Lundy
Member
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Respectfully I would disagree with that assessment. There is opportunity for followup shots while gun hunting, there are also far more hunters in the woods and a much higher likelihood that a wounded deer if killed on the next hill or farm. The skill set required for a hunter of any skill level to kill a deer is greatly reduced with a gun versus a bow. A slug kills with shock, tissue damage and hermorage, a arrow has primarily only hermorage. Vastly improved range over a bow. You do not need to be very skilled to kill a deer with a gun. Without a doubt there are wounded and lost deer during our gun seasons.
I base by personal beliefs on a couple of things. One I have been a active gun hunter for over 40 years and bowhunter for 38 years. I have killed my share of deer in multiple states. I have been involved in the recovery and attempted recovery of others deer multitudes of times. I was the president of a very large bowhunter club, I was very active in competitive bow shoots for many years. I was associated with huge numbers of avid bowhunters. I heard the hunting successes and failures every year from multitudes of some of the best bow shots and hunters that existed, much like the group that exists here on this site.
If you factor those accounts over the years that I personally am aware of from excellent bowhunters in conjunction with the huge increase in bowhunter numbers and harvest from a increasing number of ill equipped and poorly trained bow shooters and hunters that exist today and I firmly believe you have the formula for what we read on every hunting site during the bow season. Take a look at just this site with excellent conceiensius bowhunters and the reported deer lost in less than one week of season. I assure you the vast majority of bowhunters today are not active on hunting websites, or bow clubs, or have ever visted a archery pro shop.
Then reflect back to all of these same hunting sites that experience a high frequency of lost deer posts during the bow seasons that have no posts about lost deer during the gun seasons. A lot of guys on here, as on other sites, also gun hunt but you do not see many, if any, lost deer threads.
As a simple mater of math, just based upon lost deer post frequency by members on hunting sites I believe it lives little doubt about which segment is the least effective as a ratio of shots to recovery.
I know it is a feel good statement to say that gun hunters are worse, especially if you happen to be someone that has lost a deer while bowhunting at some point, it hurts, it sucks big time, but I don't think there is any evidence to support that statement and in fact with available information from the hunters themselves on sites like this one it certainly doesn't seem to match what the hunters are telling us.
Feel bad for whoever lost that deer. Hopefully you will get to keep it. Don't forget to call the GW and get a tag for it
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