How Many Bowhunters also Gun Hunt?
How many bowhunters also gun-hunt during their state’s firearms season? Well, if Wisconsin is any indication, few bowhunters are archery purists.
According to license-sales data compiled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, roughly 90 percent of the Badger State’s licensed bowhunters also bought a gun-deer license in 2011.
In fact, between 2005 and 2011, Wisconsin sold at least one deer hunting license to more than 1 million individuals -- 1,012,454, to be exact. Not all of them buy a license every year. In fact, the state’s annual license sales averaged 636,299 gun and 256,808 archery licenses those seven years. Because about 90 percent of archers also buy gun licenses, Wisconsin’s deer-license sales net about 670,000 to 675,000 individual hunters annually.
That’s about 330,000 short of the 1.01 million individual deer hunters the Dairy State tracked the past seven years. Therefore, the DNR estimates about 8 percent of its license-buying hunters move in and out of the deer-hunting population each year, a rate nearly double of what the agency once assumed.
-- Patrick Durkin
Re: How Many Bowhunters also Gun Hunt?
The license sold in WV is all you need to gun hunt or bow hunt. You can purchase tags for extra deer in both seasons. I rarely gun hunt. I do so occasionally but usually I get thanksgiving week off. That week is opening week for rifle season. I usually bow hunt that week. I live in a bow only county but I do have property in a gun county. I took my wife this year to gun hunt. She is wanting to start hunting so I took her this year. I will make scarifices lol if someone wants to start hunting. I am a bow hunter at heart. The same "feeling" isn't there for me when i go gun hunting. I do not look down on those who hunt anything. We need to promote hunting in general, no matter what it is.
Re: How Many Bowhunters also Gun Hunt?
Amen Todd. It angers me when I see fellow hunters arguing about bow or gun hunting. Us hunters need to stick together and promote the sport, whether its bow or gun hunting.