I just got home from my lease this evening and have been thinking about this thread the whole time I was gone. There were a total of 12 bucks shot at the lease this weekend. 9 with rifle and 3 with bows. Of the 9 shot with the rifle, 9 were recovered. Of the 3 shot with the bows, 1 was recovered. And the 1 that was recovered was shot just above the rear knee joint. I guess it just bled out. When you pull the trigger on the rifle you don't have to worry about the deer jumping the string. If the landowner on our lease knew how many deer were wounded with the bows he might just stop the bowhunting too.

Again it is about shot placement, as a bowhunter you need to know your limits, and practice to be proficient. I personally will not take a bow shot on a deer farther than 20 yards, alot of it has to do with reading the animals body language, if its on edge and spooky you should never take the shot with a bow IMO, this is where alot guys go wrong. Sure I can group arrows at 30+ yards, doesn mean I should take that shot on an anmial with razor fast reflexes. You just have to be more picky on shot placement with a bow than with a rifle. My recovery rate with a bow is the same as with a rifle in the 90% range.

Bossbowman you nailed it it's all about shot placement, the problem is that are just a lot of idiots out there that (think) they can make the perfect shot that is out of their range.

When that buck fever hits a grown man it's a lot like the rut, they forget which head to think with!

the fact is that deer recover perfectly fine from non lethal broadhead hits and if its a lethal hit, they are a dead deer. just because you may have a marginal blood trail that fades doesnt mean you havent made a lethal shot and killed the deer. I have had a deer hit perfectly and had not one drop of blood but found the deer, but that is not always the case. you cant always find all of them.

not a problem with a compound, but a traditional or recurve the 30 yds would be a problem.
what diameter is the 10 ring ? 5-6"

Because they believe that many more animals are wounded with a bow.

I think that it's easiear to fatally wound one with a gun though. If you make a bad hit it leaves a much nastier wound and a greater chance of infection. An arrow usually leaves a much cleaner wound that is much more likely to heal up.

I've heard about deer being seen with arrows sticking out, but in most cases the arrows eventually back out and the animal heals up. Gun wounds on the other hand don't usually heal up very well.

It really comes down to landowner prefference and yes it is harder to find a good lease that allows bowhunting. Keep looking though. There are some good ones out there and it's definitely worth the wait to find one that allows bowhunting.

I only own about 70 acres in Tyler County, but have thought about looking into providing a lease because we see lots of deer. In addition, adjacent landowners have consistently provided worthwhile leases on their properties (rifle.) Because we have horses, I am reluctant to allow someone to rifle hunt, but actually have a preference for bow hunters. My personal impression (I've never bow hunted, but used to hunt deer with a shotgun/closer range and know many bowhunters) was that bow hunters, by necessity, needed to hunt at closer range and be more familiar and involved with the resource/habitat to be successful. That was my rationale for preferring a bow hunter. Am I wrong?

IronSpikeLabs, I think you're right on. I know way to many rifle hunters that SCARE me when I hunt with them. When you offer a place for rifle lease you will have LOTS of people interested that know very little about hunting. That's why it really bugs me when people that are looking to lease take the first money that shows up.

Personally I would interview very carefully and pick the one that I thought was the best. If you have a good lease there's no need for anyone to take the quickest cash.

Well, then I have a lot to learn. I don't know if my property would classify as a 'good lease' to everyone. We see plenty of deer, they are taken every year on adjacent properties and they come thru here all the time. Guess it depends on what a person wants - we'd be a 'venison in the freezer' kinda place. Wonder where I go to learn the ins & outs of the legalities, paperwork, terms, etc.?

Many people dont allow bowhunting because alot of bow hunters will keep wounding and wounding animals until they recover a deer.

I know on one 4,000acre property it got so bad that we had to make every bow hunter that came on to the property pose for a picture with their arrows; so after the season was over when we found carcasses with arrows in them we could match the bowhunter by arrow brand, shaft length and broad head.....and promptly not invite them back.

Simply put if there is not a rifle BANG to give away that some one shot and or made a bad shot alot of bow hunters will simply not even tell you they shot one in the hind quarter, neck, leg or guts.

On that same 4,000acres in one year there were 10 bowhunters....found 4 dead with arrows in them that were never reported.

Problem is too many hunters who do not put in the time to practice with their bow. They only attempt to bow hunt because they don't want to wait around until November to get out their guns. I was on a lease with a guy that showed up opening weekend of bow season with a bow that he borrowed from a friend. He had never shot the bow before in his life. It was not set up for him and the draw length was about 2 inches too long. He shot at a target in camp at 20 yards and missed the entire target the first 4 shots. The 5th shot hit the target on the outer edge and he said that was good enough. This guy was a complete idiot and that is the reason too many deer are wounded with bows.

You have to understand we are looking through bow hunters eyes, and not land owners eyes.

Well, it ain't rocket science why some land owners feel the way they do about bow hunting... Lost animals speak volumes. I have been lucky enough to recover every single one I shot with a bow, but I've also seen too much of the flip side of that. I respect the land owners choice as to how they want to run their place.

i want to try this with a recurve.
how big a circle would seem about right ?

ten ring is a little bigger than softball size...12 is about the size of a golf ball on a deer target.. don't remember the exact measurements.

You have to qualify to hunt on Haggerman as well, and while talking with one of the local game wardens for Grayson county he said that the 2 largest bucks ever seen on the refuge had both been wounded by archery hunters and never recovered.

With it being a refuge you are tightly managed, now imagin if it was private property...you think either one of those hunters who hit those bucks would have quit hunting that season?....not likely

There are lots of fine arguments on a topic that has been argued extensivily (anyone want to argue High-Fence vs. Low-Fence ). I think landowner's aversion to bow hunting boils down to a couple of things. First, there's the higher percentage of wounded and lost animals. Usually with a firearm, even a wounded animal is found dead later. I've had gun hunters gut shoot animals many times. We usually recover the animal but have lost a couple over the years. On all but one the buzzards found the animal for us by the next day. I've never had a rifle-shot animal show up at the feeder. With bow hunting, on the other hand, we've seen animals walking around with arrows sticking out of them and more than one skinner has been injured by a previously-undiscovered broadhead in the body. I had a doe show up one time that had been shot in the neck. The arrow wound was bad, but not fatal. Unfortunately she was unable to eat. I watched her try unsuccessfully to swallow corn and noticed she was very, very skinny. The poorly placed arrow left her to starve to death. I've never seen that with gun hunting.

Another problem landowners have is the reputation of "city folk". Many hunters come from the city totally unprepared to hunt. I've taken numerous kill shots for hunters and have had to loan my rifle out more than once because the hunter's rifle was not properly cited in. It's difficult enough with gun hunters, but when you add the greater expertise required to bow hunt, many landowners just won't take that chance.

Of all the ranches I hunt, only one allows bow hunting and is set up for it. I know the stereotype doesn't fit everyone and may be unjust, but there are enough yahoos out there to ruin it for everyone.

A gun shot way to easy,bow is more of a challenge.land owner would just rather you start hunting in nov. than oct.

I'm sorry to say but I havn't harvested a deer this year yet. I have passed on 1 good buck and 3 does. I just didnt have a good ethical shot or there wasnt enough light. I have rifle hunted for atleast 10 years but my second year for bow only. I love the challange and the chase and for me there is a MAJOR adrenalin rush when the deer are just yards away... Only things I miss are a nice heater in the bind and meat in the freezer. I'm with Jimbo take shooting test to get on.

I've never lost one with a rifle I have lost a doe with a low in the brisket bow shot just shot low for some reason.

I try to never take marginal shots that's me but even that is not a guarantee as with the doe I lost. My buck this year was shot from a brush blind on public land I had a slightly quarter to me/mostly broadside shot and damn if I didn't hit him right in the front left shoulder. Thing is he went down like I'd just shot him with a 7mm mag. Once I stopped kicking myself and realized he couldn't get up I quickly got to him and put another arrow through him at close range. I found later that my bow was shooting left by a few inches always shoot your bows during the lunch time or whatever even when you think they are on. Lesson learned/relearned. It's our responsibility to make sure it is on and you have a good shot.

I got lucky I would have expected him to run off.

I worked a bow only day lease for a few years back in the eighties. Technology today is definitely better, but we had some killer compounds then as well. On ANY given weekend, we would have 4-5 deer hit and tracking needed. Yes, a well placed bow shot will kill a deer, but most weekend bow hunters just don't have the skills to make that "well placed shot". We found a lot of dead deer on those grounds...weeks after they were shot...and no tellin how many more were shot and we weren't informed because the hunter couldn't find the deer.

I've seen deer shot in the butt, the hips, the knees....just about every place you can imagine. Yes they had to perform a skills test to prove they could hit a 3D target at 20-30 yards...but thats much different than a real life hunt, with a real life animal.

I taught archery lessons for years...most of whom were gonna take their practice sessions to the field and hunt. I could always tell the ones that were gonna have a "story" to tell at the end of the season. It was the ones still shooting the single spot targets a month before season opened...if they hadn't segued from the one spot to the five spot by that time, I just knew their chances were gonna go down once they got in the stand.

Landowner perceptions are the key. One other thing from a landowner point of view, a whole extra month of hunters at the lease in October. It's kinda sad but it's the truth.

Along the lines of what murph just said and i haven't heard discussion is this example. My buddy did not buy into a lease because most of the individuals did not want bow hunters. Why? simply put some of them didn't bow hunt and felt that they might be cheated out of a big buck opportunity due to a bow hunter in the group.

By the way great arguments on both sides. A big selling point for owning your own land.