What do yall think of the new Garmin Sight Ethical?

wllm1313 said:

If the average hunter has a 15% success rate and this bumps it up to 15.001% and another technology bumps it to 15.002% it will go unnoticed, but eventually those bumps will compound and game managers will have to do something because a 1000 hunters are killing 160 elk instead of 150 each year. It might mean less days in the field per person, less total hunters in the field, etc.

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I was saying there's no way to collect the "unrecovered" percentage_ ... those animals that are killed but not tagged, because they were not recovered. Its almost a taboo topic, but I'd bet the number of elk that die in Colorado during bow season is double the number harvested. So, even if one piece of equipment increases the success rate by 10%, it may be reducing the "unrecovered" percentage by a similar amount - offsetting any reduction in tags that might occur.

vanish... my bad that makes a lot of sense. Also I think you are spot on with the double number harvested number.

This to me is the same, yet valid, discussion point around technology removing the skill/thrill/connection to hunting vs. black and white unethical vs. ethical. I checked out the new Garmin site as well as some arrow insert with GPS technology for finding your arrow after the shot at the ATA show in January. Both on paper provide features that can help make the shot easier and possibly find the animal (or at least the arrow to see what kind of shot it was, etc.) Overall the unit looks solid, but I would worry about keeping it clean, not scratched/cracked, etc. And the thing is about $1,000. I'll pass.

I guess for me, I have enough technology and equipment at my disposal that being a "bad shot" is basically a BS argument; it just means I am not practicing enough. Also, practice is pretty damn fun, and making the shot when it comes down to it is exciting as hell and the more doodads and thingamajigs I put in place take away from the whole experience. But, that is my opinion. When I shot a longbow for several years, I loved having the simple, lightweight stick for a weapon, yet I realized I don't practice enough nor felt good about taking a 40 or 50 yard shot. Switching back to a compound in hand, I practice out to 80 to make the 50 yard shot feel as close to a slam dunk as I can. And even then it is no guarantee. If it were, most of us wouldn't do it.

At times, using all of the stuff we have makes me feel a bit like this....