Very interesting tidbit

[flywise]

Just read an excerpt from the book unforgettable bowhunters.
Author(not sure) said in 20-30 year relationship with Fred Bear he only had one disappointment in Fred. The issue was that Fred felt very strongly that the use of tranquilizer tipped arrows should be promoted and advocated for as an ethical way to kill big game.
Since I am on my phone I have no idea how to post links to article but will do so tomorrow ( if there is any interest ) when I get home.

[jerp]

Tranquilizer tipped arrows? Now that would be a game changer! I can just imagine the posts in the Hunting Reports section. "The big buck was hidden by the brush but fortunately I could just barely see his front left foot, giving me an ethical shot"

[flywise]

The story said he shot a mule deer in the rump with one just to prove to his hunting party it worked. The author said it was the saddest thing he had ever seen. It took more than 20 min.to die.

[Rotag]

Used to be called pods it was on the archery sceen till it was outlawed. It turns out it also causes humans not to breath also.

[flywise]

Yep, pods

[Mike Javi Cooper]

Used to be called pods it was on the archery sceen till it was outlawed. It turns out it also causes humans not to breath also.

Everywhere except Mississippi.. was still legal there a couple of years ago..

[froghunter]

im more in favor of explosive tipped hog arrows.

[Mike Javi Cooper]

Just read an excerpt from the book unforgettable bowhunters.
Author(not sure) said in 20-30 year relationship with Fred Bear he only had one disappointment in Fred. The issue was that Fred felt very strongly that the use of tranquilizer tipped arrows should be promoted and advocated for as an ethical way to kill big game.
Since I am on my phone I have no idea how to post links to article but will do so tomorrow ( if there is any interest ) when I get home.

I believe that was M.R. James who wrote...

MY SINGLE PERSONAL and professional disappointment with Fred Bear centered on the fact that he developed and held patents on drug-dispensing pods for hunting arrows. Monitored field tests of bowhunters using both liquid and powdered forms of the powerful tranquilizing drug succinylcholine chloride (SCC) for deer hunting date back to 1960. And while in Bowhunter magazine I always publicly pooh-poohed the idea of Papa Bear endorsing the use of “poison pod” arrows, there is absolutely no doubt that Fred advocated their widespread use by modern bowhunters. It’s common knowledge that he personally field tested the effects of SCC on some of his hunts, although rumors of him taking his African lion, Cape buffalo and Indian tiger with pod-tipped arrows remain unproven.

In May of 1990 Glenn St. Charles told me of witnessing Fred shoot a mule deer with a “poison pod” during a Canadian bowhunt they shared. Fred intentionally arrowed the animal in the rump, according to Glenn, just to see how effective the drug would be with such shot placement. “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen,” Glenn said. “It took 20 lingering minutes for that deer to die. Fred later tried to get me to use the stuff, but I didn’t want any part of it.”

Charlie Kroll, Fred’s son-in-law and a talented bowhunter and writer in his own right, personally confirmed that Fred went to his grave convinced that the use of drug-tipped arrows would somehow be beneficial to bowhunting. Before his own death in 2004, Charlie confessed he’d be eternally puzzled by Fred’s stubborn stance on this particular subject. Charlie credited Bob Kelly, one-time Bear Archery president, for refusing to ever allow drug-dispensing devices to be offered for sale by the company.

Proponents of drug-tipped “poison pod” hunting arrows, most notably Texan Adrian Benke, who in 1989 authored the pro-drug book “The Bowhunting Alternative,” gleefully quoted excerpts from a lengthy letter Fred wrote to Pope & Young officers and Glenn St. Charles and **** Cooley in 1964. Fred urged the club’s leaders to allow animals taken with “tranquilizer” arrows to be entered in the Pope & Young Club records. Among his more controversial comments were the following:

“… if we don’t do something to clean up our ranks the time will most surely come when we will be unmasked, the impotency of our weapons revealed, and we will stand there with bowed heads faintly mumbling, yes, you are right.

“… no archer, no matter how good he is, except under certain circumstances, can be sure of hitting an animal where he wants to hit him at bow shot distances. What is wrong with Killing what you Hit?

“I can answer this one. The whole thing is very simple. It is the word poison. It’s a bad word and conjures up visions of skull and crossbones. Of elephants stuck in the belly by pygmies who follow the victim for days before he succumbs to the venom. The type I am speaking of kills quickly and … is not fatal to humans.”

Fred concluded his ’64 letter recalling two gut-shot bruins he knows he’d killed but failed to recover. One was a polar bear that was tracked “about a mile” to the edge of an open lead where the wounded animal apparently sank while trying to swim to the other side. The other, a big 10-foot Alaskan brown bear, disappeared forever after an overnight cloudburst washed out its ample blood trail. A daylong search failed to locate the bear within the dense alder thickets. “My conscience gave me trouble,” Fred confided, voicing his frustration with this emotional admission:

“Actually, I would feel better qualified to kill a Michigan whitetail deer dressed in a Santa Claus outfit with sleigh bells tied around my waist and a tranquilizer on my arrow than I would completely camouflaged without the tranquilizer.”

*****

REGARDLESS OF SUCH ****ING EVIDENCE, when I look back over my 16-year association with Papa Bear, I refuse to allow any professional or personal philosophical differences over our sole disagreement – namely whether to mix drugs and bowhunting – to affect my personal fondness and admiration for all that he accomplished during his long, productive lifetime. And as long as I live I’ll regret that I never took advantage of Fred’s invitation to share an annual visit to Grousehaven and bowhunt Michigan bucks with him and a handful of his friends.

And each time I think of us hunting together, I always recall one of Fred’s favorite jokes. It deals with a party of bowhunters who spent the better part of a week pursuing big game in some backcountry camp. Seems that as the days passed, the unshaven and unwashed crew grew increasingly ripe. At last Fred said he could stand it no longer. “It’s time to clean up and change underwear!” Fred declared. After an appropriate pause for the proper dramatic effect, Fred flashed a toothy smile and said, “Glenn, you change underwear with ****. Bob, you change with Joe. Bud you change with …”

I can still hear the echoes of Fred’s cackling laugh and see the wrinkled face beaming with a master storyteller’s glee at a tale well told.

*****

[flywise]

Yes this is the story I came across. I never would have believed it had someone told me this.


QUOTE=Mike Javi Cooper;4830296]I believe that was M.R. James who wrote...

MY SINGLE PERSONAL and professional disappointment with Fred Bear centered on the fact that he developed and held patents on drug-dispensing pods for hunting arrows. Monitored field tests of bowhunters using both liquid and powdered forms of the powerful tranquilizing drug succinylcholine chloride (SCC) for deer hunting date back to 1960. And while in Bowhunter magazine I always publicly pooh-poohed the idea of Papa Bear endorsing the use of “poison pod” arrows, there is absolutely no doubt that Fred advocated their widespread use by modern bowhunters. It’s common knowledge that he personally field tested the effects of SCC on some of his hunts, although rumors of him taking his African lion, Cape buffalo and Indian tiger with pod-tipped arrows remain unproven.

In May of 1990 Glenn St. Charles told me of witnessing Fred shoot a mule deer with a “poison pod” during a Canadian bowhunt they shared. Fred intentionally arrowed the animal in the rump, according to Glenn, just to see how effective the drug would be with such shot placement. “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen,” Glenn said. “It took 20 lingering minutes for that deer to die. Fred later tried to get me to use the stuff, but I didn’t want any part of it.”

Charlie Kroll, Fred’s son-in-law and a talented bowhunter and writer in his own right, personally confirmed that Fred went to his grave convinced that the use of drug-tipped arrows would somehow be beneficial to bowhunting. Before his own death in 2004, Charlie confessed he’d be eternally puzzled by Fred’s stubborn stance on this particular subject. Charlie credited Bob Kelly, one-time Bear Archery president, for refusing to ever allow drug-dispensing devices to be offered for sale by the company.

Proponents of drug-tipped “poison pod” hunting arrows, most notably Texan Adrian Benke, who in 1989 authored the pro-drug book “The Bowhunting Alternative,” gleefully quoted excerpts from a lengthy letter Fred wrote to Pope & Young officers and Glenn St. Charles and **** Cooley in 1964. Fred urged the club’s leaders to allow animals taken with “tranquilizer” arrows to be entered in the Pope & Young Club records. Among his more controversial comments were the following:

“… if we don’t do something to clean up our ranks the time will most surely come when we will be unmasked, the impotency of our weapons revealed, and we will stand there with bowed heads faintly mumbling, yes, you are right.

“… no archer, no matter how good he is, except under certain circumstances, can be sure of hitting an animal where he wants to hit him at bow shot distances. What is wrong with Killing what you Hit?

“I can answer this one. The whole thing is very simple. It is the word poison. It’s a bad word and conjures up visions of skull and crossbones. Of elephants stuck in the belly by pygmies who follow the victim for days before he succumbs to the venom. The type I am speaking of kills quickly and … is not fatal to humans.”

Fred concluded his ’64 letter recalling two gut-shot bruins he knows he’d killed but failed to recover. One was a polar bear that was tracked “about a mile” to the edge of an open lead where the wounded animal apparently sank while trying to swim to the other side. The other, a big 10-foot Alaskan brown bear, disappeared forever after an overnight cloudburst washed out its ample blood trail. A daylong search failed to locate the bear within the dense alder thickets. “My conscience gave me trouble,” Fred confided, voicing his frustration with this emotional admission:

“Actually, I would feel better qualified to kill a Michigan whitetail deer dressed in a Santa Claus outfit with sleigh bells tied around my waist and a tranquilizer on my arrow than I would completely camouflaged without the tranquilizer.”

*****

REGARDLESS OF SUCH ****ING EVIDENCE, when I look back over my 16-year association with Papa Bear, I refuse to allow any professional or personal philosophical differences over our sole disagreement – namely whether to mix drugs and bowhunting – to affect my personal fondness and admiration for all that he accomplished during his long, productive lifetime. And as long as I live I’ll regret that I never took advantage of Fred’s invitation to share an annual visit to Grousehaven and bowhunt Michigan bucks with him and a handful of his friends.

And each time I think of us hunting together, I always recall one of Fred’s favorite jokes. It deals with a party of bowhunters who spent the better part of a week pursuing big game in some backcountry camp. Seems that as the days passed, the unshaven and unwashed crew grew increasingly ripe. At last Fred said he could stand it no longer. “It’s time to clean up and change underwear!” Fred declared. After an appropriate pause for the proper dramatic effect, Fred flashed a toothy smile and said, “Glenn, you change underwear with ****. Bob, you change with Joe. Bud you change with …”

I can still hear the echoes of Fred’s cackling laugh and see the wrinkled face beaming with a master storyteller’s glee at a tale well told.

*****[/QUOTE]

[JEFFRO]

I remember reading that fred also said "it's frustrating that everytime i go hunting i'm expected to kill a trophy" i just want to hunt.

[jerp]

Maybe as he got older he started feeling guilty about all the animals he wounded and never recovered. When I read bowhunting stories from the 50's and 60's I'm always amazed at the shots some of these guys would take. None of this waiting for a broadside within 25 yards stuff. If they were deer hunting and saw a deer they would fling an arrow at it - no matter the circumstances or distance. They made some kills at remarkable distances but it seems like it was "see if you can get an arrow in him" as opposed to "don't shoot unless you can put one in the vitals". It's no wonder they lost alot of wounded game.

[Mike Javi Cooper]

Maybe as he got older he started feeling guilty about all the animals he wounded and never recovered. When I read bowhunting stories from the 50's and 60's I'm always amazed at the shots some of these guys would take. None of this waiting for a broadside within 25 yards stuff. If they were deer hunting and saw a deer they would fling an arrow at it - no matter the circumstances or distance. They made some kills at remarkable distances but it seems like it was "see if you can get an arrow in him" as opposed to "don't shoot unless you can put one in the vitals". It's no wonder they lost alot of wounded game.

It was a different time with different values....

[Jason Sanders]

Wow! Unbelievable!!

[huntinpool]

I had a neighbor from Georgia , and that is how they hunted with bows. He said all you had to do was hit them. They would go about a 100 yds and be dead. Since being in Texas, he had to learn to shoot. He didn't understand why it was illegal here.

[Mike Javi Cooper]

Wow! Unbelievable!!

Not really, all this FAIR CHASE stuff didn't start until a few years ago..