Primitive and traditional hunting?

[woodstick]

good point el d, that may get bad.lol

[ricktrojanowski]

Well, I gotta say, I agree with a lot of what Jimmy says. On one hand, I don't have a primitive bow. I have a Martin Saber. I make my own arrows. I'd say I'm more of a traditional archer, but a lot of stuff I make myself, so hence the primitive.

Now, I'm not going to blow smoke here. There are times I NEED the meat being as rabbit and jackrabbit hunting here is year round. No bag lmits on jackrabbits. I'm unemployed. When I NEED the meat, I will be using a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun. But I work on getting better and better with the bow with the eye of using the bow exclusively for rabbit hunting. Cheaper in the long run since I can reuse the ammo.

I can't afford electronic gadgets. I don't have a cell phone and don't want one. I don't want people to be able to get a hold of me anytime. I want to live my life, not theirs. I don't need to talk to anyone on the phone while I'm out doing my own thing. That's not a life. And I don't want electronics on my hunt, even if I could afford them, which I can't so it's a moot point anyway. If I can't hunt without the aid of electronics, I'll hang up my bows (and guns) and forget about it. I don't have a GPS, I have a compass that the United States Army taught me to use and I never forgot that training. I couldn't afford a GPS anyway.

I'm getting pretty tired of going into the woods and hearing ATVs and seeing the damage they leave behind. That's not just hunters, too. If a person can't get into the woods without an ATV, they shouldn't be there. Sorry. Our search and rescue here spends way too much time rescuing people who have no business being in the woods. Because those people are suddenly clueless and scared when the ATV breaks down. Then they dial up on the cell phone for help. That goes for everyone, not just hunters. People let their gadgets lull them into the belief that they don't need woodcraft. Yeah, and they find a couple people that thought that when the snow melts here, too, almost every year.

Now, yes, I use firearms. I can't afford to shoot them once the ammo runs out for the rifles; at least not to shoot them for targets/plinking. A shotgun is of the most use for me. But, there it is. Yes, I shoot a modern fiberglass-backed recurve bow. But I think all the gadgets are not doing hunting any kind of service in the overall long run. In my mind, there's no excuse for a hunter to be lost in the woods and he hasn't got a compass. "Oh, the GPS broke..." Whatever. Some people like gadgets because hunting is their passion and it gives them more things to get involved in. And you know what? That's fine, too. But there's a flip side to that coin. Other people don't have to approve of it and like it. Just like the gadgeteers don't have to listen to the soapbox of anti-technology. But we can discuss it and compare notes, see why we all think that way, and so on. Personally, I don't want to buy one thing more than absolutely necessary for hunting. Hunting is a state of mind, not state-of-the-art.

Yes, I'm opinionated. But, hey, whaddya gonna do? 

Says the man on the computer.....I'm just busting your chops.

[Tsalagi]

Yeah, but see, I bought it back when I could afford it and had a job.  And did I mention I don't know how to do much besides email, go on the net, and play DVDs with this thing, LOL?

Most of the elecotronic doo-dads are just more crap to carry and more crap to deal with and more crap to buy, IMHO. Honestly, I probably wouldn't understand how to set up a trail cam, use it, or what-have-you. I can tell you anything you want to know about history of almost any time period, but can't figure out most electronic gadgets. I just think it's a marketing scam, the lot of them. I'm also kinda cheap. If I have to lay out a bunch of cash to buy hunting gear, and it ends up costing me like $70.00 a pound for the meat, it's not worth it to me. I can buy venison for $9.00 a pound at the local natural food store, take it in the backyard, and shoot an arrow into it once it thaws and save $61.00. Yes, there's a Scot in my family tree. I can get an OTC archery deer tag here for $34 dollars. Gas would only be about $10.00. Yeah, maybe I don't fill it, but I'm not making payments on a bunch of gadgets, either. And I'm only out $44 if I don't fill it; not some few hundred dollars for all these geegaws.

The point is, I can use my bow and arrow for target shooting. My hunting gear doubles as hiking gear. Heck, my hunting knife I carry all the time anyway. But if I had those electronic gadgets, I couldn't use them for anything but a very specific thing and then I'd have to pay for them. They also make things too complicated. I don't like things getting overly complicated. It's why I'm not a big fan of fancy French cooking. I want to get my bow and quiver, my survival gear, knife, the food and water and go. Not deal with a bunch of crap needing my attention. Oh, I gotta watch this video of my trail cam for the past few hours. No way. I saw an electronic blood tracker. Geez, and you know some guy was a forensics lab tech and was using it and said, man, I could use this for hunting and sell it for two hundred dollars!

Hey, if it floats other peoples' boats, whatever. I just like things simple. That's why people can't call me when I'm out shooting my bow or any other time I'm away from the house. "What if someone needs to get a hold of you?!" They'll call back. But 9/10ths of the cell phone calls I hear in public are of the kinds that make ya wanna show that individual a new cell phone carrier. I know more personal information I didn't want to know about total strangers than I do about my own extended family. I was in one restaurant and one of this other table's party went to the can. Now get this---from the bathroom, this person calls the people at the table on the cell phone and gives them his order. Ya gotta be kiddin' me! Another time, at this one bathroom, a guy is on his cell phone IN the bathroom stall, soundtrack and all. I'm sorry, but the phone can't wait while you jettison extra weight?! What's this world coming to?! Things are so important that the person on the other end needs to hear the whole thing---and the soundtracks from the people in the other stalls?! This is just....wrong. See, this is how electronics are running our lives and not making our lives easier like the sellers say they will. A person can't even go to the crapper without someone needing to talk to them on the phone.

[Kegan]

You make a good point. But the world is changing. Heck, look at Primitive Archer. True, it may not be "primitive" to have a web site, but I've learned more here than anywhere else. And they surely didn't have it from the beginning. The thing about technology is it's easy to see where we've come from- but it's hard to always see where we're going.

I say jsut go with the flow, and watch out for rocks

[zeNBowyer]

What  we  call  primitive today  was state- of-the- art  thousands  of  years  ago,
and  it  was that  edge that  allowed  certain bands  to successfully  compete  with  other  bands  for  food, shelter,  mates  etc.
We are  going through the  pangs  of the  transition to  super high  tech, we  have  not completely  adapted  but  in  the  long  run (if  we  do  not  kill  ourselves) we  will  integrate  the  technology into society,
even  so  todays  high  tech  will  be  primitive in  100  years,
isn't  it  wonderful we still  enjoy  the  hunting  technology developed 40,000 years  ago (or  more:)