[LostHawg]

There's more to hunting than taking the shot!

Travis, it appears to me that you aren't looking at the big picture.

Furthermore, you take our stance against rifle hunting in the archery season as being opposed to encouraging youth to hunt. Then you spend your whole effort talking about taking the shot, not hunting and making the shot happen.

First and foremost the child MUST learn his way in the woods. No ifs, ands or buts. Giving the child a bow and taking that child hunting for rabbits, quail, squirrel, other small game will do this. Far better than shooting with a rifle from an elevated box blind that you can drive to, drop the kid off, sit there till its time to leave. THAT is not hunting. You put the kid on the ground with a 25 or 30 pound bow and chase rabbits, and that kids going to be grinning from ear to ear as he passes out in the truck on the return drive home. Then, you'll be hard pressed for a moment of silence at supper as he retails a dozen times how his arrow skipped over the ears of that rabbit that was hiding under the prickly pear. Travis, you've GOT to take a kid HUNTING to understand. That gun you want them to have so badly is NOT how you teach a kid to hunt and ENJOY hunting. You give that child a bow or a light gauge shotgun and go after small game (which IS open in October) and you let them lead on the TRAIL. In this you can teach them deer sign, what a coon track looks like, a squirrel's trash after peeling a black walnut, etc. You don't do that with a .243 in a tower or brush blind. No, you put that child on the ground, on the trail, HUNTING.

What you and P&W are pursuing is NOT doing this. You look at hunting as just sitting there and when the deer shows up, turns sideways, you take the shot and you're HUNTING!! No. You have GOT to teach that kid from level one. What you and P&W have in mind is not hunting, it is merely "harvesting game".

See my avatar? I would never have been able to do that if I hadn't started at an early age hunting small game and learning when I can and can't move. If I hadn't learned to use the terrain as well as the flora as cover. When I could and couldn't take the shot. What better vehicle than the bow and arrow to teach these to a child? Not the rifle. The rifle isolates you from the environment and the animals you pursue. You don't learn much at all. Just shoot, cut and drag. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes you'll track a wounded animal, but not very often.

Archery, in this, prevails.