Not trying to start a gun vs bow debate, just asking an honest question.
An old friend of mine used to bow hunt in the Eldorado area, took care of the place, fed year-round, etc. Never seemed to be able to get a shot at a big deer. However, he was able to fling an arrow at probably 10 bucks per season, most if not all claimed to be misses, even though the arrow was not always recovered.
Question - do bow hunters remove more deer from the herd than gun hunters from 'misses', ie, deer that are not recovered and later die? Could that be why he never saw a big buck, because they were removing a large number of bucks form the property without even knowing it.

1) no
2) not likely

Agreed. I would venture a guess that more deer are lost by gun hunters than bow hunters, by shear numbers alone.

If he shot at 10 bucks per season and couldn't hit a single one with a killing shot, he needs to put his bow down and hunt with a rifle. That shtuff 'wouldn't fly' on our place, pun intended. No hunting deer on our place with bow ,for this reason. Hogs are OK.

I think percentage wise more deer are lost by bow hunters than rifle hunters, but more total deer are lost by rile hunters because lots more hunt with rifle. I do not have any official stats, but for me I have only lost 1 buck with rifle and 2 (one male one female) with a bow. Although I ended up finding the rack of the buck I lost last year, but count it as a loss since I did not eat the meat.

To answer your question directly no.

It all depends on the person bow hunting. A lot of guys I know who bow hunt if they feel they hit a deer they essentially burn that tag until deer is proven alive. So if I take a shot at a trophy buck for the year and hit him then never see him on camera again I'm calling that a kill. Now if you have a guy who hits a deer and has no proof he is alive so just keeps shooting deer till he can find one that's his deal. IMO someone who does that is not trying to manage the herd anyways. If someone were like this on my place he would be leaving soon.

I disagree. In general, and with the nature of the sport, I think most archers demonstrate a high level of commitment in practice as well as in game recovery. Even on "clean misses" I think most would make a conscious effort to recover their arrow and examine that it is on fact clean. While on the other hand I have heard and seen rifle hunters shoot a deer, and believe they miss because the deer did not react to the shot. On more than one example I or another person hunting with them encouraged them to go check for signs of a hit that resulted in magically finding a downed deer. Obviously in both techniques there is a margin for error and game will go wounded and unrecovered, but I don't think your one experience with a sloppy archer provides statistics for bow hunters at large.

Check out the following study:

http://www.qdma.com/articles/high-deer-r...BLaCqk.facebook

Key quote from above article:

"The bowhunters in Andy’s study recovered 83 percent of the deer they hit (1,083 recovered out of 1,296 hit from 1989 to 2012). This is an extremely high rate, on par with data I have seen for rifle hunters, and far higher than the archery wounding rates you hear animal-rights groups pushing in their propaganda."

So in answer to your question I would say no.

Most people that hunt a lot and don't harvest a big buck (relative to their area) has more to do with how they hunt rather than what they hunt with. It is the 80/20 rule.....20% of the hunters harvest 80% of the big bucks.

There is always one guy out there to mess it up for others though. The lease I left we had a hunter shoot three bucks and a doe with his bow last season. The only buck he recovered he shot at my feeder and although he recovered the doe it was the next day after she had spoiled.

That said the lease I'm on now is archery only. You wound a deer you burn a tag. They have a tremendous deer herd on this place. It's been archery only for decade. I'm fairly sure it hasn't hurt the herd.

I know this will spark discussion but the bow hunters I know and hunt with are better hunters/outdoors men than the average gun hunter. They spend countless hours perfecting theirs skills in, shooting, game knowledge and stand placement to name a few. They love the challenge that archery brings.

This is what I think. While this situation COULD happen... I feel like it is a long shot. One thing ppl don't understand is how many shot deer live when hit with a broadhead... If you aren't finding them, i'm saying at worst 50/50 they are gona make it... I'll find the pics of the buck my buddy shot, claimed PERFECT right behind the shoulder. No blood... a month later the kills the buck with a rifle and takes a picture of the scar from his broadhead.

If your buddy is actually shooting at that many deer and missing or not finding them he needs to stop shooting at animals until he can actually shoot responsibly. tell him to go practice

Assuming we are talking about competent and responsible hunters im going to say...

1- No
2-maybe.

I hunted on a place that saw very few bucks in general. There was a guy who hunted it with us, he sat the best spot on the place overlooking a big oat field and he shot a 223 semi auto. He would spray ammo into a field full of deer and not stop till they were all gone or he was out of ammo, Im talking 15-20 shots at a time easy. If the deer didn't fall over dead it was a miss. Starting the year he got kicked off the lease the number of bucks we saw skyrocketed and got better with every following year. Small property only 200 or so acres.

1) If a bow hunter is not wounding deer, then NO, they don't remove more bucks. A good archer has a pretty good feeling whether that arrow hit or missed.

My question is how in the world was your buddy allowing himself to miss 10 bucks a season? He either needs lots of practice or needs to skip bow season. Good grief.

2) If this guys was flinging arrows at ~10 bucks per year than he was doing a darn good job of educating those bucks. That probably explains not seeing much later.

I agree, most likely taking poor, long distance shots as well. I haven't bow hunted in years, but used to be my primary choice. I practiced out to 45 yards, but never took a shot over 30 yards. I have been on leases where some nut jobs would take 50 yard + shots.

Last year our neighbor across the street started bow hunting, over the course of 3 weeks, we had 6 does in our yard with what appeared to be blade cuts on the back. all in the same proximity. Also 2 small 4 points that where daily visitors came up missing and never seen again. My daughter told me a month ago That she had seen the guy come back a few times around midnight while I was gone to work. Wonder what he forgot????.

I think a prudent, responsible bow hunter will make a minimum impact, but how many really hold back :buck fever"?

In the case of your friend who shot at 10 bucks a year and didn't get them the answer would be yes!
I wouldn't want to hunt with anyone who took shots at ten bucks and consistently couldn't find them.
He needs to put down the bow, and in his case practice would not help. He has no business in the woods with a bow in his hand.

I would think it's quite the opposite. I hunt on a bow only lease and we have plenty of deer. It's so much harder to get a deer inside 30 yards and turn broadside for you. And yes I would have a problem with anyone shooting at 10 bucks and not recovering them.

There are a lot of things a bowhunter has to overcome in order to get close shots at deer (30 yards and under)
If it's dead calm just barely putting pressure on the string to draw will send make a deer explode and try to run in every direction.
You have to have a lot in your favor such as a slight breeze that ruffles the leaves and muffles the sound or your heart pounding and also the sound of an arrow drawing across a rest silenced or not. Swirling wind currents, and just the fact that the deer is wound up like a coil spring when they first approach and sense something isn't right.
It's that challenge that makes bowhunting what it is. Anyone can fling arrows at distant deer, but getting into doable bow range is a completely different story and it takes a real hunter to do that.
I'm talking from years of experience and it's still hard to get a deer into that magic range for a clean shot. Anyone that says otherwise hasn't bow hunted very much!

At the ranch I hunt three of us bow hunt and haven't wounded a deer yet. There are about another ten guys that come to gun hunt. Most of these ten come to get drunk. Over the last three years they have hit but not recovered 5 deer! I took it upon myself to buy a beagle this year and train her how to trail deer blood. I would love to have a bow hunting only place to hunt but unfortunately this place is free and I cannot afford one YET!