different experiences and I respect their views, but time spent on the soap box, in my most humble opinion, is better spent preaching responsibility by all hunters without categorization. Whether we be archers or firearms enthusiasts, we are all hunters and if any of us lose opportunities we all do. Let's not divide ourselves to the benefit of those who would take our choice to pursue game away from us.

Brad

Lets have an AMEN on Brads and DesertRams replies!

It all boils down to the guy (notice I did not say "hunter") that is carrying the weapon. I dont care if its a 20 yard bow shot, a 100 yard black powder shot or a 200 yard centerfire shot. If its past your limit dont take the shot!!

One thing to remember, ALL of us are hunters and need to stick together.

Last year when I was in SA, the first meeting with a PH, I noticed he closely looked at my used bow. He smiled and said, "I see you have bow hunted for awhile". The next thing he said was "It worries me when I see a hunter with new equipment".
My point is, the guy that heads to the woods has the responsibility to have practiced and to know his limitations, no matter what he carries with him. We all should have respect for the game we hunt.
As far as the outfitters, they should learn the hunters limits and work within those limits.

Ha' alluah !!!!!