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Onesock
04-29-2006, 07:58 AM
This thread about the loss of wounded game just brings up a discussion point about bowhunting and wounding game. I have heard so many remarks from rifle hunters about the animals that bowhunters hit and can't find. Wounding loss from the various types of weapons choosen for hunting are about the same in all cases, at least that is what most stats show. Apparently from the small amount of hunters on this site wounding loss with rifles is a very real fact, the proof is right here. I will be the first to admit bowhunters loose some game but so do rifle hunters. Therefore lets not rag on the bowhunters about the odd arrow that goes astray. Just one question, has anyone harvested a bear this year with a bow?

Thunderstix
04-29-2006, 08:14 AM
Not me yet but it will not be long.:-D Hopefully!

Shop Lord
04-29-2006, 08:19 AM
I'm trying

BlacktailStalker
04-29-2006, 01:29 PM
Sen my bow in to get restringed and its almost been a month now, waiting for the Y string to come in... I'm dying to zip a bear. A buddy of mine guides and has put a few 6'6"+ blackies on the ground already with clients.

000buck
04-29-2006, 01:52 PM
. Therefore lets not rag on the bowhunters about the odd arrow that goes astray. Just one question, has anyone harvested a bear this year with a bow?

best idea yet is to remember that we are all hunters wether we choose to use a gun a bow a cross bow or a bag of rocks on a string. the anti's want us all out of bussiness. Yep we all lose game. anyone who hasn't will

Onesock
04-29-2006, 02:23 PM
Well Buck I agree with you on that one. I have heard from the rifle gang for too many years about all that bowhunters do is wound deer/animals and we have had a bad rap for this. Well it ends here and now as far as I am concerned. Everyone that hunts, has had or will have a bad experience and bowhunters as well as rifle hunters wound that odd animal. No one deny's it, but the finger pointing should end.

brotherjack
04-29-2006, 04:01 PM
Everyone that hunts, has had or will have a bad experience and bowhunters as well as rifle hunters wound that odd animal. No one deny's it, but the finger pointing should end.

Amen, brother.

Walksalot
04-29-2006, 05:42 PM
I would like to think all hunters take animals within their comfort zone and effective range but we all know that thought is a pipe dream.

brotherjack
04-29-2006, 08:29 PM
I would like to think all hunters take animals within their comfort zone and effective range but we all know that thought is a pipe dream.
I think the problem lies less in the vast majority of people's ethics (the vast majority of the hunters I've met have very good ethics). I think it's more in the understanding of the limits than any blatant disregard thereof. IE: Most people know their limits; they've practiced at the range and trust their ability to make a 250 yard shot - and why wouldn't they, they've done it a hundred times. But out in the field, with the adrenalin running, after a long hike that brought the heart rate way up, through a fairly clear patch of bush that has the odd branch of bush sticking up that they don't notice in the scope when taking aim - in their head, they can make that shot with ease, so they take it.

Same goes for archers and longer shots - they've done it a million times, so they trust that they can, but in the field - poop hapens, and some days you just blow it.


Problem with such limits, is that in the field, they can/do change rapidly and unexpectedly. All the hard work in the world can't prepare you for the things that can happen that would/could cause a wounding instead of a clean kill. Even a simple 40 yard shot with a rifle can go bad under some circumstances (happened to my wife - deer spooked a fraction of a second before the gun went off, and got it in the gut instead of the shoulder - we recovered the deer, but it took two days of pounding the bush looking for it) - but most of the time, a 100 yard shot is easy money, and 200 is doable if you're practiced up and have a decent rest.

Anyway, I'm degenerating into rambling, so I'll shut up before I get (more) carried away. :)

It's such knowledge that makes me paranoid, and probably why I've never shot a critter more than about 40 yards away from me... :) (and even at that, I have to claim one wounded one to my credit - though that's a long story I won't relate here). :(

mcrae
04-30-2006, 08:55 AM
Hey Fella's

I am a rifle hunter trying to be a bow hunter:grin: I have to say it makes you a better all round hunter when you start to learn and understand the limititaions of a traditional 50# recurve! Even when I am carrying my rifle I no longer think about shooting long distances I try to get as close as possible.

Hunting with a bow is very intimidating to the novice! I would love to get a bear this spring but I still don't feel ready. I am pretty comfortable inside twenty yards but its still the thought of making a bad shot that is keeping me from trying....................... :frown:

McRae

Mooseman
04-30-2006, 10:01 AM
To know and live by your personal limits and not take high risk chances takes a lot of self control and deserves a lot of respect.

I had a client (very experienced longbow-hunter) last October at 25 yards on a large bull and he elected not to shoot. He said it just did not feel right and he just rather not shoot.
He ended up getting no other real chance anymore and his hunt was without a kill but still a success.

You have to be a real man to make such ($$$) a decision. He had to save to make this trip and never regretted not having taken that shot. He has earned my respect!

greybark
05-02-2006, 10:42 AM
:wink: Hey Brotherjack , Great post and good explanation of bench versus field shooting . Well done .

REMEMBER -- Keep Your Fingertab On --

brotherjack
05-02-2006, 03:11 PM
:wink: Hey Brotherjack , Great post and good explanation of bench versus field shooting . Well done .


Thanks. :)

Walksalot
05-02-2006, 05:52 PM
If I were to go out on a limb and make a best guess I would guess the majority of wounded animals might be attributed to shots taken at longer distances and shooting at animals on the move.

greybark
05-02-2006, 06:49 PM
:wink: Hey Walksalot , I`ll second that guess !!!!

REMEMBER -- Keep your Fingertab On --

CHilko21
05-02-2006, 08:11 PM
best idea yet is to remember that we are all hunters wether we choose to use a gun a bow a cross bow or a bag of rocks on a string. the anti's want us all out of bussiness. Yep we all lose game. anyone who hasn't will

There's always the option of hunting with a big stick...pointy or not:p

Ron.C
05-03-2006, 10:11 PM
I am no professional hunter by any means, but I have taken my share of animals with my bow. I have made some pretty good shots at longer yardages, and I have also missed one completely at just over 10 yards. Everyone misses sooner or later. If you are lucky, you completely miss and the only thing wounded is your self esteem. I have seen some pretty good archers around here miss some "tap in" shots on the 3d course. Now is it to much to assume that some of theses guys may not do the same on a live animal at least once? I think not. I think the same goes for rifle/crossbow/shotgun, whatever you hunt with. Animals move " just as quickly at 10 yards as 40", people flinch" beginners and veterans", equipment fails" top quality or cheap", and its not always someone shooting beyond there comfort zone. Just my 2 cents

tmarschall
05-04-2006, 05:55 AM
Hunting with a bow is very intimidating to the novice! I would love to get a bear this spring but I still don't feel ready. I am pretty comfortable inside twenty yards but its still the thought of making a bad shot that is keeping me from trying....................... :frown:


Don't spend another moment worrying about that. My experience with the bow has been that you either kill the animal quickly, or the animal will survive. There are exceptions of course, but that is just part of hunting. The arrow is like a surgeons knife, the cut will heal quickly if it does not cut vital arteries. A bullet on the other hand is more like a club that will bruise and rip tissues. They may heal if not in a vital area, but will take longer. I butchered a buck one time that had a 2-inch section of one of its front leg bones shot away(front shoulder... heheheee). There was no sign of injury from the outside... all healed up. (a side point in relation to another thread, the antler on the opposite side of the injury was deformed) Anyways, do your best to prepare and go for it, the experience is very rewarding... Tom

Mooseman
05-04-2006, 09:52 AM
Hello Tom,
Respectfully I have to disagree with you and think your post offers some wrong advice.

I have to agree with his decision. As he is still missing confidence it will reflect in his shooting ability. At least it would and does for me and I would have hated to wound something, knowing that I wasn't ready. If I wound something feeling confident but something unpredictable went wrong, that is part of hunting. But consciously taking a high risk to wound something might be a really bad experience and unethical to boot.

As to your statement to bow shot animals - It is true that a broad head injury has a better chance to heal then a rifle shot wound. But a very large amount still die. I fear that number is higher then many people think.
Having tracked wounded game with leashed tracking dogs where there was little blood in the beginning and then "NO" blood for a long way and still the animal was dead or almost dead at the end, tells me that perhaps there is often a misconception of the welfare of the animal. Especially if there is no large amount of blood to begin with people have told me many times that this must mean that the hit was not that bad. That is such a very wrong assumption.

Some food for thought: A gut shot is always fatal and can take 24 hours for the animal to die. A low single lung shot can take over an hour for some animals to die.
You know how far an animal walks in an hour or 24 hours and they will if followed and pushed right away. That pursuit without a trained tracking dog and short of the proper waiting time of at least 2 hours, will be unsuccessful and might lead to the wrong conclusions.

tmarschall
05-04-2006, 11:28 AM
Moose... I think we do agree on some points. My advice to prepare and then go for it includes gaining the confidence in your weapon. It wasn't emphasized, but I couldn't agree with you more on that point.

As far as the lethality of arrows or bullets, I am pretty much stating my own opinions. There are so many variables involved to really reach a definite conclusion. As you stated, many animals are lost solely due to not waiting long enough before tracking, so would you chalk that up to the weapon or the hunter... anyways, the intent was to not let the wounding of animals hold him back, it is going to happen. We all just do our best to reduce the frequency.

Your point about not finding blood leading to the wrong conclusion is often a problem. I shot an axis buck a few years ago, 7 mm mag, broadside 100 yds, bench rest... couldn't miss. Sucker jumped the fence after I shot, couldn't find a speck of blood, the absence of finding an impact on the ground of where the bullet would have hit... had it been a miss made me check across the fence... there he was 30 yds in the bushes. Clean heart shot, but the bullet did not pass thru, so no blood trail. Just last year a buddy of mine made a shot, almost dark. I was walking up to his blind from behind when he shot. Then I heard something the screeching of wire on a fence... the deer had run into the fence!! I lifted my binoculars to try to see where the deer was heading. I was looking across an open field, with knee high grass, but did not see anything. We went and looked and could not find any blood. We did a sweep of the area just in case. We did not sweep the side of fence into the open field, because we did not see a deer run across it. I figured it ran into the fence, bounced off and ran back the other direction. No luck, so we went home. The next day the truth was revealed. The doe had hit the fence, broke a 2" diameter cedar fence pole, a few wires and ran thru the fence. Found it dead 25 yds into the open field with the knee high grass.

The teaching point, never assume anything, explore all possibilities when tracking wounded game!

mcrae
05-06-2006, 09:36 AM
So fella's this is an average group for me with my bow @ 20 yards. Is this good or do I still need to practice to tighten up those groups. I can consistently put arrows in the kill zone on my "foam deer" at 20 yards. I practice 4-5 times a week and I am getting more comfortable everyday but I am still wondering about accuracy. I shoot a 50lbs Martin Hunter Recurve off the shelf. I have shot some tighter groups but my average is about this. I rarely miss the target anymore:grin: http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/sako555/HaileyBrownies014.jpg

Tuffcity
05-06-2006, 03:15 PM
I wonder (and please keep the flames to medium sear) if quite a few "losses" are a result of of either giving up too soon and not taking the time to study and interpret the hit site. Sometimes you need to look for more than just blood.

Now, I lay no claim to being any sort of qualified tracker but I've found that persistence quite often is key to finding a shot animal. I've been involved in a few "interesting" trailing jobs that ended in the animal being recovered but it was a hands & knees show for hours, and they turned out to be solidly hit critters.

Example was last fall's moose hunt. My hunting partner and I went up to the Region 6 any bull, archery opening and opening day he arrowed a big bull at 3 yards. After the shot he flagged his location as well as the last spot he saw the moose at, did a quick exploritory look for blood sign then ran back to camp (about 6km) where we met.

He's an experienced bowhunter with a lot of deer to his credit as well as bear, wolf, and goats and when he claimed to have made a solid hit I certainly believed him. But, he was concerned because he couldn't find the type of blood sign he expected (and he had been watching a G bear through the bino's just before he called in the moose).

Back at the site we started a slow search from the point of impact to where the bull was last seen, not a hair not a drop of blood. So we started leap-frogging in the direction we figured the bull had gone and about 20 yds past the place he last saw the moose he found the first drop of blood.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/Tuffcity/spot.jpg

We found a spot like that about every 30-40 yards until we found a broken piece of his arrow- the piece from the fletching to the nock- about 100 yds from the start.

We, just for fun, also had red moss flowers that disguised blood really well to deal with.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/Tuffcity/moss.jpg

The spots started to get further apart and at one point the bull's apparent line of travel crossed a heavily used game trail. We debated whether or not he had veered on to the path but I spotted a fresh divit in the moss on the otherside of the trail that looked like a stumble mark so we continued on our original line.

We were now about 3+ hours and about 400 yds into it.

Finally we hit an old clear cut and the last blood I found was a single drip on a blade of Timothy-type grass.

There was about a 3 acre patch of 15ft christmas trees in front, a small clear cut up hill to the right and about 5 aces of old growth downhill and to the left. We started a grid search of the christmas trees and went through it twice. We then went down the hill and started the same thing in the old growth swamp.

5 hours into the search we found the bull dead as a post. He was about 3 yds from his last bed and even in the bed there was only a hand sized patch of blood.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/Tuffcity/bed.jpg

We had about an hour of light left and fortunately the bull had the good graces to die 80 yds from the road.

We were able to utilize our CRAP (creature removal and preparation gear) to get him out to the road in one piece.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/Tuffcity/moosetransport.jpg

RC

mcrae
05-06-2006, 08:10 PM
Awsome post Tuffcity:grin: And I agree some guys give up pretty fast after a quick look and no blood thats it. I saw it last year with a fella I hunted with and I ended up finding his bear for him after two hours of looking. He sat on the tail gate convinced it was a miss but I was watching and a saw a bear acting hit when it hit the treeline. I found it 60 yards from the road piled up under a log. It had tried to jump the deadfall but lost its footing and never got up. I was lucky there was no skill involved I just had a "feeling" the bear was hit. And yes after numerous invites I have not been hunting with that fella again. Good guy, bad hunter!

McRae

sealevel
05-06-2006, 08:29 PM
years ago while hunting my partner came across blood in the snow and deer tracks but no human tracks. It was a big buck so we decided to find it . It hadn`t snowed for a week so the whole story was there . The buck blead bad at first but just hung around and healed up and walked away . In the last 2 years i have seen 3 blood trails that have not been followed so gun hunters are wounding lots of game to.

Mooseman
05-07-2006, 09:27 AM
RC - Great story with a real good ending due to hard work! Very nice bull as well.

Onesock
05-08-2006, 07:57 PM
With a bow you want to have the shot in the bottom half of the animal. The lower the better.

Tuffcity
05-08-2006, 09:24 PM
have the shot in the bottom half of the animal

It was, this just turned out to be an "exception to the rule" situation.

Could he have done things slightly differently? Probably. Hindsight is a great teacher if you heed the lesson, and we disected the whole scenary numerous times after we got back to camp.

RC

huntwriter
05-08-2006, 11:06 PM
So fella's this is an average group for me with my bow @ 20 yards. Is this good or do I still need to practice to tighten up those groups. I can consistently put arrows in the kill zone on my "foam deer" at 20 yards. I practice 4-5 times a week and I am getting more comfortable everyday but I am still wondering about accuracy. I shoot a 50lbs Martin Hunter Recurve off the shelf. I have shot some tighter groups but my average is about this. I rarely miss the target anymore:grin: http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/sako555/HaileyBrownies014.jpg

The group is good mcrae555, but try to ignore the target rings these are for archers not hunters. If that would be a hunting situation all these shots would be to high.

In a hunting situation you want to get the arrows a little more forward and lower. Aim about at the bottom of the larger ring, near the elbow of the deer. In this picture that would be right about between arrow #2 and #3 (from left to right) on this picture.

I use to take part in 3-D shoot outs and lost everytime because I shot at the target where I would shoot when I hunt. I remember once the range master got a fit because I shot an arrow at a steep quartering away deer target. The arrow entered behing the last rib,(on this picture to the far right of the target core block) "You are way off" he yelled. No I was not it was a perfect hunting shot that would have taken out both lungs and the heart and then exited at the front of the deer by the sternum.;)

3-D is very different from hunting. What brings you points on the target range will make you loose deer in the field.;)

Walksalot
05-09-2006, 05:25 AM
So fella's this is an average group for me with my bow @ 20 yards. Is this good or do I still need to practice to tighten up those groups. I can consistently put arrows in the kill zone on my "foam deer" at 20 yards. I practice 4-5 times a week and I am getting more comfortable everyday but I am still wondering about accuracy. I shoot a 50lbs Martin Hunter Recurve off the shelf. I have shot some tighter groups but my average is about this. I rarely miss the target anymore:grin: http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/sako555/HaileyBrownies014.jpg

Once you feel you are getting the accuracy down, and from the looks of things you are, and take one shot at your target at your effective range. This simulates a hunting situation when you have to shoot cold and are not warmed up. When you can consistently go out and take one shot at your target and make it a good kill shot then head out hunting.

tmarschall
05-09-2006, 05:53 AM
The only comment I have might be that your bow arm might be a little "weak". Your string arm may be strong enough to pull the bow, but its your bow arm that does the accuracy. The good news is, you can work on it without a bow. Get anything that weighs more than your bow and hold it out at arms length. Stick out a thumb or something and pretend it is a sight pin. Practice "sighting" on any target to the point that you can hold steady on the target for about 10 seconds. You might see your groups tighten up after doing this for a while. If this is your average grouping... you are definitely on your way.... Tom

mcrae
05-09-2006, 07:40 AM
Thanks fellas for the insight. I will definetly adjust where I shoot though. I tend to visualize a scenerio in my mind when I shoot and then "play act the shot". I will start the one cold shot practice today and see how I do. I will still most likely wait for the fall and use the rifle for bears this spring. Strength shoudn't be an issue I lift weights daily and have been for years. Nothing huge but enough to keep me in decent shape. I have noticed over the past six months though that archery taxes diffrent muscles than the avergae ones you work out daily. I will give that exercise a try as well to help the bow arm. I will practice hard all spring/summer and then watch out whities/mulies here I come!:lol:

Mcrae555

Awishanew
05-09-2006, 08:27 AM
Tuffcity. In your story of the tracking of the wounded moose, I would like to know where your partner hit the moose and at what angle. Did he get a lung shot or was it a bit back in the liver? It was not a pass as you found the nock end 100 yds away. I am very interested to know the story of the shot as it may be useful to everyone.

30-06
06-26-2006, 02:06 PM
yeah my friend lost a bear with a gun this year a nice brown bear, sho tit with his 308 then his friend shot it with his 300.ultra mag

The 'Hummer'
06-26-2006, 07:01 PM
Using a bow, a rifle or a shotgun is irrelevant. We reload, try different arrows and practice but every once in a while we're going to miss or lose one, reguardless of the hunting 'tool' of choice. It is with our ethics & practice that we try to minimize these occurrences. Unlike death & taxes, 100% success in harvesting game isn't a given. Do your best but don't beat yourself to death over the odd one that doesn't come to be.