Is it just about the kill.

[Blackhat]

If it's just about the rack, and how many we can kill during the season, then where are we as hunters. I see on the hunting infomercials that it's all about pushing the sponsor's product and how many big bucks they can kill in a season.  They must have a huge walk in freezer, not to mention a very large wall for the mounts.

I hung up my wheel bow because I found it to easy, after you tune the bow ,it's just point and shoot.  Traditional hones your skill and hand eye coordination.  Makes you grareful for your harvests.  I have nothing against huge mounts but  A doe is better than a buck in my humble opinion.  Well my rant is over.

I love the traditional hunt.  You and you alone have harvested your quary.  no gizmo's, all you.  :D

[stevemfwills]

well i didnt hang up my compound because it was too easy,i hung it up because i feel im more proficient with a stick and string...im a headhunter till something else walks by...lol...i just love to hunt antlers or not i eat the crap out of deer meat...i and my family probaly go through 4 deer a year....and thats the whole deer just not loins and backstraps....i love to eat them and hunt them...its not the destination its the journey

[James Wrenn]

Well I find a stickbow just as easy to kill something with as any other bow.Once you learn to shoot them all bows are the same as far as hunting goes.I hunt to kill stuff or I would not be going.I would take a camera instead of a bow if killing was not the reason I was there.Don't need to drag a bow around to go sightseeing.  

[imhntn]

I think we go through seasons of life and kind of grow up as a hunter.  When I started hunting it was all about the kill and getting as many as possible.  Now it is more about the way I hunt and having a great time with friends and family.

[Bowmania]

A lot of stuff I agree with.  I think you choose your weapon and that's what you hunt with.  When I grew up there were no compounds.  I can remember thinking, "yea, but he killed it with a rifle."  Now it's, "yea, but he killed it with a compound."  Until now I feel that my longbow is a more efficient weapon than a compound.  The reason I don't switch back to a less efficient weapon is that a compound takes away all the fun.  You don't have to shoot as much to be good.  Last time I shot an arrow it was fun.  Last time I shot an arrow and looked through a peep to find a pin and a target, I didn't see the most beautiful thing in archery - picking a spot and seeing that arrow hit it.  I could go on but you get the point.

Bowmania

[Stone Knife]

I still like to be successful but I like the preparation and practice before season, i like the whole package including the taking of game. After all why bother taking my bow if all I want to do is enjoy the outdoors.

[Ground Hunter]

If you are a TV host - it is all about the kill, the rack, the sponsor.  This is the corporate "tradition" of hunting.  The chase is reduced to stalking dollars.  YOU must define how YOU hunt.  

Enjoy your sport while you can    :(   .  H

[Terry Green]

Its 'The Chase'....its all about 'The Chase'.

It would get old if the chase NEVER ended in a kill.

It would get old if the chase ALWAYS ended in a kill.


Its all about The Chase I'm telling ya!        

                   

[MarkE2006]

Originally posted by Blackhat:
I see on the hunting infomercials that it's all about pushing the sponsor's product and how many big bucks they can kill in a season.

Agreed!  While I can admire large trophy game; that is not why I hunt.  If I spend the day out and see nothing, I still had a great day.

The infomercials make me sick when no matter how bad the shot was; it is always annouced as "Great shot".

[twitchstick]

I'm right with you Terry. Sometimes I get them sometimes I don't but my heart lies with the chase.

[hydrasport205]

I think Imhntn said it. I think we all go through seasons in life also. I can remember hanging around the local archery shop and having a  contest to see who could kill the most deer and with what brand of bow.Many of those guys never even used the meat. they might find somone to use the meat sometimes and if they didnt they would just count it as a kill and leave it for the coyotes.I understand exactly what blackhat is saying and I also agree. T.V. has glamourized hunting IMO. I watch how people celebrate the kill of an animal bbd or smoked em and laughing and saying that that old buck went straight down.When he really spine shot the deer!! Im not saying that we shouldnt celebrate and get excited. Lord knows I still get all tore up if I make a kill,But for me there is also a paying respect and thanking the animal, I do this with just a silent prayer over the animal.. I know Im going to catch alot of heat from this reply but I just wanted to let the people know that feel the same way it is okay

[Ground Hunter]

I will say one more thing.  I don't see traditional sponsors pushing the corporate hunt.    :D  H

[Northwest_Bowhunter]

Once I am at the point where I am more successful in my hunting the chase, and knowing you did it yourself will be such a rush.  

Until then, it is a great excuse to walk in the woods before the sun comes up with a bow in my hand.  Everything looks new, when you see the darkened outline of a blacktail eating clover in the predawn meadow, my heart races my vision gets more focused then any other time in my life.  All I can do is watch because the Sun isn't up so I just kneel and watch him eat.

Bowhunting has given me back the awe of the natural world around me, working in the city sort of stole that from me for a while, but I have it and am passing it on to my boys.

[Silent Bear]

It sickens me that people can just kill deer to hang their horns on the wall, I believe if your going to kill an animal you better use just about every part on its body for something useful and let nothing go to waste

[Ragnarok Forge]

It is about the voyage, not the destination.  Time in the woods, time spent getting back in touch with your inner predator.  Campfires with friends and family in hunting camp.  Endless hours of practice and anticipation of the hunts to come.  Killing something just starts the work.  Those dang elk weigh a ton when there 4 miles from the truck.  I love eating them though.  It is all fun, all rewarding, even the work after the kill.  I often find the kill to be almost anticlimactic once the animal is found.  I always find myself a bit sad and thoughtful at having taken a life.

[Uncle Buck]

I call most of the whack and stack shows on these days"hunting porn". they disgust me. Not only are they just commercials for the sponsors but I suspect some dishonesty involved. Several times I have seen a arrow clearly penetrate only half way into a deers chest, but later a bloddy arrow is picked up off the ground and declared to be a pass through shot. Naturally the credit is given to the mechanical broadhead they were using. I have quit watching most huntig shows alltogether. I miss shows like The american Sportsman with folks like Fred Bear, Bing Crosby and Phil Harris, Guys that understood the simple pleasures of a day spent in the outdoors. I know there are some good shows out there. but most seem to be infomercials.

[IndianaBowman]

To kill is not success unless accompanied by the chase. Vance Bourjaily eloquently stated this interrelationship in his article “Hunting is Humane” in the February 15, 1964 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. “The two parts of the sequence must occur together, or there is no satisfaction. Killing, and this is generally misunderstood, is not pleasure at all if the challenge of hunting does not accompany it.”  Most will agree that the feeling of accomplishment, pride, satisfaction, and culmination of a truly successful hunt, is not the size or score of the animal harvested, but in the effort and energy expended in the pursuit! In fact, a truly successful hunt often times does not even include the killing of an animal. Robert Ruark summarized a short anecdotal quotation as follows: “There was a Russian school of acting which once maintained stoutly that a good tragic actor had to suffer. The same must be true of all hunters… The value of a trophy is computed directly in terms of personal investment in its acquisition.”  Theodore Roosevelt was also a student of the chase, as evidenced in the following quote: “Of course in hunting one must expect much hardship and repeated disappointment; and in many a camp, bad weather; lack of shelter; hunger; thirst, or ill success with game, renders the days and nights irksome and trying. Yet the hunter worthy of the name always willingly takes the bitter if by so doing he can get the sweet, and gladly balances failure and success, spurning the poorer souls who know neither.”

Theodore Roosevelt described the past allure and the sportsman as follows: “In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is after all but a part of the whole. The free, self-reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy; the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the ways and habits of the woodland creatures – all these unite to give the career of the wilderness hunter its peculiar charm.”

Saxton Pope: “May the gods grant us all space to carry a sturdy bow and wander through the forest glades to seek the bounding deer; to lie in the deep meadow grasses; to watch the flight of birds; to smell the fragrance of burning leaves; to cast an upward glance at the unobserved beauty of the moon. May they give us the strength to draw the string to the cheek, the arrow to the barb and loose the flying shaft, so long as life may last.”

[weezy]

What Terry said. If something is not challenging; I lose interest pretty quick. The kill is just a part of it and the older I get the less important it becomes. The kill is just a climax to the hunt; not the most important aspect.
Bob

[Biggie Hoffman]

Originally posted by James Wrenn:
Well I find a stickbow just as easy to kill something with as any other bow.Once you learn to shoot them all bows are the same as far as hunting goes.I hunt to kill stuff or I would not be going.I would take a camera instead of a bow if killing was not the reason I was there.Don't need to drag a bow around to go sightseeing.      

Me too!

[Wannabe1]

I've yet to make a kill but, every season I get out there and keep at it!

"It is all about the chase!"