furthest ethical shot

[jgrimes]

This may be Stirring to Pot a little, but I would be curious to see the age breakdown of the folks that are super confident with their abilities-- oh say past 50 yrds.
I'll bet  it would make a pretty good bell curve

25 yrs old and marked 40 yds.

[jdmecomber]

Everyone can relate to this, we have all hunted with people who say they are bowhunters or rifle hunters.  Example last year I took two guys out in arizona for a rifle coues deer hunt.  They first day one guy missed like 6 shots nothing two extreme for distance.  They next day one guy took 19 shots to kill his buck at 335 yards.  The next day one shot one kill for me 4x3  340 yards.  Then the other buddy after like ten shots finally kills a buck at almost 400 yards.  Now I took them both because they both told me they were hunters.  I told them to have there rifles zero at 300 yards.  Well we have all hunted with people who say they are hunters but we know by the way they talk about hunting they really dont take it serious.  Remember I deer fully alert can jump your string at close distances, it all comes back to taking the right shots in the right hunting situation.

[bucklucky]

I made 2 bad shots at elk at 12 and 15 yards . Personally My optimum goal is to get my bulls to 35 yards. Called my 370 to 35 , and last years Roosie to 37 .

[Alan K]

To be completely honest, archery hunting was never about getting as close as possible.  It was about longer and in my opinion better hunting dates. 

Don't get me wrong, getting close is amazing, but you can do that with any weapon.  Just get in the timber.  It's not my purpose for using the equipment though.

Like someone said it might be because I'm younger, at 22 years old.  My goal is to be effective at taking animals as cleanly as possible, be it with a rifle or a bow.  If I can drain an orange at 30 yards 95% of the time, and a cantaloupe at 50 yards 95% of the time, I'm going to be taking those shots on game given the opportunity.  I'm not going to risk spooking the animal off by trying to get 5 yards closer if I can still get meat in the freezer and a nice rack to boot from a little farther out.

 

22 years old,     Ah the wisdom.
 
Here's the difference, yes longer season have always been a desired goal, but archery IS a close range activity.  Your mind set is what is wrong with today's archers, IMHO.  The, I'm not going to risk spooking the animal to try and get 5 yards closer is the wrong mindset.  It should be, I'm not going to worry about spooking this animal as I try to get closer because the season is longer and I will have other chances.  I'm glad you can hit cantaloupe 95% of the time, but talk to me when those cantaloupe can suddenly and without warning take a step or two right after you release.  No big deal if you gut shoot a cataloupe, not the same with a deer.

The way I see it, at 50 yards, a deer has .58 seconds to react from the time I release my arrow to the time it makes contact (150 feet / 260 fps arrow speed).  I'm not talking about taking those shots when an animal has me completely pinned and is showing signs of bolting, I'm talking about say a buck standing there feeding.  We've all spent hours watching deer feed, and they don't move more than a half step in half a second.  Even if the buck were at a perfectly broadside angle, it would move my POI maybe 6 inches, which from the crease still catches the lungs.

There are a multitude of things that can happen. Heck in the early season you could have a horse fly whack you in the face as you release, or you could get shaky getting swarmed by mosquitos holding your bead on a bull waiting for him to take one more step into an opening.  There is no rule of thumb in nature, every situation is different. Someone could very easily botch a 10 yard shot in a situation like I mentioned above just as easily as a 50 yard shot.

To each their own on this topic I suppose.

[stw]

I think at least half of the peaple that are bow hunters have lost  one or more animals its not good. Hay im not a dick i lost one i shot it about ten feet from me. Me and my budy look 3 days 12hrs a day. all i have said 50 to 80 can be dun. And no  i don't shoot at them at 80 everytime. But i will at 50

[jackelope]

This thread is going to get locked at some point. I see nothing good coming out of it. In my opinion, any time a thread like this is started on here, there's no way anything positive will come of it. It's been proven time and time again.
 
I'm not going to lock it now because maybe I'm wrong, but I bet it won't turn around.

[jackelope]

I think at least half of the peaple that are bow hunters have lost  one or more animals its not good. Hay im not a dick i lost one i shot it about ten feet from me. Me and my budy look 3 days 12hrs a day. all i have said 50 to 80 can be dun. And no  i don't shoot at them at 80 everytime. But i will at 50

Those are not good odds.
I betcha more than half of your half that lose the animals are shooting too far.

[OlympicElkJunkie]

My effective ethical range varies from season to season. Right now I'm confident out to 60 yards on a range so I think I am good at range estimation and making a clean shot under less than ideal conditions at 40 yards. A couple years ago I was building a house and didn't have nearly as much time to condition my body to make the "automatic" shot, to have my eyes calibrated for ranging my target and frankly didn't make my bow part of me (think Full Metal Jacket - "this is my rifle, this is my gun ...") so my range that year wasn't beyond 20 yards and that was only because I had several years of experience and shooting prior to that to fall back on.

My range is simply based on how much time I have put in to tune my bow for broadheads, to tune my body for shooting in hunting situations, and to tune my eyes for framing the shot and I usually haven't determined how far out that is until just before the bell rings in September. If the season started tomorrow I would say 40 yards, but that could go up or down by then.

[quadrafire]

This thread is going to get locked at some point. I see nothing good coming out of it. In my opinion, any time a thread like this is started on here, there's no way anything positive will come of it. It's been proven time and time again.
 
I'm not going to lock it now because maybe I'm wrong, but I bet it won't turn around.

Kinda like Politics--huh--- You are never gonna change someones mind, and yours won't be either. So you are right, nothing good comes out of this but a good entertaining argument. I would leave it open for now---cause work is kinda slow today

[BULLBLASTER]

This kind of thread is fun to stir the pot.

[Alan K]

Oh and to everyone talking about how guys can't guess ranges accurately every time. You're right, but the thing is we don't guess these days. . . We have things called range finders now and they work great! 

I really don't think it'd be ethical to shoot any range beyond maybe 30 tops without having a rangefinder for verification. 

Oh, and I range everything before I shoot no matter the situation unless they're 20ish and in.

[pianoman9701]

This thread is going to get locked at some point. I see nothing good coming out of it. In my opinion, any time a thread like this is started on here, there's no way anything positive will come of it. It's been proven time and time again.
 
I'm not going to lock it now because maybe I'm wrong, but I bet it won't turn around.

I think it's good to have debate. There's no name-calling and the perspectives of different people might give others something to think about.

[bobcat]

Yeah, maybe nothing positive will come out of this thread, but I don't see anything negative either. I think it's a fun discussion to have every once in a while.

[JimmyHoffa]

I said 30 yds, but that is based off of my equipment.  I use recurve, and 30 is long.  My preferred is 10-15.  With all the advances in bows, someone else may have equipment that can get out there a bit---and still be ethical.  There are many reasons why people use a bow....mine:  I have a multiseason tag and will use use that friggin bow because it adds a month and a half to my season.  Some people like shooting long distances.  I say if they have the right equipment to still kill cleanly and consistently, why not?  One problem I see, is people trying to lump all equipment together, and assume that some 10 yr old compound can do the things the space age new releases are doing.  To me, that is kind of similar to thinking that just because a .30-378 can kill deer at 500 yds...then a .30-30 must be able to too.

[sebek556]