Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game When hunting became shooting

I get his point. Rifle hunting can be just as challenging as bow hunting, depending on the hunter.

I do crack up at anyone who cops a superior attitude due to their choice of weapon. Especailly someone who uses a compound bow out of a tree-stand over a food plot.

"Muzzleloading is more of a challenge than rifle hunting." "Traditional muzzleloading is more of a challenge than using an in-line." "Bowhunting is more of a challenge than rifle hunting." "Compound bows are an abomination, the only real bowhunting is with a trad bow."

And so on and so forth.

But almost always isn't. Which, of course, is the point that you guys are dancing around as if you didn't notice it.

You have got to be one of the thickest posters on the net. Might be that plate in your head.

Nobody said bowhunting was more of a challenge, then you came along and you brought it up. You came on this thread with a 2 x 12 on your shoulder looking for someone to knock it off. I doubt you ever read the original piece by Gene Wensel.

Whether you hunt bow or gun, modern technology is advancing at an alarming rate, and it's going to have bigger impacts on either activity.

Lazar range finders are legal, so why not infra red detectors that can show where the deer is hiding? These things are not futuristic, they are used now on hogs. Why not deer too?

Both sports have become shooting more, and hunting less. No?

That doesn't mean your doing it, just overall, you know the AVERAGE guy.

I'm not dancing around anything, I said the same thing very clearly. Or so I thought.

It's not what you said it is how it was read. Just one of those things.

I was on a January bow hunt for mule deer in one of the best units in NM. Hunted hard for a week but could never get in tight for a shot.

Mule deer with a bow is one of the toughest hunts. I admire those who have closed the deal on a real trophy, with a bow or a rifle

From a dirt road, I watched an area about a mile off over a giant sage brush bottom and up the other side of the massive drainage. There was a tree line that meandered along the draw. Isolated at a point where the drainage widened, was a knob jutting out of the bottom that was treed as well but with plenty of sage bottoms encompassing its entire circumference.

Deer poured out of the tree line behind the knob and funneled around its base to feed every morning I watched.

I decided to penetrate behind the knob early in the afternoon one day. I used the labyrinth of arroyo cuts to stay low and out of sight to navigate to the rear of the knob which faced east; the Sun would be at my back where I wanted to hunt.

I carefully eased out if the arroyo and surveyed the area. There was a nice juniper that I could back up against, face east and watch a fairly open sagebrush park surrounded by draws leading down to it.

From 30 minutes after I backed up against that tree I was covered up by moving mule deer coming out of their bedding area, the trees and draws above the park, moving directly down to me.

I was totally exposed. Nothing in front of me for cover. Only the tree behind me to break the outline of my Outfitter Camo pattern. It's very difficult to remain completely motionless with your bow, arrow knocked and release on the string, from 2:00 pm to dark. Many deer walked by. I passed some easy shots on forked horn bucks.

Toward sundown, a steady stream of deer worked out of the main draw down the left edge of the park. There was a fenceline that met the treeline on the left side and ran to the right out in front of me in the open sage. I had ranged the fence at 60 yards as well as many other landmarks to be prepared for the shot.

The last deer to appear was a nice little buck. He seemed frantic to feed as he followed his does. He was on the other side of the fenceline but working the fence right down toward me. They were rutting. He was feeding frantically trying to refuel from the stress of the rut. As he moved down the treeline, he passed behind another juniper. I drew my bow. He appeared again but was on alert for sure, looking my way.

As I was settling my 60 yard pin behind his right shoulder, I took one last look. He was well past the fenceline I ranged at 60.

I gave it a bit more elevation.



I regularly practice out to 100 yards and had shot to 80 in camp the day before.



The release was triggered and the arrow sent. I watched it arch into the target and heard bone break on its impact. The buck hunkered low and launched forward like a scaulded dog. I could see blood pouring from the impact.

He disappeared from sight, sprinting to my right over sage and leaping over 10 foot arroyo cuts. I heard him pile up, thrash the sage and die

My friends and I drug him out in the dark to the truck. Skinned him in camp while he hung in a tree. He froze over night.

Went back the next day to retreive my arrow. Ranged from the location of the buck when shot. Looked as though someone had dumped cups full of blood all along his sprint. 83 yards.

I know it's doable with a compound,no doubt about it. Back before I went strictly trad I had a Matthews Q2XL that was rigged with all the latest and greatest. I could hit the vitals farther than bears mentioning. Now running a trad recurve I stick to about 30-35 yards. That's no sights off the shelf. I hunt in thick timber though and have no need for much more. I'll be damned though if I will give up my rifles.

Agreed...just imagine how sporting it would be for some tool to f_ck the game to death.


For some reason most seem to be forever trying to convince themselves and others that they are the best thing since sliced bread.

Used to have this bow vs rifle conversation with an old pal....I think a lot of it has to do with where you hunt and what you do.

Back in the day we used to bow hunt Vermont; and rifle hunt NH and Maine.Vermont had LOTS of deer back then but not many big bucks....a bow hunt provided more shot opportunities and better odds for success to kill a deer than a rifle hunt in Maine.

I used to tell my pal(who was a bit of a bow snob)that sitting a ground blind or tree stand with a bow for a Vermont deer was a LOT easier than deliberately killing a big buck in Maine....and since he had scores of Vermont bow kills, but never a really big Maine rifle buck, I suspect he knew I was right, but didn't care to admit it.

Personally I don't care what a guy hunts with but any ML hunter who tells me he's "handicapped" by weapon choice and entitled to a special season has me rolling on the ground laughing....with all the new scopes and the way these modern ML's shoot there isn't enough difference between them and a CF rifle to matter. They cleared he west of buffalo with less sophisticated stuff.... First buck I killed with a ML I laughed and said they call this handicapped?? That buck was blown off his feet...


I wouldn't grant a single special ML season as I think they are nothing more than revenue enhancers for F&G departments. If they really want to make it a challenge, remove the scopes and shoot a single shot 45-70 or 30-30 with irons during rifle season....near as I can tell there isn't any difference between that and a muzzle loader.

It all depends on how the states regulate what's legal in the early seasons. Like PA and CO.

I have a TC Renegade, irons, replacement barrel thankfully too...

Its 54. Runs a big conical. No sabot or such. True black. Musket caps.

Its an elk rifle. I can hit elk targets in the vital areas all day out to 300 given a good rest...

Thats a primitive tool.

Not that it matters one way or another, in the end all of these discussions come down to it being the Indian and not the arrow generally.

Never blown a buck off his feet though. In fact every last one I"ve shot with an MZ has done a bit of a death run. No biggy though.

But then a good CF scoped rifle would be valid to at least a 1000 yards in the right hands.

And I've got at least one iron sights kill pushing 600....

In the end also, they ALL take a set of skills. None of the skills are simple to master generally speaking. Most of them take some time and commitment. Some more than others.

And having hunted with just about every tool available, I still stick to the fact that it took me a LOT more work to become LR proficient, than it did to figure out how to kill a deer with a bow at 15 yards or less. Even on the ground on foot. Sure a couple of early years really sucked, but the suck factor on LR knowledge took more than a couple of years...

Rost I like how people think that centerfire rifles just became capable of killing deer at 1K. It is true that laser RFs and ballistic calculators have extended ranges quite a bit for the average Joe.....if they have the skills. Most even with the modern advances will never advance their shooting/loading/wind reading skills enough to ever become proficient.
Any monkey can get behind the gun and squeeze a trigger. It takes quite a bit more skill for the guy twisting the knobs for the monkey. I have probably started fifty guys down the path to becoming long range hunters, very few ever followed through when they realized the effort actually required. It is not as easy as some would lead you to think.

Jeff my first ML buck was killed with one of those soft lead round balls....they seem to have a bunch of crunch factor and hit pretty hard.

I do. 2 bull moose, two bull elk (one powder burned), 3 whitetail bucks, 3 mule deer including a 180 class, 2 blacktails, 2 black bears--- and if I take a few more minutes to think back through, there would be several more critters shot at less than 20 yards. Half or more of my predator calling shots are inside of 20 yards, a large majority under 50. I have shot critters beyond 600 yards and can do it but prefer all of my shots to be less than 20. No tree stands: all are still hunting, spot and stalk or calling.

This adds nothing to the orginal topic and is merely a reply to the assumption that all rifle hunting is at ranges longer than bow hunting. I got into bow hunting early and didn't change tactics once I went to a rifle. YMMV and that's Ok with me. It is what I enjoy and it works.

As to clips: I'm hunting not making movies. Steelhead has shown plenty of photo examples of dead critters shot up close and personal to confirm the point.



Again, not all rifle hunters. Probably new rifle hunters do that, take the first shot possible. As I age and operate on more experience, I don't always take the first shot possible and I suspect there are a good many hunters like me.

That's unusual IME. Do you think that bowhunting first made you a better rifle hunter?

Yes," is my first impulsive reply.

But then I realize that my yes reflects an assumption on my part that getting close to game is "better hunting."

Second answer is that bow hunting made me learn ways to get close to game, whether that in itself is good hunting or not.

Well, it wasn't a trick question!

Thanks! There's a minefield around the campfire these days and a man can't be too careful!

I've got to agree with that JG. Takes a ALOT of work in the field to become a good long range shot. And one must continue to work at it constantly. Few, including me, have that dedication. There are such hunters, of course. Some really good ones post here.
The other thing I've noticed is that game doesn't stand around in the open much as they get older. The "long range wantabes" teach them to stay out of sight. E

I know plenty of folks that will never be able to plug a target the size of a clay pigeon at 400 yards, regardless of all the technology.