Going to organize Bear hunt using tradittional Japanese Archery Equipment

[Chris Parker]

Physics wise, this isn't true, and archery-Japanese or western-comes down to physics. Yumi-the modern versions of the "classical Japanese bow," anyway-come in a variety of draw weights, starting at about 30 lbs. It's because of the Japanese draw that arrows are personalized-the draw actually ends behind the ear, and arrows have to be quite long for some people0it's for this reason that "draw weight" is a little more flexible for yumi-the draw is typically quantified as "between x and y lbs. at z inches.. In any case, higher draw weight means greater exit velocity, and kinetic energy, and this is what ultimately equates with "power," nothing more-you can't "generate greater power with lower actual draw power required"-that's physically impossible. This is, of course, all affected by draw length-the longer Japanese bow, and longer arrow and draw, means that there is a bigger drop off in velocity at higher draw weights-they're actually less efficient in generating speed and power than a recurve, but, because of all those things-the shape, length and draw length, they are actually conducive to more efficiency in releasing the arrow and hitting the target.

In kyudo,though, there are a variety of draw weights used, and the heavier draw weights launch the arrows faster, it's as simple as that.

In any case, the lightest of Japanese bows has around a 22-25 lbs. draw weight, which might not be legal for bear hunting-I think Alaska requires a peak draw weight of 50lbs. for brown bear, and, while I think it would actually be easier to draw a yumi with such a draw weight than a standard western recurve or longbow, it wouldn't be a simple matter-nor, I might add, would traipsing around in the field with a bow seven feet long and arrows that would be a little over three feet long -if you're anywhere near my size.....

Oh, I wasn't arguing against the basic physics there, just that the same draw weight for a Japanese bow and a compound bow (or even an old English longbow) don't really equal the same thing, due to the uneven dispersement of the draw. And as the rulings are geared around modern (Western) bows, taking them and transplanting them to Japanese bows doesn't really work in many cases.

 

[elder999]

I'm not against hunting, what I find objectionable is the shooting of animals and leaving them lying around to rot. Hunt and eat by all means but who can honestly say shooting a flock of pigeons and leaving them to rot is a 'challenge? Where the' sport in shooting thousands of birds you can never eat and nor does anyone else?

DOn't know anyone that does that-a lot of people do hunt dove and pigeon here, and eat them-I don't care for it, but quite a few people look at dove hunting as great sport.

where the sport in shooting an elephant when it is driven towards you and there's professional hunters waiting to shoot it when you miss just so you can go back to your country and say you shot an elephant? that's a challenge?

In agreement there, but that's not what we're talking about. Not even sure I'd call it "hunting."

Are people willing to say hunting squirrels is sport or a challenge?

As a kid in New York, there was a great deal of sport and challenge to hunting squirrels-they were also quite tasty. :lol:

Out here, they don't get that big, so I haven't hunted squirrels in years. I've shot a few that were being a nuisance, though, and fed them to the dogs.....

 

[Tez3]

DOn't know anyone that does that-a lot of people do hunt dove and pigeon here, and eat them-I don't care for it, but quite a few people look at dove hunting as great sport.



In agreement there, but that's not what we're talking about. Not even sure I'd call it "hunting."




As a kid in New York, there was a great deal of sport and challenge to hunting squirrels-they were also quite tasty. :lol:

Out here, they don't get that big, so I haven't hunted squirrels in years. I've shot a few that were being a nuisance, though, and fed them to the dogs.....

Are your squirrels small fluffy things? Ours are, no meat on them at all.

What we have here is very rich people standing with their shotguns up on the moors having pheasants ( no, not peasants, that was made illegal in the 19th century, it was done believe me) driven towards them by beaters, so they can shoot the poor birds who aren't very bright. The shooters don't even have to reload their shotguns, it's done for them, the dogs fetch the dead birds back. Then they have lunch afterwards that they shoot more birds which are in their hundreds, a couple may be kept for the table the rest dumped. The birds are specially reared, often hawks and other raptors are killed because the gamekeepers claim they destroy the chicks. This is hunting?

 

[Carol]

I'm not against hunting, what I find objectionable is the shooting of animals and leaving them lying around to rot. Hunt and eat by all means but who can honestly say shooting a flock of pigeons and leaving them to rot is a 'challenge? Where the' sport in shooting thousands of birds you can never eat and nor does anyone else? where the sport in shooting an elephant when it is driven towards you and there's professional hunters waiting to shoot it when you miss just so you can go back to your country and say you shot an elephant? that's a challenge? Are people willing to say hunting squirrels is sport or a challenge?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/15/spain-king-juan-carlos-hunting

I don't know about other states, but here a hunting license/permit also comes with the agreement that one cannot leave an animal around to rot. The law doesn't say what you must do with the animal, but you must take it out of habitat.

 

[harlan]

To add to Carol's comment re: bear hunting in Massachusetts, it is required to check the bear in...and it had better not be missing any parts. Western MA has seen an increase in bear hunting, legal and illegal, due to fractured habitat ( = decreased 'carrying capacity'/tolerance for bears), aggregious state mismanagement of hunting/our natural resources and a demand for gall bladders.

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/wildlife/facts/mammals/bear/black_bear_biology_faq.htm#biofaq30

 

[Tez3]

To add to Carol's comment re: bear hunting in Massachusetts, it is required to check the bear in...and it had better not be missing any parts. Western MA has seen an increase in bear hunting, legal and illegal, due to fractured habitat ( = decreased 'carrying capacity'/tolerance for bears), aggregious state mismanagement of hunting/our natural resources and a demand for gall bladders.

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/wildlife/facts/mammals/bear/black_bear_biology_faq.htm#biofaq30

A lot of European bears are being poached for the gall bladders. Bears in Eastern Europe and Asia are also used for 'circus' acts and bear baiting.

Hunting bears in the US as seen by a British journalist.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...led-hunters-young-13-just-miles-New-York.html

 

[Makalakumu]

And the point of proving you can kill an animal is? Unless you are eating it and using all the parts of it why kill something?

When you go and buy a steak at a grocery store, did you buy the rest of the cow? Do you know how much of the animal gets wasted?

 

[Makalakumu]

Why does hunting have to be more 'challenging'? I'm sure the hunters thousands of years ago weren't looking to hunt for a challenge! I imagine that if there was an easy way they took it.

Well, taking a bear trophy might be a good way to impress the ladies! Imagine some testosterone soaked guy putting a bear claw necklace around his neck and then retelling the story of his own bravery again and again. Humans...oi!

 

[Makalakumu]

A lot of European bears are being poached for the gall bladders. Bears in Eastern Europe and Asia are also used for 'circus' acts and bear baiting.

Hunting bears in the US as seen by a British journalist.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...led-hunters-young-13-just-miles-New-York.html

Just as an aside, I had a good friend in college that was killed by a bear in Romania. She was hiking and the bear attacked her group. That was a shock when I discovered that because I didn't know that any dangerous animals lived in Europe...other than humans.

 

[Tez3]

Just as an aside, I had a good friend in college that was killed by a bear in Romania. She was hiking and the bear attacked her group. That was a shock when I discovered that because I didn't know that any dangerous animals lived in Europe...other than humans.

We have wolves, bison, bears, wild boar and lynx in Europe.

 

[ballen0351]

They actually pay people around here to kill pigeons because they poop on stuff. They use high powered pellet guns at night and shoot them. I never knew it until a few years ago i almost shot a guy he was in an alley with what i thought was a rifle.

I'm not against hunting, what I find objectionable is the shooting of animals and leaving them lying around to rot. Hunt and eat by all means but who can honestly say shooting a flock of pigeons and leaving them to rot is a 'challenge? Where the' sport in shooting thousands of birds you can never eat and nor does anyone else? where the sport in shooting an elephant when it is driven towards you and there's professional hunters waiting to shoot it when you miss just so you can go back to your country and say you shot an elephant? that's a challenge? Are people willing to say hunting squirrels is sport or a challenge?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/15/spain-king-juan-carlos-hunting

 

[Tez3]

They actually pay people around here to kill pigeons because they poop on stuff. They use high powered pellet guns at night and shoot them. I never knew it until a few years ago i almost shot a guy he was in an alley with what i thought was a rifle.

Different sort of pigeon (rock doves) to that shot here, it's wood pigeons that are eaten in Europe.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/w/woodpigeon/index.aspx

 

[Master Dan]

Well I started this thread to find input mainly from the Japanes Archery section however it has been interesting that we have slid into the age old battle of humans over animals. I can say that I have never enjoyed killing for just killing's sake and as I think of the bear situation here going out to kill with a gun has not been an enticing one I would prefer to watch and take pictures unless in self defense its needed. However entertaining another Grand Master that chooses to have me assist in a hunt is. The issue of the bow hunt is more related to the feeling of experiencing more traditional subsistance and the warrior nature of this region which I have been part of for 17 years and you cannot judge that from your arm chair in civilization. Many of us in this region have taken offense from people who niether understand nor have any investment in life here taking positions even to the point that humans should die and the animals take back the land. There are many varied colorful rebutal comments from our group and people of this region related to those people that out of frustration make us feel better just to say them. For example in our restruant Fat Freddys for decades had Spotted Owl burgers on the menue. So I imagine it is the same for those that would call a person stupid or an idiot for hunting the bear with a bow is just doing the same thing making themselves feel better because they cannot control the situation. However I would say that there have many good and positive comments.

For the negative detractors of the hunt I think far worse is the wholesale slaughter of bears Polar bears included which are now listed as at risk being taken solely for thier gallbladders and other items and in Alaska there are Koreans some masters that pursue this for a long time now and worse in one case a great number trading 3 dinners in the restruant per bear when the actual finacial return on the dried gallbladder is quite alot of money and other items after processed for shipping. Far less bears would be killed if not for this insentive.

 

[Tez3]

Not the 'age old argument', it's the argument of waste over economy. You mistake my points I'm afraid. Killing animals just because you can and leaving their bodies to rot while you take the head to put on your wall is not 'hunting', it's wasteful and pointless. Hunting to provide for your family is a whole different thing, if you'd read my posts and understood them.

 

[Master Dan]

Maybe the following pictures will help you understand where I teach and live I cover an area hub to 15 Eskimo villages in the the Bearing Strait region as close as 40 miles to Russia to as far North as 700 miles from the North Pole. its been 17 years since I left civilization and teaching here is life and death for the students determines many times if they will have a good life or not whole nother thread on that but for example one little girl was brought to me eyes dull she had witnessed her father cut the eyes out of a man in front of her and then tried to kill her mother she was 7. You cannot imagine how much I would love to see trees and smell grass but I cannot leave them. I went to the far north out of pleas for assistance in the 90's after a huge rich program was killed by a Korean master who was involved in taking $500,000 cash raised in 6 months to build a Dojang and the city donated the land. The money was spent to buy three homes cash in Idaho the IRS came in the city took the land away and the Master left town in discrace. I reestablished the program for three years part to reach out to them and part due to my wifes Eskimo heritage that place was important. We were successfull but on the whole the Native population and city would never truly trust TKD again. Hardest place in the world to live but I will never forget the experience.

View attachment $Barrow TKD pictures 147.jpgView attachment $Barrow TKD pictures 204.jpg

 

[Master Dan]

The pictures previoius and in this show what life is like here living with people who in some ways have not changed in 10,000 years but language and many other traditions are disapearing fast with the death of elders the traditional harvesting of subsistance foods using in many cases methods developed by the warrior class for survival and the physical training they have to do for that is key to thier identity as a people. My wife and I are pictured together in these photos harvesting whale. The blanket toss above is part of the spring celebration of whaling crews a week long cooking festival. The blanket toss was not a game but was for hunter to see over the horizon for game to hunt. as far as you can see there is not even a bump or tree or anything. My wife and I are with a 21 foot Bow Head Whale took about 1 1/2 hours to cut up a 50 to 70 foot takes up to 12 hours to cut up. All of it is used and eaten shared with those who have none. this place was wealthy and use cats to pull out of ocean after delivered by boat to shore but in remote places I teach like St Lawrence Island close to Russia they must pull out by hand using many people with rope and block tackle using the ice as an anchor. Due to global warming the firs year I was there was the last normal winter with ocean froze over by October 1st now it does not until January and no longer freezes hard so spring whaling has almost stopped due to poor ice and whole families as many as 200 people floating away on broken ice. This place was rich so they used helicopters to rescue everyone now fall whaling using boats mostly. Note the picture of us cutting the whale up is on a famous world war 11 metal track run way about a mile long.

 

[Master Dan]

The skin boat I am pictured next to is made from Oogrick or bearded seal skin and the men every spring would get excited to work on and chop trailes through ice presure rigges for miles from shore to get next to the open water and hide behind ice blinds the quietly paddle by hand to hunt the whales. I am one of he few white people and the only MA master that I know of that has the right to be part of a crew but since I have a 7 year old to raise do not since the possibillity of death dong this is great no life preserver or survival clothes you go in its not good odds getting out plus even some of the tools the Bomb gun have blown peoples arms off. The art of making an Umiak or skin boat is all but lost to a few villages and those who use metal boats are not as lucky in hunting due to the noise. The mother of my daughter picutured was lost to us a year ago Thanksgiving falling through the ice on a snowmachine in a village about 70 miles from where we live. She was large personality and greatly thought of in that area they rarely find the bodies and two people in thier 20's have perished same spot two weeks later and a year later and never been found. after 7 days with as many as 70 people using nets fish hooks video cameras she was just magically found pushed back up on the ice. Every day until that seals were on top of the ice just outside my home watching me and my daughter go in and out it was so unusual that people the last day came and took pictures even thowing rocks they refused to leave as soon as he body was found they left we like to think of it as she was wanting to know we were alright?

The idiot that took her on the snow machine was stoned and headed right off the trail to a bad spot he was to small to pull her out and she knew he would also die leaving no one to speak so she told him tell my family I love them all and let go so he would live. So if at times I seem impatient with people over petty things you will understand.

 

[oftheherd1]

Interesting information on the people there. The story of the loss of your wife is very poignant. I am so very sorry for you and your daughter for your loss. It sounds like you have quite a commitment to that area and its people. Good on you.

 

[Carol]

As an avid outdoorswoman, I don't have much issue with legal and responsible hunting. I do believe that we (as humans) have a responsibility to harvest animals as humanely as possible. I do not hunt myself, but I enjoy game meats very much...although prefer the very lean game meats such as bison, elk, and caribou to the (fattier) meats such as beef, venison and (presumably) bear.

I worry that in a Chicken McNugget society that we have lost so much connection to the food chain and our ecosystem that we don't even know what we're eating anymore, or where it comes from.

I worry that conservation efforts, while needed, have produced so much concern over poaching that it has become very difficult for a community to take advantage of the hunt. Up here, there are many independent butcheries that will cut what you harvest, but much fewer will purchase what you harvest. If I call a North Country butcher or hunter asking if they have any bear fat (which has gastronomic and mechanical uses) for sale, they may be concerned that the call is a setup -- perhaps I am part of a sting operation trying to catch illegal trade? I don't support the repeal of the conservation efforts but I do wish it was a bit easier for hunters and non-hunters to share in a hunter's harvest. A community should work that way.

Very sorry for your loss, Dan. Good luck on your hunt, choose your tools wisely.

 

[Master Dan]

As an avid outdoorswoman, I don't have much issue with legal and responsible hunting. I do believe that we (as humans) have a responsibility to harvest animals as humanely as possible. I do not hunt myself, but I enjoy game meats very much...although prefer the very lean game meats such as bison, elk, and caribou to the (fattier) meats such as beef, venison and (presumably) bear.

I worry that in a Chicken McNugget society that we have lost so much connection to the food chain and our ecosystem that we don't even know what we're eating anymore, or where it comes from.

I worry that conservation efforts, while needed, have produced so much concern over poaching that it has become very difficult for a community to take advantage of the hunt. Up here, there are many independent butcheries that will cut what you harvest, but much fewer will purchase what you harvest. If I call a North Country butcher or hunter asking if they have any bear fat (which has gastronomic and mechanical uses) for sale, they may be concerned that the call is a setup -- perhaps I am part of a sting operation trying to catch illegal trade? I don't support the repeal of the conservation efforts but I do wish it was a bit easier for hunters and non-hunters to share in a hunter's harvest. A community should work that way.

Very sorry for your loss, Dan. Good luck on your hunt, choose your tools wisely.

as a young person I apprentised as a meat cutter at 12 and was taught how to cut and prepare wild game I trained with expert Italian and German sausage makers and have owne three wild game processing shops but have perfected methods for home methods and have enjoyed preparing and cooking for many masters and grand masters I stopped hunting in the lower 48 instead wanting to prepare the meat people had not to be wasted and due to being shot at so many times by drunks. I was amazed at how good Caribou and also Muskox is realy great meat. I have friends that have never eaten store meat and get quite sick if they eat it.