Photo by T.C. Flanigan

Extolling the many virtues of bowhunting is one of my favorite seminar topics. I was in the midst of doing exactly that when a woman in the audience raised her hand. After assuring me that she was a "lifelong" deer hunter, she asked, "Now that firearms antlerless permits are unlimited (across much of the state), why would anyone waste their precious outdoor time bowhunting?"

Those who know me well won't believe this, but her unexpected question rendered me speechless. Fortunately, she quickly broke the awkward moment of silence by explaining why she had asked her question. To her, deer hunting meant getting the family together for the express purpose of literally "harvesting" deer as efficiently as possible. To quote her exactly: "Bowhunting simply isn't a practical way to kill deer."

Final statistics on permit sales weren't available at press time, but based on the past several years, it's safe to assume that slightly fewer than 100,000 archery deer permits were sold. Raw post-harvest data indicate that archers killed 35,988 deer. I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that Missouri's firearm deer hunters didn't come close to filling 36 percent of the permits they bought. That sounds at least relatively "efficient" to me.

On the other hand, I'm an inveterate record-keeper. My own statistics force me to admit that in 2003 and 2004 -- a two-year period during which the angel assigned to assist my bowhunting efforts must have been in a decidedly bad mood -- I spent more than 27 hours sitting in trees for every deer I tagged. Conversely, during the same time period, one deer fell to my rifle for every six hours of hunting time. Having been down similar roads before, I quoted the just-mentioned personal statistics, conceded her point, and got my seminar back on track. Happily, I don't have to take that tack today, because you're a bowhunter, too.

Maybe you're a graybeard like me (I bought my first archery deer permit in 1966) or perhaps you've only got a season or two under your belt. In either case, the fact that you're reading this article shows that the mystique of stick and string owns you, body and soul.

We bowhunters really do appreciate the many aspects of hunting that have nothing to do with killing game. Many of us begin scouting for the next season the day after the current season ends in order to obtain every chance of putting ourselves within 25 yards of an unsuspecting buck. During the season, we revel in solitude; we're avid bird and animal watchers; and becoming one with the natural world thrills us.

That's not to say that most of us aren't sitting in our stands hoping that we're going to get a decent shot at a deer. In that regard, several hunters have already contacted me to ask if 2004's record deer harvest will have a negative impact on bowhunters in 2005. On paper, that seems a logical question. Preliminary data would suggest that last year's total deer harvest was a record-shattering 309,893. As Missouri Department of Conservation biologist Lonnie Hansen wryly put it, "That's a lot of dead deer."

During the same conversation, Hansen told me that firearms hunting pressure is so intense on several conservation areas and blocks of state and national forest that deer numbers, especially buck numbers, have been reduced to the point that the population can't rebound to pre-season levels, let alone increase. Since Hansen's comment flies in the face of the conventional wisdom spouted by many self-proclaimed experts, a few words of explanation are in order.