Conservation officials responsible for manage ment of our wildlife resources tell us that the crux of the problem of an adequate supply of game is land. People differ in ideas as to how land best may be used. Forestry, farming, wildlife, and man made works are in conflict one with another because of the scarcity of land, and each competes for its use. The ultimate aim of society as a whole is to provide the maxi mum of satisfaction and contentment possible under such a conflict of interests.

A diversity of interests also exists among members of any particular group, and wildlife administrators are under constant pressure from organized minorities within groups to whom self interest is more important than the welfare of the group as a whole. According to wildlife experts, the educational and recreational aspects of our wildlife resources are the true measure of their value to society and management practices should have these ends in view. On this basis the value of a deer herd in any particular state is not measured by the number of the animals in the herd but by the numbers of persons who seek the deer in its natural habitat and the length of time in which this elusive animal may be legally hunted. To many persons the opportunity to observe deer in the wild state is sufficient reward; others are sportsmen interested only in a buck carrying a trophy rack, while a large number of hunters find just as much sport in hunting a doe as a buck; and when a supply of venison is sought for the family larder, the meat of a yearling doe will prove equal to if not superior to that of a buck. Each year, in increasing numbers bowmen seek to match their skill against the wily deer and other big game animals. It is the studied conclusion of conservation officials in one of our leading big game states that the white tail deer herd can stand an unlimited amount of hunting with the bow and arrow. As a result Wisconsin and Michigan have gradually extended the length of the special archery season and in 1954 Wisconsin had a 51 and Michigan a 36 day season when bear and deer of either sex were legal game for the bowmen. Archery Equipment - Read More.

‘Hunting small game with the bow can turn out to be a frustrating instead of an exciting experience. Providing a chance to sharpen your powers of observation and to test your marksmanship with the bow, small game hunting quickly loses its appeal when a two hour tramp fails to produce a single piece of game. Many of us can remember when the same or a similar area of land contained a plentiful supply of small game. Many theories have been advanced, for the diminishing numbers of small game encountered in the hunting field; drought, increased hunting pressure, maturity of the second growth forests in the Eastern United States, shorter working hours in industry, improved highways and rapid means of transportation have all had to bear at least a portion of the blame. Changes in agricultural practices including: the intro duction of the electric fence with its single strand of barbed wire, the high speed mowing machine, and intensive cultivation of every foot of land have made serious inroads on the wildlife population.

In the Prairie States vast acreages of grass lands were turned under with the plow; and marshes and swamps were drained. The gradual lowering of the water table and erosion of the soil has forced abandonment of these farms by their owners. The good top soil has either been blown or washed away and there no longer remains sufficient food and cover to support wildlife once abundant in the area. Archery Equipment - Read More.

‘Venison that has been properly dressed, well pre served, and, correctly cooked is delicious food. Cooking tests made in the School of Home Economics of the Pennsylvania State University indicated that correctly cooked venison which had been properly cared for after killing probably could not be distinguished from beef of a similar grade and I have eaten pan-broiled rib chops that fully substantiated the conclusions reached in the tests.

In a number of States the special archery big game season occurs during the time of year when the temperature may range from below freezing at night to the middle 80s during the daytime hours. To preserve the meat in prime condition when the weather is warm is a major problem, and a kill re quires prompt attention. Carelessness, delay in dressing out a deer, or other big game animal, or failure to cool the carcass completely and quickly are to be avoided. Too often much of the meat is not fit to eat as the result of careless handling.

Transporting the meat out of the hunting territory promptly and in good condition is your objective. The quicker the car cass is under refrigeration the better the chances that you will have a goodly supply of meat which your family and friends will enjoy. Much of the deer range in the East is adjacent and close to populated areas, and provided you can reach a refrigera tion plant within an hour from the time you have killed your deer, it is only necessary to hog-dress the animal at the site of the kill. Transport the deer in the open trunk of your car or on a car-top carrier. Do not lay the deer between the fender and the hot hood of the automobile. Archery Equipment - Read More.

‘We have been like hunters who have lost the points of the heavens and from whom the sun has been held for days,’ said Hawk-eye, turning away from his companions. The Last of the Mohicans. J. Fenimore Cooper.

Had Hawk-eye been able to obtain a compass he would have rated it second only in value to his famous rifle “kill-deer.” In the Leather Stocking Tales, Cooper’s scouts are represented as telling directions, when the sun was obscured, by observing on which side of a tree of the forest the moss grew thickest. As a youngster playing at scouting I made many attempts to put this little gem of scouting lore into practice without any success, and have long since learned to depend on the magnetic compass for direction. The sun is a dependable guide, but there is no assurance that it will be visable when the need to determine a proper course is an immediate necessity.

A simple incident proved to me the value of a pocket com pass. With a companion, I was hunting birds on a day in late November over terrain which was relatively flat, and made up of abandoned farm lands owned by a mining company. The day was overcast but the sun was visable through the haze. We were hunting over land with which we were well acquainted and knew the general direction to hunt in order to return to a summer camp where we had parked our car. About three in the afternoon the wind increased in force, and suddenly it began to snow. As the snow flakes increased in numbers, it became increasingly difficult to see for any distance. We had enjoyed a good day and the biting wind was rapidly making us feel un comfortable. We started to return to the car, and in the interval of time that it took to walk about 1oo yards, large flakes of snow blown almost horizontally across our front completely obliterated the familiar landscape and confined our field of vision, at most, to a few rods. While not unduly alarmed, the prospect of spending any considerable time, under such condi tions, in the open was not pleasant to contemplate. Even the two setters were satisfied to remain at heel and did not have to be admonished at intervals to remain there. Archery Equipment - Read More.

In the Allegheny National Forest, the United States Forest Service is confronted with the problem of supporting an unbalanced sex ratio in the deer herd on an overbrowsed range. Under an archaic buck rule only a distressingly small percentage of the deer population contained within the boun daries of the forest is legally huntable during the open season, and the big management problem centers around an inade quate harvest of the deer. Poor hunter distribution, which re sults in a large concentration of hunters in some areas and too few in others, is also a serious problem wherever deer hunters take to the woods; and on the Allegheny National Forest despite relatively flat topography, an adequate road system, and miles of pipe line and power line rights-of-way to hike over, hunters tend to remain near the highways and seldom venture into the back country. As a result, the harvest of deer is not uniform throughout the forest. In the State of West Virginia, Game officials report that hunters crowd cer tain portions of the range, while other areas where hunting conditions are equally good are ignored.

Unfamiliar terrain and oft told tales of “lost” hunters makes the average person wary of losing sight of the highway and his parked car, or leaving the valley in which his camp is located. Few hunters have taken the time or made any effort to learn to use a compass and to read a topographic map. I can recall only one instance where a topographic map of the locality was hanging on the wall of the hunting lodge. This was in the Northwestern portion of the State of Maine where roads in the woods were infrequent and an overlay marking several blazed trails had been drawn on the map. The visitor who studied the map and confined his route to a blazed trail could travel through the woods with confidence to his des tination. It is entirely possible to sit comfortably at home and lay out a day’s hunt in the deer range on a United States Geo logical Survey topographic map, just as you plan your auto mobile route on a highway map or locate a definite place in a city or town by the use of a street map. With a little practice you can look at a topographic map and visualize the hills and valleys, the streams, and road system of the area in which you intend to hunt. Archery Equipment - Read More.

Monotony probably drives more archers into re tirement than age or any other factor. Over the years, a sur prisingly large number of archers who do not hunt have laid aside the bow because of lack of variety in the shoots conducted by their local clubs. When a club offers nothing but the op portunity to acquire an A rating and planning is directed solely to that end, the average bowman loses interest in tramp ing the same course and shooting at the same targets day after day with the only objective the possibility of picking up a few more points to increase the total score for the round. The unvaried sameness of target shooting dulls an archer’s interest in an even shorter length of time.

To most of us an A rating in either target or field archery is beyond our reach, and so we tire of the same old grind and quietly drop out of the picture, leaving the field to those who would be champions and to whom all else is of no im portance. As a result, the turnover in club membership is en tirely too high and serious thought should be given to develop a varied program of club activities which will contain attrac tive features for all classes of shooters and every member of the family. A sport which has been highly recommended for all members of the family has suddenly gone sour and we are at a loss to know exactly what has happened.

To run a successful club, to hold and to increase the member ship, club officials must revise their thinking. The important unit in a successful archery club is the family, and all club activities should be planned with the entertainment of the family the primary objective. In these days of high prices, cost of entertainment can take a large bite out of the average budget. Archery is a relatively inexpensive sport and one in which all members of the family can participate as a group. A club which plans a broad program with activities which take in even the non-shooting members of the family need never lack members. Archery Equipment - Read More.

Baby powder, adhesive tape, paper clips, glue, pins, thread, rubber bands, pencil, file, pliers, bees wax; the list of items found in an archer’s kit is as endless as the variety of items found in a house wife’s sewing basket. The simile does not end there as the bowman too is apparently unable to discard an item of tackle which has outlived its usefulness. Look in any tackle box and a goodly portion of the contents is made up of worn out tabs, old shooting gloves, outsized arrow nocks, dis carded bow sights, and perhaps several bow strings from bows which have long since been retired or relegated to the attic. Even the expert archer is a pushover for any new type of bow that comes on the market.

Rarely does the novice appreciate the need of a tackle box, and it is seldom included in the items of tackle listed in his initial purchase. When the novice has been shooting for some time he learns that certain supplies must be at hand to make immediate repairs in the field. Broken arrow nocks must be re placed, serving renewed, or loose fletching reglued. Many things can happen which will terminate an afternoon’s pleasure unless the required materials are available for replacement or repair. In the early stages of the game, a friend’s tackle box will generally produce a needed item so that shooting can be con tinued. A few occasions demonstrate to the novice the impor tance of the repair kit and the spare parts contained in the tackle box. Any one who has arrived at the shooting field only to discover that some essential part of his tackle has been left at home, immediately concludes that a tackle box is a necessity and not a luxury. Archery Equipment - Read More.

Second only to the bow in importance is the bow string. The diameter is limited to the width of the arrow nock and a good bow string must maintain a constant length under repeated stress and in changing weather conditions. The string is subjected to unusually hard wear at the arrow nocking point and at the bow nocks. Since good strings are expensive, replac ing worn strings can become a major item of expense. Bow men quickly learn that it is economical to make their own bow strings.

Of the tried and available materials, linen or flax sinew, hemp, and fortisan, a synthetic yarn of rayon, are used generally in the manufacture of bow strings.

Hemp is the cheapest and least desirable of the materials and is generally found on the lower priced line of bows. Linen and fortisan each have their advocates among the shooting fraternity. Both make up into excellent bow strings. The pre vailing weight of opinion favors fortisan, from which its users claim lighter and stronger strings can be made. Fortisan was employed during the last war as parachute shroud material. Archery Equipment - Read More.

The sport of archery is relatively safe, although the bow is rightfully classed as a lethal weapon and was the means by which ancient man gained physical superiority over the animal kingdom. In ancient armies, archers were the coun terpart of the modern infantrymen. Wars of conquest were decided in battles in which the corps of archers played the decisive role. The deadly effect of this weapon is evidenced as late as 1415 when Henry V of England with an army con sisting of about 1,000 men-at-arms and 6,000 archers defeated a greatly superior force of French Knights and men-at-arms. The French lost 5,000 of their nobility killed on the field of battle. The English losses were 13 men-at-arms and about 100 foot soldiers. In the hands of an experienced archer, the bow proved a deadly and decisive weapon until the advent of firearms.

The modern bow is a superior weapon when compared to its ancient counterpart. Knowledge of the strength of materials and modern manufacturing methods and techniques have pro duced a bow which is outstanding in performance in the hands of an experienced bowman. In the field the archers’ code of conduct is predicated on the necessity to safeguard himself and his fellow archers from avoidable and regrettable accidents. Safety and courtesy can be considered synonymous terms in archery. To practice one is to assure the other. Wisconsin has not had a bow-hunting accident during any open season from 1934 to and including 1953. Pennsylvania enacted the neces sary legislation to permit the bow to be used in hunting in 1929. One self inflicted injury was reported in the 1954 spe cial season. The injury was incurred when a bow hunter stumbled and drove a broadhead into the calf of his leg.

Archery is a competitive sport in which group participation, even in the hunting field, is the rule rather than the exception and certain basic rules of conduct are general in their applica tion. The sole aim is to prevent accidental injury to participants in the sport or to spectators. The match rifleman would im mediately recognize the similarity between the conduct on the shooting line at a competitive rifle match and at an archery tournament or field shoot. The rules which apply to safe gun handling on the shooting line or in the hunting field are generally applicable to the man armed with a bow. In order to mitigate the chance of accidents among recent converts to the bow, the cardinal rules for safe bow handling and conduct on the range and in the hunting field are herein set forth. Use them as a guide to protect yourself and your fellow bowmen from injury. Archery Equipment - Read More.

Probably no single accessory has caused more dis cussion and controversy among archers than the bow sight. The modern archer was the first to adopt the principle of the gun sight to the bow. Our ancestors shot without any mechanical sighting aids. Today archers are divided roughly into two camps designated respectively as, free style and instinctive shooters. Only recently have the two groups reached a common ground in some states where they frequently com pete in the same tournament. In some sections of the country a single tournament will award prizes to each group. Among the newer converts to archery, sentiment is growing to abolish this distinction. The new crop of bowman appear to be of the opinion that it is the man behind the bow that scores the hits. The instinctive group comprises the majority of the field archers and the bowmen who use the bow primarily in the hunting field. They scorn the use or aid of any mechanical sighting device in their shooting technique, which is intended primarily for shooting under field conditions. The term, in stinctive shot, has misled many a novice. Perhaps it would be better to use the term, hunting aim, to describe this class of shooter. Certainly it is a grave error to assume that this or any method of aiming, will produce desired results without knowl edge of how to correct an error in alignment, and diligent and painstaking practice.

Using the hunting or so-called instinctive method of aim ing, a bowman can draw and release an arrow quicker than by any other method. This one feature is a decided asset when game is flushed by the bow hunter. The hunting aim is gen erally employed in combination with the high anchor in which the drawing hand is held check high. This position brings the arrow near to the line of vision to the target, and enables the bowman to judge elevation accurately for close ranges. In combination with a powerful hunting bow, considerable ac curacy can be obtained. To bring the arrow into the vertical plane of the line of sight, the head and bow are both canted slightly to the right to bring the right eye directly above the arrow. Archery Equipment - Read More.