This discussion reveals how hunting can equate to other outdoor sports and their respective equipment. For instance, one can play 18 holes with just a putter but the nuances of the game may not be fully realized in that manner. Unless one's goal is to simply get some non-competitive outdoor exercise. Like most things, the competitive aspect has not bypassed hunting, and the focus has shifted from 'food' to 'biggest,' 'fastest,' 'most,' 'farthest,' and the like. Intention will oft beget outcomes....

As Andy has wisely alluded, and as ColeyG has so eloquently related in his recent moose thread, being a hunter quickens something timeless deep inside. Somehow becoming the least discordant note in the wilderness to find yourself within spitting distance of a buck or bull on their own terms, regardless if you hold in your hands some means of ending their life or not, marks an event in time that is beyond mere words for even the most articulate among us. Perhaps it heralds some long forgotten aspect of our true nature. Based upon many intertwined events and experiences, I have long held the Lakota perspective that an animal will "give away" itself in certain circumstances. After all, isn't the gift of life the most precious to give or receive?

So when it's all said and done, it doesn't really matter whether one chooses to enter those places where bucks and bulls reside with empty hands or carrying an atlatl, long bow or something that goes "bang!" What really matters is what one carries inside....

Well said. Now I need to build an Atlatl.

I have been working, for way too long, on an Indian-style bow. I know how to flake arrowheads. Someday, I will kill something (rabbit, squirrel??) with a bow and arrow that I pretty much made.

Stam gave me some Yew wood bolts a few years back to make my own bow. I need to start that project this year.

I made a simple yew bow once. Shot ok but broke. My current project is yew heart with purpleheart on either side to give it some flexibility without breaking. Right now, though, the bow is too thick and short; draws about as well as a 2x4. Someday.