By Jay McAninch

Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., hunting in his home state of Wisconsin.

For a recent profile in “Time” magazine (“The Prophet,” Dec. 26, 2011), Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., posed for a picture that portrays him not only as a nationally known policymaker, but a proud bowhunter too. The photo shows him in his office wearing the “uniform” of the U.S. Congress – a dark suit – while holding a hunting bow at full draw. The photo’s message is clear and unflinching: Paul Ryan is a congressman, statesman and policymaker at our nation’s highest levels; AND he bowhunts. To my knowledge, that’s never happened before.

I’m aware of many VIPs, celebrities, musicians, political figures, professional athletes, and stars of the screen and stage who enjoy bowhunting. I’ve seen autographed pictures of many of them adorning walls of archery shops and manufacturers’ offices. The autographs often include a thanks for a hunt or the privilege of shooting some of the best equipment in the industry. Yet as I watch this list grow over the years, I don’t recall anyone of Paul Ryan’s stature making public statements in the mainstream press about their support for bowhunting. In fact, take just one look at Paul Ryan holding a bow at full draw, and you know he’s the real deal; a hardcore bowhunter. He’s not just another politician holding a gun or bow for the first time – maybe the only time – while currying favor with our country’s large hunting bloc.

No, Paul Ryan posed for this photo of his own volition, and in a low-key way. He didn’t ask a manufacturer for the bow or “fish” for an invitation to a great hunt somewhere. The truth is, Congressman Ryan has never asked for anything from the archery industry when he’s done things for bowhunting. Nearly 10 years ago, he led an effort to change the tax on arrows and level the playing field for arrow manufacturers, especially those making arrows on American soil. For that, he took nothing from us except our thanks and gratitude.

Ever since meeting Congressman Ryan in the late 1990s, I’ve noticed he pays for everything he requests. In fact, he insists on paying. This struck me as unique, even unusual. That’s because I’ve often seen professional athletes, singers and celebrities EXPECT to receive equipment just for showing up at an event. This contrast is especially noteworthy, given that our society assumes all politicians are on the take.

When I look at “Time” magazine’s photo of Congressman Ryan at full draw, here’s what I think: Every bowhunter should be proud to talk about bowhunting at home, at work, in the community and among peers in their profession. How many of us talk about bowhunting when we’re with lawyers, accountants, bankers and business people while working or socializing? How many of us talk about bowhunting with our kids’ teachers, school administrators, or those directing our kids’ recreational programs? Do we talk about bowhunting with our pastor or priest, neighbors, community leaders, aldermen, mayor or other politicians? Do we even share our love of “stick and string” with family and friends? If not, why? Do we fear bowhunting doesn’t “fit” or is somehow socially unacceptable?

Perhaps the best part about Congressman Ryan’s bow-shooting appearance in “Time” is that it’s done with pride and self-confidence. In the magazine’s accompanying text, there’s no defensiveness or “in your face” aggression we sometimes see when other bowhunters step into public forums. If any well known folks ever do express their love for archery or bowhunting, few do it so professionally and with such grace and dignity. Ryan assumes folks get that bowhunting is an activity he enjoys and one that is part of his precious few hours of personal time. He doesn’t make bowhunting a crusade or an activity that is right for everyone. In “Time”, he simply showed the world that bowhunting is an important part of his life – just like his family and his work to put American on the path to prosperity.

Pretty cool.

By Jay McAninch

When human decisions and Mother Nature are involved, things can take unexpected turns.

I’ve come to the conclusion that bowhunting is the greatest honor system ever created. So much of what happens during bowhunting is out of sight and done with equipment that makes no noise, which means: the only version of what transpired on a hunt is the one we tell. Bowhunting is even more of a test of honor since bowhunters are always close to the animals they’re hunting. This means they should be able to make very informed decisions about what they do.

When human decisions and Mother Nature are involved, things can take unexpected turns. For bowhunters, when the moment of truth is upon you and you have to make a decision to shoot, we all want the outcome to be a quick, clean kill that allows us to find the animal. While it is important that your shooting skills are good, your equipment is ready and the shot you take is a high percentage one, there is still an element of chance in executing a bow kill. That’s why the most important attribute of a bowhunter is honor.

Honor in bowhunting means you have great respect for the animals you are hunting. This also means you have a humble appreciation for the prowess of an animal’s ability to outfox you. When you choose to release an arrow, you are an honorable bowhunter if you take a shot within your range. “Your range” marks the distance — unique to each hunter — where you can hit 9 out of 10 arrows inside a 6-9 inch circle. You are an honorable bowhunter if you have patience and take an unobstructed, clear shot  at a killing angle. Honor means backing down your bow and refusing to take a shot when an animal is moving too much or when an animal won’t give you the best angle for maximum arrow penetration.

One situation that puts honorable bowhunters to the test is taking shots in that last half hour before dark. While in many states it’s legal to take shots up to 30 minutes after sunset, the chances for problems to arise are very high when bowhunters take shots in low or fading light. Seeing the arrow fly, knowing where it hit, observing the animal’s reaction to the shot, and seeing the animal as long as possible are all reduced in low light. Recovery is more challenging when trailing is hindered by darkness — not only in finding blood, but in observing the characteristics of the blood trail and the nature of areas traversed by the animal as it reacts to being shot. The chances of a bow shot turning sour are very good as darkness is falling.

To compound these situations, animals are usually beginning to move as daylight diminishes. Often bucks, bulls and other potential trophy animals are the last to emerge, making those last minutes of light prime hunting time. For bowhunters, the temptations will be greater after sunset, when honor is put to the test.

When daylight is fading, every bowhunter has faced a situation where a nice animal moves toward them. Often, when we want an animal to move into range, they move in slow motion and spend what seems like hours inching closer. Each bowhunter has to make a choice as shooting hours are coming to an end: do I take the shot if the animal is within range? Of course, there’s no time clock in the woods so the end of legal shooting time can be a matter of 5-10 minutes either way.  More to the point, no one knows but the bowhunter when he actually takes the shot. Sometimes having honor is not putting yourself in a situation where you’re confronted with that decision. Better to have unnocked your arrow and sit quietly as darkness descends rather than to be ready to shoot, while knowing every passing moment decreases your chances for a quick, clean kill and recovery.

This is why, to me, bowhunting is the greatest honor system ever created. Nearly all the events that matter in bowhunting occur when no one is watching. The only person who knows exactly what happened is you; and the only version of what happened is the one you choose to tell. Now I will hasten to add: if you’re in a situation with a shot at a nice animal, nerves and adrenaline will make your recollections of the events more difficult. Yet, your decision-making process can and should involve checks to safeguard against dishonoring yourself and the animals you’re hunting. There are enough things that can go wrong with even the best of shots so why give in to the temptation to take a shot outside your comfort zone or beyond your capability? Better to walk away with a pang of regret than to create a tarnished memory that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

When the democratic process works and decision-makers compromise on multiple viewpoints, they meet no one’s expectations. Is that failure?

By Jay McAninch

From the sound of it, Congress is to blame for everything wrong in our lives. It has a single-digits approval rating, and it seems everyone on the street and in the media knows it can’t get anything done. You can only conclude that our elected representatives are missing what’s obvious to everyone else: Democracy is easy.

But is it? From my experience groups of people who have to make decisions must operate by Robert’s Rules of Order. We hold elections precisely because there are often many sides to every issue, and just as many people with varying opinions and views who are often reluctant to compromise. Put any 535 Americans into a room, and the prospects of them making decisions and getting home in time for dinner every night are not good. Our 50 state legislative bodies struggle with similar problems. In Wisconsin and Texas, for example, elected representatives from one party left the state rather than negotiate democratic solutions at their capitols. Closer to home, you’d expect city councils to have an easier job; especially if you assume local business is a piece of cake. Yet many city councils — such as the one here in Washington, D.C. — have sessions disintegrate into name-calling, with representatives leaving the room.

Further, if you’ve served on a school board, you know these elected bodies struggle to get communities to support public schools at levels that allow kids to excel without burdening citizens and businesses beyond their tax-paying capabilities.

Democracy at the national, state and local levels is the way we do business, and it has never been easy. From the earliest days of our republic it has been a frustration – as well as our salvation and greatest asset. Democracy is everywhere and it’s always messy. Decision-makers must constantly wade through opinions, facts, pseudo-facts, debates and disagreements. The process often includes insults, sarcastic digs, rhetorical questions, personal attacks and deep-seated bitterness. Some participants quit before decisions can be reached. But for those who endure, there is a vote and a decision. They hope the decision marks progress but, for many people, the gains never seem big enough. Folks with high expectations are disappointed they didn’t get everything they wanted.

Democracy, for all its lofty aspirations, creates winners and losers on every issue. Too many participants only keep score on their own issues. They don’t embrace the notion that democracy is an incremental process of governing that allows us to experiment based on the collective experience. Their expectations are often high because they only recognize their own viewpoint. When the democratic process works and decision-makers compromise on multiple viewpoints, they meet no one’s expectations. Is that failure?

I’d argue that any group dedicated to using the democratic process to render decisions is a successful body. A decision reached by compromise represents progress, albeit incremental, by those who share a mission uniting them. Sometimes the decision is unexpected and the outcome unimagined, but that’s the nature of compromise. If the body has a long-standing role in decision-making, it will make more decisions, and those too will likely be compromises.

Democracy isn’t perfect but it beats every alternative. Yes, it IS messy. And yes, it ISN’T predictable. But it IS a reflection of every dimension of an issue (and the people involved). And it ISN’T a one-decision game. Ever.

Best of all, democracy’s underlying principle is fairness in a forum of many viewpoints. What democracy guarantees each of us is representation and the chance to affect every decision.

For those in the archery and bowhunting business, the Archery Trade Association is the democratic forum where our industry can unite and make decisions in everyone’s best interests to ensure a strong future together. The ATA Board is open to everyone to attend and voice their viewpoint. We debate and discuss the ATA Trade Show, how to grow archery and bowhunting, and every imaginable aspect of industry business.

In fact, the ATA’s democracy not only works, it has a good track record:

1. 1) The ATA Board developed the Trade Show as a platform to do business. Countless companies owe their successful start to the ATA.
2. 2) The ATA Board decided to use the Trade Show as a mechanism to fund programs to grow archery and bowhunting. This Show has generated more than $15million to fund programs like NASP, the Minnesota wounding study, and many other successful ventures.

All it takes for the ATA to succeed is company executives exercising statesmanship by uniting on behalf of our industry At the end of the day, Benjamin Franklin was right about why any small group of passionate advocates who are bound together by their convictions must work together: “If we all don’t hang together, then we will most assuredly hang separately.”

Although studies and surveys vary, the trend toward bowhunting growth that began back in the mid-1980s continued in 2011.

By Jay McAninch
Once a year, I like to sit down and review all data available about archery and bowhunting to see if I can make sense of where our industry is going. Unfortunately, we don’t have major surveys to use and there aren’t readily available retail sales figures to review. Thus I’ve simply considered all the information, developed some thoughts about those data and assembled what follows as the best status report on the archery and bowhunting industry I can offer.

First and foremost, bowhunting drives our industry so addressing participation data is an important starting point in assessing the industry. Although studies and surveys vary, the trend toward bowhunting growth that began back in the mid-1980s continued in 2011. But in my opinion, the years of double-digit annual gains ended around 2000. In many states, bowhunting numbers can be characterized as “stable” to “slightly increasing,” with all increases less than 5 percent.

Many publications continue to show increasing bowhunter numbers based on license data from the states. Unfortunately, these data are often compromised by duplicate licensing, which can result from myriad antlerless deer tags, combination tags, and multiple species-specific tags. Further complications arise with some youth licenses, and with states that sell only a general hunting license and therefore must estimate archery license sales. Recent estimates of 3.5 million-plus bowhunters are definitely high, in my opinion, as a result of the problems mentioned earlier. The best data I have, and which I can substantiate, suggest bowhunter numbers are much closer to 3.2 to 3.3 million rather than the recent estimates of 3.5 million. Therefore, the trend I’ve shown in Bullet 1 is accurate.

Now, let’s look at some of the more recent surveys and reports.

 1. A national survey of American households by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) found the declining trend in bowhunter numbers continued in 2011. Their data (which have a 95 percent confidence interval of +/-4 percent) show a 15.6 percent decline from 2000 to 2010, with a peak in 2002 of 5.34 million bowhunters and a low of 3.72 bowhunters in 2008. As a percentage of the U.S. population during that 10-year period, the participation rate declined 0.4 percent. The current estimate is that 1.4 percent of Americans bowhunt.

2. From the SGMA survey, bowhunters are 87 percent male, 53 percent are 35 years or older, 40 percent have a household income of at least $75,000, 28 percent live in an area with 2 million or more residents, and 36 percent have a college degree. Slightly less than 3 million bowhunters were considered “core participants,” meaning they made eight or more hunting trips per year. The survey found 69 percent of bowhunters fish in freshwater and 46 percent enjoy target shooting with rifles.

 3. Bowhunter numbers continue to be linked to hunters being attracted by the sport’s longer seasons, chance to hunt during the rut, liberal bag limits and the sport’s inherent challenges. Surveys continue to show that up to 90 percent of bowhunters also hunt with guns, so it’s a myth that bowhunters are a different class of hunters than firearms hunters.

 4. Based on manufacturing data since 2006, we’ve seen a 70 to 80 percent rise nationwide in crossbow sales, which represent more than 20 percent of all bow sales. The sales are driven largely by the addition of crossbows for all or part of the archery seasons, or reduced age limits in Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Kentucky and other states. During the past four quarters, crossbow sales made up slightly more than 25 percent of all bow sales.

States like Wisconsin have shown that reducing the age limit for crossbows can hold onto or bring back older archery hunters. Bowhunting data typically show a slow decline in bowhunter participation as bowhunters reach their 40s, and then steeper declines in their 50s. In Wisconsin, this trend continues until age 65, when crossbow use is legal, and then bowhunting participation jumps for hunters up into their 70s.

 5. Nationally, since 2006, compound sales — which have represented more than 70 percent of bow sales — were up 0.1 percent, or simply steady. As a percentage of all bow sales over the past four quarters, compound bows fell to 65 percent of the market, but that decline was more about growth in crossbow sales than a decline in compound bow sales.

6. At the same time, recurve sales — which consistently represent less than 10 percent of bow sales — were down 19 percent. During the past four quarters, recurve sales made up 8 percent of total bow sales and continue to be strong everywhere except North America.

The Archery Federal Excise Tax (FET) collections are another good source of archery and bowhunting data. We not only monitor total FET collections, we also monitor the two types of archery FET. The tax is levied on sales in the United States at two rates on different equipment: 1) Gear taxed at an 11 percent rate include broadheads, bows with 30 pounds or more of draw weight, and all accessories attached to a bow; and, 2) arrow shafts (except for wooden shafts for youths) are subject to a flat tax that increases based on the CPI, which has been between 42 and 45 cents per shaft. Even so, FET data on bows, broadheads and all accessories attached to bows are difficult to interpret because the diversity of products, and the wide range in quality and pricing make purchasing patterns complex. The FET on arrow shafts only reflects arrow shafts sold, so these trends are easier to interpret. All FET are reported quarterly after the federal fiscal year, which runs October 1 to September 30.

To view the Archery Federal Excise Tax Collections 2007 – Present, click HERE to download the table.

 7. The past five years of FET total collection data reflect the pattern seen in much of the U.S. economy. From a high of $36.5 million in 2006-07, collections dipped to $34.8 million in 2007-08 and to $32.2 million in 2008-09 before rebounding to $35.9 in 2009-10. This year collections soared to a high of $44.1 million, which is a one year gain of 23 percent, erasing the old peak set in 2006-07.  The increase overall in FET collections isn’t matched by other data and there doesn’t appear to be similar increases on participation. Thus, the increase could be tied to archers and bowhunters buying new product after a few years in a bad economy of making do with older equipment. Perhaps the FET data are a sign the archery and  bowhunting industry is emerging from recession.

 8. In reviewing the collections on bows and accessories, records were set in all quarters except the 2^nd quarter. The final total represented a one-year increase of 22 percent. This growth is likely linked to crossbows and crossbow accessories, but otherwise looks like an across-the-board increase in nearly all products.

 9. Total FET collections on arrow shafts for 2006-07 were $8.3 million, and then they rose slightly in 2007-08, dipped to $6.3 million in 2008-09, and returned to $8.24 million in 2009-10. This year,  collections were at record levels in all four quarters and ended at $10.2 million, a 24 percent one-year increase.  That would be about a 22 percent increase over the five years from 2006-07 to 2010-11.

 10. Meanwhile, national surveys by the National Sporting Goods Manufacturers (NSGM) found archery equipment sales were down 2.1 percent in 2009 from 2008, which mirrors some national data on general archery participation. This slight downward trend isn’t bad given the economy, unemployment, home foreclosures and retail spending.

 11. The National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) painted a slightly different picture of archery equipment sales. Their data showed an 8 percent increase from 2009-10, and they’re forecasting a 2 percent increase by the end of 2011. But in reviewing these data, it’s clear the NSGA doesn’t have a deep database to draw from because they report on lower end bows, arrows in three-packs and a few accessories. Therefore, I’m not sure how much confidence to place in their trend numbers.

You can’t control the context around you, but you can create a certain order that‘s reassuring.

By Jay McAninch

Context. Funny how every issue you think about, every concern you address, everything it seems has to be considered in context. Better said, everything that impacts our lives does seem connected to the conditions that are layered around us. Day in and day out, all of our decisions – those that are critical to our homes and families and those that influence our work – are best made in context.

In the coming months, context is what I’d like to talk about in this space. Blog posts may consider context from within the archery and bowhunting industry, the shooting and hunting segment, the entire outdoor market, or context provided by the US or global economy. We’ll take a look at the context that surrounds the political vortex I see here in Washington, DC or the context in the states and on Main Street where many of you operate.

The problem when anyone deliberates about the context surrounding their situation is that it complicates things. Rest assured, I understand the notion that keeping things simple makes decisions, choices and, just about everything, much easier. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth … and everyone lived happily ever after, right?

Unfortunately, in our business, decisions made by state agencies about bowhunting impact you. Decisions made by the IRS or US Fish & Wildlife Service about Federal Excise Tax impact you. Decisions made by the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the acceptable lead levels in sporting equipment impact you. Decisions made by OPEC about fuel prices that change shipping costs impact you. Decisions made by Congress about healthcare, taxes and the national debt and budget impact you. Decisions made by the President’s agency staff about federal worker compensation, the extension of benefits to any American, interest rates, subsidies for grain prices, foreign aid to the Middle East and monetary fund support for European countries all impact you.

If those matters concern you and you’d like to hear my point of view, then I’m going to offer it — for better or for worse — in this space. I hope you’ll find my thoughts helpful or, at the very least, informative and stimulating. I also hope you’ll be motivated to respond by email or in the comment box below, which will create a dialogue that might help us all deal with the context that surrounds us.

Finally, you’re likely thinking, Why? Why bother with all these frustrating and complicated issues that surround us? Because context matters. Addressing context can have a calming impact on you and can reinforce the decisions you make. Considering the context around you thoughtfully is all part of going through life with your eyes wide open and living life to the fullest. Sure, you can’t control much of the context around you, but you can create a certain order that‘s reassuring. And that might just lead to a level of confidence that makes all the hard work and sacrifice worth it. I’m looking forward to it and I hope you’ll join me.