Back in the 80's, I hunted exclusively with a bow. I hunted deer. It did not matter what came by, they went down whether buck or doe. I killed around 90 deer with the bow and wound up hurting my back at work. Struggled with the bow aggravating my back injury each time I practiced. I also missed two deer with my bow during this time, which I had never done before. I had a clean run of no misses for about 10 years with the bow. I still managed to kill several deer each year with my bow during this time with the hurting back.

I bought a Parker crossbow a few years later to make the back issues easy to deal with and after about 50 shots, no more practice was needed. If you could judge your distance well, there was no need to practice. First year hunting with the crossbow, I let every deer I saw walk. Never shot a single deer with it. To me, it just seemed like it was to easy. The next year I let a nice 8 walk at 15 yards with the crossbow. Just couldn't shoot him with it. I promised my self that day the next buck I saw I would shoot. About two weeks later, I killed a big wide 6 that was at least 5 years old. Felt bad about it for years and didn't bowhunt any for several years after that..

My son at the time was able to start hunting with me and he wanted to bowhunt. I fixed him up with a PSE and he practiced all the time. That year he killed his first does with the bow and he was hooked. I would go hunting all the time with him because he was too young to drive and I carried the crossbow each time with me. I was letting a lot of nice deer walk hoping to put him on them the next hunt. Once gun season opened, I still carried the crossbow. I killed one last doe with the crossbow that blew at us back around 2005 and have not picked it up since. I just quit hunting during bow season all together, picked up my rifle that had been in the safe for years, and killed three bucks each year since.

I now bypass bow season even after shooting my Mathews Switchback XT a few times each fall. Back usually starts to bother me when it has had enough of the drawing back and I put the bow up again for another year. I only killed two deer with the crossbow and killed over a hundred with an Oneida Eagle bow. I haven't killed a deer with either bow in at least 10 years. To each their own, but the crossbow just wasn't for me. My son still bow hunts each year and hunts a lot with the bow during gun season. He has killed some super nice deer with his bow as well as some "book bucks" with his rifle.

I can't stand a thief.