Originally Posted by DZaidle (Post 18825)

I thought you guys might want to see this letter I received today from a reader (name withheld to forestall discomfort or death):

Dear Sir,

I appreciate your magazine and the quality of stories you have in it each month. I would like to comment however on one of your stories in this months issue titled "Eye level deer hunting" by Lou Marullo.

I am an avid deer hunter and have been in the field since before my 6th birthday, raised in east Texas and taught hunting by my half Cherokee grandfather and my older brother. I was lucky in that we had quite a bit of access to hunting land not only on my grandparents property but all the land around it actually, several thousand acres all together. What I want to say is I consider my self neither professional nor novice but an experienced hunter of most all animals offered in Texas. I presently hunt the central hill country around Lampasas as well as the west Texas area of Winters. I even still get in some east Texas hunts in between my traveling to the other properties in Texas.

I have enjoyed all hunting except bow as I feel it is a skill most people do not or cannot master to a point of accomplishment that will lead to a clean kill, one of our sworn duties as good hunters. i have seen my share of bad shots from hunters and have killed deer in November after bow season with horrid wounds and infected wounds with the arrow still protruding from their bodies. I did the deer a favor and put them out of their misery with one well placed accurate shot. I have been taught this and I have taught my children the same, to respect the game God has given us and not take a chance on wounding one just for sport and that is what most bowhunters are ,just sportsmen and not hunters.

Please try to show a difference between a hunter and a sportsman, a bow is not as lethal nor as accurate as a bullet and if you really put it to the test you will see i am right. I am glad people hunt but they should either hone their skills to the level of a gun hunter or stay home and not possibly wound a trophy buck for no reason except to say i am skilled and it takes a good hunter to get a deer within ten yards and kill it with a bow. I have done this with, bow, pistol and rifle but real skill is hitting a trophy buck at 300 plus yards and having it fall within 30 yards of where you shot it.

If I can't feel confident enough to place my 130 grain 270 bullet in a quarter at 100 yards i could never feel confident bowhunting unless I could do the same at 25 yards. I now argue for the gun hunter and against the bow sportsman. I asked my half Cherokee grandfather a question once when i was a young man. "Grandpa why don't you use a bow to hunt with like your indian brothers did" He answered me with a good answer I have never forgotten," bow hunting is for people who have no better way to harvest game .A sure kill is a gun kill."

Thanks for hearing my opinion and thought maybe you might be able to show a little difference between sportsmen and hunters. I appreciate your time. thank you,

(name withheld)
gun enthusiast and hunter

Originally Posted by tinman (Post 18826)

Don, have we reached the part where the "crossbow inclusion" crowd that you were such a big part of begins to discredit/threaten bowhunting by raising questions about the effectiveness of archery weapons? I thought you were against "hunters fighting hunters"???

Originally Posted by DZaidle (Post 18828)

Well, I don't know how the crossbow thing got into this. I just thought the letter was absurd....

Originally Posted by LostHawg (Post 18836)

Does this mean I have to return all my deer and hogs?