Traditional Bowhunting for Whitetails [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

IN 189 pages the author only talks about traditional archery in the section on equipment and tuning the arrow and bow, a mere 27 pages of pure beginner information.

The entire book is more accurately titled "Hunting Eastern Whitetails", you can read the whole book and forget that the book is about bowhunting and especially traditional archery, which the author has a very BROAD definition of, as he considers modern carbon arrows the way to go, says very little about wooden shafts, suggests all modern components except the bow, which as long as it doesn't have sights he considers it 'traditional'.

A very strongly opinionated book, the author is one of those that thinks hunting with modern broadheads, carbon arrows, and scent killers with foam decoys but using a wooden bow makes him "more in tune" and " closer to the earth" than bowhunters using a compound...all because he can't kill a deer beyond 20 yards with his equipment, he makes no mention of compound hunters who might only shoot 20 yards and under..are they suddenly "closer to the earth" because they didn't shoot at 30 yards either?

He is either going to be hated or loved by the reader.

I agree with his statements that ALL whitetails are trophies, not only the monster racked Old Mossy Horn bucks, and he offers both views on things like Hunting Club leases and QDM, but is not qualified to discuss deer biology, as he admits at the end of the book, but does not stop him from writing a section in the front of the book full of incorrect information on whitetail biology, he states that a doe carrying twins and not getting the nutrition she needs will have one twin absorb and 'eat' the other twin in the womb...This is 100% false.

Shed OVA that are not successfully fertilized or fail are re-absorbed but this is barely at an embryo stage, if the author does not know the difference between ova, embryo and fetus then he must not know the difference between a 2 year old toddler and a 40 year old grown man, and should NOT be giving biological advice on animals he has no knowledge of.

The entire book is a run down of all hunting gear ever made and currently in any catalog and how to use it, I honestly would call this book "Beginners Deer Hunting 101" and forget calling it a traditional bowhunting book as it really is NOT.

The experienced hunter may find a few interesting tips in there or ideas but I doubt it, the book never mentions tracking, or blood trailing or following up on your shot, it simply assumes you will scout scout and scout on foot (author says trailcameras and trail timers scare deer away and teach them to avoid that area) and make a perfect shot ( only perfect broadside shots are taken by author) resulting in a deer dropping in sight of you.

The beauty of bowhunting deer is that it allows you to hunt in those small woodlots in sub-urban or rural areas where we all see tons of deer but could never safely fire a rifle, or would want to scare the hell out of people by firing one at dawn in that 40 acre woodlot, the author however only recommends hunting half a mile from any road, hiking trail or easy access point, why anyone would want to walk past all those deer to shoot one as far away from the truck as possible is beyond me, especially when the author says he is not a trophy hunter, though he seems to only shoot 250 pound 10 pointers and 200 pound doe in his stories.
If you want a $20 dollar 190 page product review of everything Cabelas sells this is the book for you, or if you are brand new to hunting and are reading everything you can get your hands on, then go ahead and borrow my copy, but if you are a reader of TBM or a true traditional archery hunter, or want to get into hunting with stick and string, then skip this book and buy "Trailing a Bear" by Robert Munger, it is not instructional but you'll learn more from reading the hunting stories of Fred Bear and Bob Munger and get more from their experiences and frequent misses then from this book.

A thousand small key ideas - Well just to give an example. I missed my first two deer off a tripod because I did not know to bend at the waist instead of lowering the bow which changes your geometry. This key idea is outlined in the book among many others like how to guestimate distance to your deer, etc, etc, etc. This book would have kept me from missing two nice bucks clean if I had read it at the time. You know what Samuel Clements (i.e. Mark Twain) stated: "It isn't what you don't know that gets you in trouble, its what you thought you knew that was wrong." This book goes along way to correcting many problems that you would have to figure out by trial and error. White tails permeate this country including the eastern NM mountains where I hunt them and Mule deer in one location - ahhh, the good life. I found this book helpful for that reason. Since reading it, I have ordered several copies for friends. Also, there are several places online where you can read a big section of this book including Amazon and make your own determination. It is confusing as to the only other rater so far gives it one star. I admit it does have a 1960's look to its printing job, but the information is just as valuable no matter what color the pictures. Also it is available used at about $2.00 a pop on Amazon.