It has been my experience that hunters who pay significant sums of $$ to hunt out of state, with or without a guide, are more likely to practice then the guy who buys a tag, a box of ammo, and a 12-pack of Coors the night before opening day of deer season in Abilene, KS, Morrisville, VT, or Bridgeton, ME. If there are, as Mule Deer recently stated, 15M hunters in the US, that means that there are probably less than 150K, 1%, who are competent to shoot an elk at 600 yards. Overall, I don't think that hunters have become better shooters in the past 50 years, but I do think that technology has improved and since fewer people are hunting, the subset of those competent to shoot at longer ranges is a larger percentage of a smaller universe.
Jeff
