Leave this one on the PowWow please.

Thanks.

Here is another point to ponder regarding stats.  As far as I know, nobody compiling those stats knows I am a traditional bowhunter, nor do they know about any of the deer I have killed.

I am looking at the 2003 Missouri archery statistics right now, it looks like 101,821 permits were sold and 33,526 deer were officially counted.  That comes out to about 33% success if you are going by deer / permits sold.

Vermonster-

Are those percentages for all bowhunters combined or just trad bowhunters?

If there is a 25% success rate for NBEF graduates, what percent of those successful are traditional bowhunters? Assuming 10% of those successful were traditional bowhunters, that would give you an overall traditional success rate of 2.5% for those who graduate NBEF.  Of course, that doesn't take into account the actual number of traditional archers who graduated vs the number who were successful.

That is the problem with statistics, it just depends on how you do the math.  Overall, looking at everyone's statistics and taking the average, an accurate number is probably somewhere between 2%-7% for traditional bowhunters.

It would be interesting to do a survey among this site comparing the success rate with years of experience, amount of practice, and time afield.

The percentage of actual Traditional hunters are even with compound in every study I've ever seen that takes equipment into account. There are approximately 3,000,000 licensed bowhunters in the USA, Traditional equipment hunters make up less than 1% of that total. best of my knowledge. Traditional hunters take the same percentage of animals withing there ranks but are a minute drop in the bucket overall because we are such a small number. I like studies based on individual hunters not tags filled, those tend to be misleading due to the multiple kill hunters.

Vermonster-

If that's accurate, it means close to half of all those who hunt traditional in the country are members of Trad Gang!!!

jbb,
Great info. I emailed the Missouri deer biologist a few years ago asking what the success % for deer with Archery was.

The first year I bought a bow tag (1987) the bowhunter success rate was 8 or 9%. 20 years later there are more bowhunters and over a million deer in the state. GREAT days....

This is my second deer season trad, I'm doing just as well if not better with trad as i was with the wheelie bow. Three deer last season one so far this season. If you put in the time with trad it's as good as the other gear IMHO.

Vermonster13,
I may be wrong, but I belive that those who take the IBEP are 25% more successful than those who don't.  I don't think that 1 in 4 of IBEP grads. are successful.

In the mid 90's ,at a large Traditional southern shoot, a poll was taken when you paid your dues if you deer hunted and if you took a deer that season..........Guys ...I think it was over 50% said they got a deer. But that was N.Ga and them boys get after deer for food, clothing and sinew!!

Here in Georgia, there are very few trad guys who don't take a deer. I have no idea what the percentages are but I can pretty much kill a deer everyday right here in the backyard. Most of Georgia is just as rural so I would think the 50% Joey was talking about has to be pretty accurate.
ON THE OTHER HAND...at the same shoot Joey mentioned, we also looked at the scores of the shooters and while the winners shot in the 85% range, over half of those who turned in score cards shot under 30% on a 20 target round.

Definitely regional and certainly varies by game pursued. Would elk success rates be the same as whitetails? No way! Here in Maryland our bowhunting (all) success rate was over 50%!

I would expect traditional success rates to be similar to compound. Basically the same factors (skill, access, time afield, etc.) in the population just a smaller amount of general participants.

The more I think about it, I agree with one statement someone made in an earlier post, something about "casual bowhunters". As far as the stats go, I'll bet there a lot of guys that only bow hunt a few times a year and do not take it very seriously. We have a few of these guys in our archery club. If they are thrown in to the stats it could skew the numbers quite a bit. Out of the five guys I hang around with, everyone takes a deer every year. Now these guys spend a great amount of time scouting, practicing, hangings stands/moving stands, talking about different hunting strategies. We basically eat sleep and live bow hunting. (Most of these guys hunt with trad gear 90% of the time) They really put the time - and the results show it year after year.

QuoteOriginally posted by Biggie Hoffman:
... I can pretty much kill a deer everyday right here in the backyard. ...

Can I book a hunt in your backyard?        

Having a statistic show a low success rate in not always a bad thing.  Having one show a high success rate is not always a good thing.  It just depends on what you want to use the statistic for.  That is why statistics show very little about the truth.

If I look at just my group, we are 80%-100% year after year, as is the case with many here.  However, if I include all the people I know who have hunted trad, or who occassionally hunt trad, my group suddenly becomes a very small number.

If my statistic is based on all who "hunt" or "have hunted" with traditional archery equipment, the success rate will be small.

If my statistic is based on all who "primarily hunt" with traditional archery equipment, the success rate will be quite a bit higher.