Ahp, ahp, ahp! Don’t stop at the headline. Bonus points are in store for everyone who reads and respond to this blog post.
Perhaps it’s the age we’re living in. Perhaps it’s the fact that so many folks were locked away this past year and a half that they’re perpetually pissed off about something. Or perhaps it’s just there’s just too many people with too much time on their hands.
What’s the problem? I’ll be rather blunt: It’s all of the incessant bitching about technological advancements in the hunting market. First, it was the blowback on the insanely innovative NitroFire muzzleloader from Traditions Firearms. Paired with the Federal FireStick, this gun is now legal in 21 states during muzzleloader season. If you haven’t heard about it, click here to learn more. In short, it’s a muzzleloader that allows you to safely and easily remove the powder charge at the end of the day without the mess and stress associated with loose charges or compressed pellets.
Let’s stay on this topic for a moment. The naysayers (although I believe are a small segment) have been especially loud on this topic. They say this is no longer muzzleloading. It makes it way too easy to go afield. That it has taken things “too far.” Well, look at the image from an article I published in Deer & Deer Hunting. Think it’s about this new technology? You’d be wrong. This headline was to an article written SEVENTEEN years ago and it focused on all of these “way too user-friendly” in-line muzzleloaders that had taken the market by storm. My friend and longtime D&DH contributor Toby Bridges (the country’s be-all, end-all muzzleloading expert, by the way), put it this way back then:
“If muzzleloading hunters from the early 1970s could have time traveled to the present, it’s doubtful they would even recognize many of today’s more popular front-loading rifles as “muzzleloaders.”
In all fairness, he was right. But you know what? The exact same thing could be said of EVERY segment in hunting. Archery. Centerfire rifles. Optics. Scent elimination. Tree stands. The list goes on and on.
Like with the new muzzleloaders, the same squeaky wheels have been blowing up social media with their aghast reactions to the new 500+ feet per second crossbows, like the new TenPoint Nitro 505, the Ravin R500, etc. The same, tired comments are being made over and over again. Haters are calling them “crossguns” once again, likening them to your old, trusty .30-06. It’s beyond laughable, because anyone with any knowledge of how a broadhead-tipped arrow (call it a bolt if that makes you feel like more of a man) works on deer.
Yup, you guessed it. The broadhead kills the deer via hemorrhaging, not trauma (like a bullet). Can you fling arrows faster and hit archery range targets at longer distances? Certainly. But the fact of the matter remains that any type of archery hunting (vertical or crossbow) is still a short-range deal. And what’s more: Spoiler alert — not one single state has shown any marked increase in the number of deer killed during archery seasons that allow both horizontal bows and crossbows. In fact, the archery harvest numbers are so stable it’s almost mind-numbing. Example: Here in my home state of Wisconsin (all inclusion), we will kill on average 80,000 to 110,000 deer with archery equipment each and every year – and that’s going back on nearly 30 years of harvest data.
Let’s stick to the archery topic for a moment. Go back to 1973, and you’d find a bowhunter lugging around a clunky recurve. If you were really lucky, you’d find a guy with one of those new-fangled “compound bows.” I was a little late to the party when it came to bowhunting, but I clearly recall the first time I held my brother Roger’s PSE Citation in my hands. It was 1978, and this small-framed 11-year-old could not muster the energy to pull that 50-pound draw weight. I’m pretty sure that bow weighed 10 to 12 pounds fully decked out (quiver, arrows, etc). Set the time machine to 1978 and put a Mathews V3 and skinny Easton FMJs in Roger’s hands, and he would have thought you were some sort of space alien with super powers. That’s not even mentioning broadheads, camouflage, tree stands or anything else.
The same can be said of centerfire rifles. I don’t need to go into the blow-by-blow there. Just log on to YouTube and check out some of the videos from these dudes from Best of the West. Today’s rigs sure beat the hell out of what were passed off as “long-range deer rifles” in the early 1970s.
The point? We didn’t start fire. It was always burning since the modern deer hunting world has been turning.
My final analysis: All of the screaming, crying, whining and complaining is some deep-rooted jealousy among hunters. Guys and gals are so incredibly insecure that their neighbor might have some sort of advantage over them, and they’re eaten up with jealousy over products they either don’t want or can’t afford. Get over it, people. Here’s a concept: Take control of your own happiness and love thy neighbor as thyself. No, I can’t take credit for that idea. Google it, though, and maybe you’ll find a brand new cause in which to funnel your excess energy.
