........so with archery equipment you need to get closer and probably overall a better hunter......
WHOA there!!! Thems fightin words!!! If 99% of todays archery hunters didnt have 1. Private land 2. Game cameras 3. Scents/Lures 4. Prime dates(rut) along with all the other tech they use, they couldnt kill a deer let alone find one. I see so many archers on facebook losing deer or requiring dogs to retrieve downed game. So many bad shots.....todays archers for the most part suck at hunting. That said, theyre very effective due to the sheer number of archers, the amount of posted property, the lack of pressure during prime season and abundance of feed.
The majority of deer killed in rifle are shot at ranges well under 100 and more close to archery range than most will admit. We all hear of jerk offs who shouldnt be hunting, both archers and rifleman. But the rifleman I know can rival the best archers in general woodsmanship and knowing their quarry, where long range hunting isnt the norm.
Take your best archer from say Iowa and your average rifleman from the northeast and put them in the mountains, public land, in west virginia for a week and see who comes out on top. Sure as hell wont be the archer.
What's funny is I will hear dumbasses up on the public ground fire five or ten times at deer all the time.
Private ground is no golden ticket to a successful hunt. In fact, my biggest deer have all come from public ground that I access from private ground. Guess what? You can use game cameras on public ground just the same as private. I see lots of them put up by rifle hunters.
Today's hunters....rifle hunters, for the most part suck at hunting. I couldn't tell you the number of wounded deer I see in rifle season, some with their jaws blown off or shot in the rear quarters.
Archery, in my state at least, gets shut down in the middle of the season for a youth hunt and rifle season...which all occurs directly in the middle of the rut. Archers are denied the rut, but we can have Sept and early October. Then we get a couple weeks in December (we can archery hunt during muzzle loader season which occurs then, and we get January.
One of my favorite things about archery hunting is I don't have to worry about getting shot by the 99% of idiot rifle hunters. I can't remember ever hearing of an archer sticking a cow, but almost every year, some dumbass shoots a cow with a rifle in close proximity.
I can tell you for sure, my success rate in seeing a deer and harvesting a deer are near 100% every November. But with a bow it is less than 10%. It is much more difficult. Rifles are like cheating.
