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Archery hunting, something to thnk about #7639200 10/22/19 09:17 PM
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Just a little something to think about, we have the best archery equipment that money can buy these days when we hunt but yet it is still very difficult to harvest our game. With that being said, how skilled (or lucky) do you think the Indians had to be 150 years ago to even harvest any game with the crude weapons that they had. No doubt they had to be very skilled at their craft in order to just survive from their kills. If they had had the archery gear that we have now, the Indians would still control this country. Lol. No doubt the game has gotten much smarter and their survivor skills are far greater than yester years and with the explosion of people into their habitat. I was sitting in my ladder blind, bow in hand when I started to think about this and it made me feel very lucky to have the knowledge, skill and high priced gear to get it done and still sometimes that is a tall order.


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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639259 10/22/19 10:23 PM
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They didn’t have same issues, because they where hungry and much more driven to success. Also they had no game laws or legal restrictions

We are fat and happy... figuratively speaking of course


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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639262 10/22/19 10:31 PM
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Reading Dr. Saxton Pope’s writings about the Native American Ishi is very entertaining and enlightening on this very subject.

Their skills were beyond description (much like the African trackers most are more familiar with). Plus, hunting was their life. It was a deadly combination.


Originally Posted by Russ79
I learned long ago you can't reason someone out of something they don't reason themselves into.


Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639266 10/22/19 10:33 PM
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When you started something as early in life as they did you learn a lot more than now. They may not have had the equipment but they had the knowledge.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Nogalus Prairie] #7639331 10/22/19 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
Reading Dr. Saxton Pope’s writings about the Native American Ishi is very entertaining and enlightening on this very subject.

Their skills were beyond description (much like the African trackers most are more familiar with). Plus, hunting was their life. It was a deadly combination.


Yes sir, that is a great read and amazing history, kind of sad in some respects, but Ishi wasn't all thrilled on going back to live in his old ways on a permanent basis. Just glad some of his lie was documented. BTW, he was an amazing arrowhead craftsman.


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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639342 10/22/19 11:53 PM
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Yep, it is amazing how skilled you can get when your life is literally on the line.

And as BOBO pointed out, they had no qualms with banding up and driving them into a river to be shot while swimming or over a cliff. Dead was dead to them and they really didn't care how it happened.


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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639356 10/23/19 12:10 AM
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I found this buck on my place this evening. I figure someone with all the high tech equipment made a great archery story about a lost buck. He was close to Proffitt cemetery if anyone wants to claim him.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639429 10/23/19 01:12 AM
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They were skinny for a reason, lol except when they had their Buffalo jumps and ran them off of cliffs.


Just like Jesus, sometimes you gotta kill some hogs.
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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: scalebuster] #7639437 10/23/19 01:16 AM
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Originally Posted by scalebuster
[Linked Image]

I found this buck on my place this evening. I figure someone with all the high tech equipment made a great archery story about a lost buck. He was close to Proffitt cemetery if anyone wants to claim him.


Second highest nature mortality rates in bucks is between shedding velvet and pre-rut. Hard to speculate but good deer non the less. Shame

Last edited by BOBO the Clown; 10/23/19 01:17 AM.

Donate to TX Youth hunting program.... better to donate then to waste it in taxes

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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639441 10/23/19 01:21 AM
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If you practiced with a simple long bow every single day for your entire life, you'd be pretty good with it too.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639470 10/23/19 01:41 AM
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When there are no grocery stores and you have to spend 365 days a year in survival mode AND there are no laws limiting what you can do - yeah, if you were alive you would probably be a pretty deadly hunter. Along with being a expert gatherer / scavenger. Different kind of life, one that close to zero percent of people today would survive in.

If the government collapsed, the power went out, the trucks stopped delivering food to grocery stores and the water stopped flowing to homes .... half the population would be dead in less than a month and other half of the population would be close to it. Those kind of survival skills don't exist in the population anymore.

You guys watch Alone? Where they drop 10 people in some remote place and the last person to leave wins 500k? Even in the last season, the guy who was a good hunter - snagged a moose, wolverine, etc (bow hunting)... guy had plenty of MEAT but was still losing 1lb a DAY because you need more than just meat to survive (he almost got a forced medical tap because he lost so much weight - several other contestants were forced to leave on a medical tap). Your body needs other nutrition to function properly and process the food you're eating... something most people don't even realize.

Yeah, different kind of life and definitely survival skills that people don't have today. Those were hard people, we're all a bunch of pansies in comparison.

Last edited by Binary; 10/23/19 01:46 AM.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639478 10/23/19 01:49 AM
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I don't believe the Indians where as good as hunters as they were portrayed.

I believe most walked around in various states of starvation majority of the time until they got horses. Most were hunter/gatherers, and most scavenged, caught small animals and forgaged what they could. I think its a common misconception that Indians were master hunters that were almost god-like in the woods. Their bows were crude and i'm sure they wounded a lot of game. But a lot of types of game to be had so they made do.

Also, all they did was Sleep, breed, make war and hunt for food. A lot of tribes also ate horses after the Spanish came. so a big part of their day was just looking for food or preparing it.


Not to say they didn't have superior instincts that modern man certainly did not possess but it was a hard existence to eek out.








For it is not the quarry that we truly seek, but the adventure.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639491 10/23/19 01:57 AM
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I think you might be surprised how good a hunters most Native Americans were. Especially in the nomadic tribes.

Yes they struggled, yes many died, yes they gathered, yes they killed by any means - but they were a helluva lot more than wastrels wandering the earth eking out a fringe existence. They crossed the Bering Land bridge and populated the entirety of North and South America in the span of a few thousand years.

That didn’t happen by luck or by marginal survivors.


Originally Posted by Russ79
I learned long ago you can't reason someone out of something they don't reason themselves into.


Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Nogalus Prairie] #7639495 10/23/19 02:02 AM
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Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
I think you might be surprised how good a hunters most Native Americans were. Especially in the nomadic tribes.

Yes they struggled, yes many died, yes they gathered, yes they killed by any means - but they were a helluva lot more than wastrels wandering the earth eking out a fringe existence. They crossed the Bering Land bridge and populated the entirety of North and South America in the span of a few thousand years.

That didn’t happen by luck or by marginal survivors.



I think there were also more available food sources to be had than we are accustomed to now.


its interesting to speculate on how things actually were. I tend to take written history with a grain of salt, as most of it has been glamorized or mis-construed in many ways. Look at our boy Chris Columbus for instance. We were always taught he discovered America. Now its commonly taught that he discovered Haiti and was a slave trader and otherwise awful person.


For it is not the quarry that we truly seek, but the adventure.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639530 10/23/19 02:34 AM
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The guide from my last few buffalo hunts occasionally guides someone with the stones to take one with a bow. People going up against an old bull on foot with a bow, to me that has to be about as close as a person can get today to feeling what the original inhabitants of this land felt when they did the same. If you don't land the few shots it's going to take well, or if the wind turns on you, there's not a lot you can do against an animal that runs 35mph and hopes you'll retreat to the truck bed so he can hop up in there with you.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: txtrophy85] #7639536 10/23/19 02:43 AM
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Originally Posted by txtrophy85
Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
I think you might be surprised how good a hunters most Native Americans were. Especially in the nomadic tribes.

Yes they struggled, yes many died, yes they gathered, yes they killed by any means - but they were a helluva lot more than wastrels wandering the earth eking out a fringe existence. They crossed the Bering Land bridge and populated the entirety of North and South America in the span of a few thousand years.

That didn’t happen by luck or by marginal survivors.



I think there were also more available food sources to be had than we are accustomed to now.


its interesting to speculate on how things actually were. I tend to take written history with a grain of salt, as most of it has been glamorized or mis-construed in many ways. Look at our boy Chris Columbus for instance. We were always taught he discovered America. Now its commonly taught that he discovered Haiti and was a slave trader and otherwise awful person.



Most of my reading on the subject is not schoolbook stuff - it’s the best that can be gleaned from dedicated authors
who are also hard researchers.

As just one example, the Comanches ruled the Southwest until after the Civil War (with some brief exceptions when the Rangers were active). The skill with which they wielded their bows/arrows almost defies belief but is well and consistently documented by many first person accounts.

The same can be said of many tribes (Kiowa, Apache, Karankawa, Sioux, Crow, Iroquois, etc., etc...).

There were definitely lesser tribes who relied more on scavenging, gathering, and agriculture - but my guess is even their hunting skills were probably nothing to sneer at.


Originally Posted by Russ79
I learned long ago you can't reason someone out of something they don't reason themselves into.


Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Nogalus Prairie] #7639549 10/23/19 03:08 AM
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Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie


Most of my reading on the subject is not schoolbook stuff - it’s the best that can be gleaned from dedicated authors
who are also hard researchers.

As just one example, the Comanches ruled the Southwest until after the Civil War (with some brief exceptions when the Rangers were active). The skill with which they wielded their bows/arrows almost defies belief but is well and consistently documented by many first person accounts.

The same can be said of many tribes (Kiowa, Apache, Karankawa, Sioux, Crow, Iroquois, etc., etc...).

There were definitely lesser tribes who relied more on scavenging, gathering, and agriculture - but my guess is even their hunting skills were probably nothing to sneer at.


Hey now, don't come in here talking about what you learned from books.

I watched Last of the Mohicans, Jeremiah Johnson, Dances with Wolves and the Lone Ranger - I'm an expert on Indians I tell you! LOL

But seriously - we'll never really know how good of hunters they were and can only rely on what is written (which may not be trustworthy, as pointed out) and our imaginations. Given the level of technology at the time, I tend to believe they were hard people that led hard lives and were probably far better hunters than people today - they would have to be to survive. Trapping was probably easier for them, so they likely did a lot of that. But hunting was part of their survival as well and given what tools were available - they HAD to possess pretty extreme hunting skills to be successful and make hunting worthwhile. Without some pretty extreme hunting skills to ensure successful hunts, hunting just wouldn't have been a worthwhile task for them and they wouldn't hunt at all. Survival was a 365 day a year job back then - people had to pick and choose what labors were worthwhile and going to lead to not dying a while longer.

Last edited by Binary; 10/23/19 03:10 AM.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639593 10/23/19 04:31 AM
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I suspect they were as skilled at hunting as we are at driving.


No matter how high a duck flies a hammer still breaks a window.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: jnd59] #7639599 10/23/19 04:55 AM
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Originally Posted by jnd59
I suspect they were as skilled at hunting as we are at driving.

Then there were a ton of totally useless unskilled hunters in their ranks LOL

Last edited by Binary; 10/23/19 04:56 AM.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639603 10/23/19 05:14 AM
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I know in many areas they were also not solitary hunters. Often times they were in decent size groups and hunted much the same way as you would with dogs but instead used people. Select an area were the topography allowed a bunch of people to push the game into natural funnels and than have a designated kill zone where another group would hammer on the game with spears and bows. In fact this technique is still used today for whitetail in the far north end of their range. It is a tradition that carried over from the natives into our hunting regs and is permitted as "party hunting" where everyone in your group is licensed and has at least one tag. It used in the dense north woods except instead of human pushers most groups use hounds to push the deer into natural pinch point kill zones. This is often the only way to get any deer in many of these areas as the deer density is on the low end due to the habitat and climate and most places you can't see more than 10 or 15 yards.

Where my parents live in Alberta is not too far from a UNESCO world heritage site called "Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump." The natives would locate a herd of buffalo and than drive/stampede them off of a cliff. No real weapons used except for the butchering taking place at the base of the cliff. They could literally kill 1000s at a time. They would take everything they needed for themselves and use the extra to trade with other tribes.

In the far north woods the natives were dependent on the Caribou migration which at the high points in the cycle rivaled the wildebeest migration in Africa for numbers. Once again they would set up at a natural pinch point during the annual migration and could kill enough in 1 or 2 weeks to survive the entire winter. Certainly wasn't always easy though as if they missed the migration due to timing/location or if the Caribou were in a natural low cycle it would be a God awful winter with misery to spare.

Last edited by Hirogen; 10/23/19 05:26 AM.

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Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639657 10/23/19 11:16 AM
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If you want a true and accurate account of life back then, you need to put down the modern books, mainly anything written after the early to mid 1900's.
Most books showing the history and accounts of life back then on the frontier were first hand from folks that actually survived those times.
You will understand why the early settlers called a full moon a "Comanche Moon!"



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Once i learned that i didn't "NEED" to kill something, and that if i did kill something all the fun stopped and work began, i was a much better hunter.
Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: scalebuster] #7639872 10/23/19 03:12 PM
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Originally Posted by scalebuster
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I found this buck on my place this evening. I figure someone with all the high tech equipment made a great archery story about a lost buck. He was close to Proffitt cemetery if anyone wants to claim him.



Yes the only thing killing deers is arrows.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Nogalus Prairie] #7639912 10/23/19 03:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
Originally Posted by txtrophy85
Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
I think you might be surprised how good a hunters most Native Americans were. Especially in the nomadic tribes.

Yes they struggled, yes many died, yes they gathered, yes they killed by any means - but they were a helluva lot more than wastrels wandering the earth eking out a fringe existence. They crossed the Bering Land bridge and populated the entirety of North and South America in the span of a few thousand years.

That didn’t happen by luck or by marginal survivors.



I think there were also more available food sources to be had than we are accustomed to now.


its interesting to speculate on how things actually were. I tend to take written history with a grain of salt, as most of it has been glamorized or mis-construed in many ways. Look at our boy Chris Columbus for instance. We were always taught he discovered America. Now its commonly taught that he discovered Haiti and was a slave trader and otherwise awful person.



Most of my reading on the subject is not schoolbook stuff - it’s the best that can be gleaned from dedicated authors
who are also hard researchers.

As just one example, the Comanches ruled the Southwest until after the Civil War (with some brief exceptions when the Rangers were active). The skill with which they wielded their bows/arrows almost defies belief but is well and consistently documented by many first person accounts.

The same can be said of many tribes (Kiowa, Apache, Karankawa, Sioux, Crow, Iroquois, etc., etc...).

There were definitely lesser tribes who relied more on scavenging, gathering, and agriculture - but my guess is even their hunting skills were probably nothing to sneer at.


Why would the Eastern Woodland tribes be lesser? The Eastern Woodland Indians survived by hunting, farming and trading. We were much more advanced than the Plains Indians you seem to be so infatuated with. Read some of the missionary accounts of the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees and you many think differently. Better yet, visit some of the Nations next time you go to the Tulsa gun show. We can show you a thing or two.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Choctaw] #7639974 10/23/19 04:57 PM
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Originally Posted by Choctaw
Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
Originally Posted by txtrophy85
Originally Posted by Nogalus Prairie
I think you might be surprised how good a hunters most Native Americans were. Especially in the nomadic tribes.

Yes they struggled, yes many died, yes they gathered, yes they killed by any means - but they were a helluva lot more than wastrels wandering the earth eking out a fringe existence. They crossed the Bering Land bridge and populated the entirety of North and South America in the span of a few thousand years.

That didn’t happen by luck or by marginal survivors.



I think there were also more available food sources to be had than we are accustomed to now.


its interesting to speculate on how things actually were. I tend to take written history with a grain of salt, as most of it has been glamorized or mis-construed in many ways. Look at our boy Chris Columbus for instance. We were always taught he discovered America. Now its commonly taught that he discovered Haiti and was a slave trader and otherwise awful person.



Most of my reading on the subject is not schoolbook stuff - it’s the best that can be gleaned from dedicated authors
who are also hard researchers.

As just one example, the Comanches ruled the Southwest until after the Civil War (with some brief exceptions when the Rangers were active). The skill with which they wielded their bows/arrows almost defies belief but is well and consistently documented by many first person accounts.

The same can be said of many tribes (Kiowa, Apache, Karankawa, Sioux, Crow, Iroquois, etc., etc...).

There were definitely lesser tribes who relied more on scavenging, gathering, and agriculture - but my guess is even their hunting skills were probably nothing to sneer at.


Why would the Eastern Woodland tribes be lesser? The Eastern Woodland Indians survived by hunting, farming and trading. We were much more advanced than the Plains Indians you seem to be so infatuated with. Read some of the missionary accounts of the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees and you many think differently. Better yet, visit some of the Nations next time you go to the Tulsa gun show. We can show you a thing or two.


I grew up in Western Arkansas/Eastern Oklahoma. Many of my hunting and fishing buddies were Cherokee or Choctaw. Don't know if it was inherited skills or what, but every one of those guys was/is a superb outdoorsman. I learned a lot from them.

Re: Archery hunting, something to thnk about [Re: Booner1] #7639984 10/23/19 05:08 PM
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I bet they didn't single out and wait for a mature buck lol.

No doubt I think they were probably good at what they did, but I could also see researchers that are mesmerized with their culture etc. which is who I would assume does most of the research, exaggerating and we all know that first hand accounts are exaggerated from time to time.


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