being here is a great,always great advice and story's. my question is...how traditional hunting effects your entire hunting season?
ie.i will start bow season with my browning nomad stalker(since my long bow want get here till christmas)then here in va. muzzleloader season is next,so i use my inline with a scope,two weeks later gun season starts so i pull the scoped rifle out.
im curious how many continue to hunt with bows when other hunters are in the woods with firearms,also if you use a firearm are you still in the traditional mindset of "hunting" the animal or being a "sniper"?
the reason i ask is i opened the gun safe and it hit me....do i need those big scopes,gizmos and gadgets when i accept the challenge of taking a animal with a stick and string only a month before? i think my hunting season just got easier and very exciting!    
if this needs to be moved,please do i just had to get it out there and see how many others feel the way i do...  :cool:

I pretty much stick with my longbow. We can't deer hunt with a bow during the gun season, so I take some time off if I haven't tagged by that time. Late season can be pretty brutal here (weather and spooky deer that have been shot at an pushed around), so I try hard to tag before gun season starts.

I won't gun hunt for deer...too many crazies out there (no offense to those who do, but it's not for me).

I hunt all bow season with my Longbow. I hunt every animal possible with it as well. Since bowhunting is closed during gun season here in Wisconsin, I hunt with my shotgun during the shotgun season and with my dads old 30-30 during rifle season in Michigan, sometimes the flinter comes with instead. I enjoy it. Then its to muzzlerloader season, I take my flintlock, I really enjoy hunting with this, one of my favorite times in the deer woods, freezing cold, snow on the ground and not a lot of people in the woods. Then its back to the Longbow to close out the last 5 weeks of deer hunting segway into rabbit season! Then its predator hunting with my rifle or longbow, depending on the set up!

Man..... how far away is fall....

I just go with the seasons bow,gun,muzzleloader or bow

Delaware's archery season opens September 1 and ends January 31, Sunday's are closed.  I hunt all season with a longbow, through all gun seasons-just have to wear orange. I also hunt small game with a longbow.

Bow only from start to finish, recurve or longbow!! That would be mid sept thru to mid dec.

Recurve for me, I do pull out the compound on some hunts but thats as close as I get to gun hunting.

Excellent perspectives! I hunt longbow only all year long and have for 30+ years.

There is nothing more traditional in Pennsylvania than the first day or rifle season.
Now you can put all of the "gadgets" on your gun, just like you can on a bow, but that's a personal issue.  I think an iron sighted, lever, 30:30 is as traditional as it gets.  At all other times I use what suits me....usually a longbow or recurve.

I still gun hunt, but am using short range weapons.  I plan to do lots of hunting with my .44 revolver this year.  If I really want to reach out and get them "sniper" style, I'll use my 16" .44 Marlin lever rifle.  It's all longbow for hogs though.  I usually don't kill enough deer without breaking out the fire sticks.

longbow straight thru!

Not traditional, just simple.

And I can't shoot a gun worth a hoot.

We have some good "archery only" areas to hunt.  So even during firearm season you can stay away from the gun hunters.  2-3 days each season I'll take the rifle hunting, but it's more of a walk in the woods than a serious hunt.

I can hit a pie plate circle with ease out to 300yds with a slug in a Remington 870 shotgun and iron sites so no real challenge in gun hunting for me. So nothing but archery for me and I like both recurves and longbows. But lately I love my 40dollor primitive hickory board bow. oooga boooga!

Using my recurve here during the gun season would not be a hunt - I could not take arrows and it would not lessen my shot opportunities.

I use a scoped inline and thoroughly enjoy it.
Traditional?
I don't care - its what I enjoy.

Steve

Our gun season sees me toting an "old school" .58 cal sidelock or a reproduction .50 cal flintlock.  Shoot patched round balls in both.  Deer are too wired to even think of bow hunting in the "season of the orange army".....

No centerfire rifles for me. I will pull out the 22 rimfire for squirrels now and then and the 12 guage for ducks and doves but for deer and turkey it's recurve all the way.

I giggled at the title of the thread, and was about to move on, but clicked on it anyway, just to give ya one of these:      

There is grist for the mill here, though, and so I will respond.

It was for many years a custom of mine to hunt the first three weeks of November, west of the Blue Ridge here in Virginia. The laws were set up so that I had one week of pure bow, and solitude, followed by a week of muzzleloader and bow combined, and then a week of firearms hunting.

Kills with the bow being extremely rare for me, come muzzleloader season I would bring out the Lyman Great Plains rifle and home-cast .54 round balls. My eyes have gotten so that I need glasses now to see the sights. I could still take either does or bucks with the bow during this season, and some days are better spent with a bow than a smokepole, so the bow stayed strung. The opening day of muzzleloader meant that I would now be seeing more people in the woods, and trucks would be coming into camp about a hour before first light.

When rifle season came in, so did the competitive crowds, and now I used a Remington Model Seven, in 7-08, that I had customized while working for a local gunsmith. Some days were spent in the company of a hopeful Ruger Bisley in .45 Colt.

The laws have changed, and there are once again two weeks of muzzleloader hunting in my range. This year, Lord willing and nothing drastic occurs on the home front, I will be up there for three weeks again. I wish it were for a month. I will have my week of bow, and then two weeks of bow and muzzleloader combined.

My beloved rifle "Dinner Bell" will stay home in the safe, weeping silent tears and threatening to rust from the inside out.

The Remington 522, older than I am, will go with, hoping to take some head shots on the wary squirrels. A shotgun for turkeys (maybe) or just for companionship in a lonely tent, and a couple of pistols for treerats and backup oughta do it for firearms.

The hunt will center around the bows, but when it looks like a muzzleloader will put meat in the freezer, that is what I will carry. My sidelock might misfire during a goodly rain, but if not, the deer falls within fifty paces when I do my part, and blood trailing is not a worry. Muzzleloader or rifle, I usually shoot deer at about twenty yards, as I like to sit where they will move through. My advantage is that I do not have to draw a weapon and betray my location with all that movement. And I get to sit flat on my butt on the ground.

I am up there, among other things, to kill deer. Except for one, maybe two days, my muzzleloader is limited to killing bucks. The bow is not. I feel the air and choose my strategy, and either feast or kick myself at the end of the day. It is all hunting, though, and there for whatever meat or spiritual healing I can glean from it.

Follow your bliss.
Killdeer  

I killed my first deer with a gun, didnt care for it much, never picked up a gun to deer hunt again, went strictly bow! used a compound for a few years then bought a recurve, never looked back! havent killed a deer with it yet, some close calls, maybe this year I'll get it done!! Love the stick and string!! Jason

Longbow until gun season opens then my Hawkin side lock percussion .54 for the "modern" rifle season. In late December muzzleloader season opens and I will hunt this again with my Hawkin.

I did go a bit modern last year and due to the fact that when I bought this rifle I didn't know that I needed a slow twist barrel, so I switched from patched balls to a lead conical.. DEADLY!!