I don’t believe that discussing numbers or percentages of bad hits and lost game — while honest questions — help us much. Truth is, it happens too much, with “too much” being a relative value according to our maturity as hunters and humans, so that while we can work and succeed in reducing it, any will always remain too much. And while it’s self-evident to anyone who’s watching that a vast majority of such losses arise from hi-tech pseudo-hunters shooting dart-weight arrows with inefficient broadheads at unconscionable distances, that doesn’t change the fact that we too screw up. I sure do and this year’s elk is an example that fortunately didn’t become a disaster. The one area we can talk about in this context that is nothing but productive focuses on primary causes, both personal and gear, that lead to wounding losses, and how to overcome these problems, at least in ourselves and our traditional community. The equipment end of this discussion is what the Ashby forum is all about. The personal angle is far more difficult to get at because it requires absolute personal honestly and admission of fault, when our instincts prompt us to deny or intellectualize. If we hunt long enough, we will suffer losses. That’s a given, period. Where the real substantive grit comes into play is in how we react. We can shrug it off, which I don’t believe anybody here is inclinded to do but is all too common in the big picture of hunting. Or we can honestly explore the causes so that maybe, going forward, we won’t keep making the same mistakes. This way leads to personal growth as hunters and thoughtful humans. The shrug-off approach leads to no gains whatsoever, for us or the world, while distancing us from the very things we should be attempting to grow closer to via ethical hunting. Or so he says, blah blah blah … 🙄