Journal

Written beside the law guide and kept apart from it. What is here is history, technique and experience, never a rule.

• Technique · 12 October 2026

  Newtons, pounds, joules, grams

  A threshold in a law has a figure and a unit, and the unit says what is being measured. Hungary’s bow threshold went through three units in three years: pounds in 1993, kiloponds in 1995, newtons in 1996. The rest of Europe writes its thresholds in newtons, kilograms, pounds, joules and grams.

• History · 10 October 2026

  The first eight years

  From 1999, every Danish bowhunter had to say, every year, what they had shot. Two reckonings were made from their forms, one by the European bowhunters’ association and one by the Danish agency. They reached us only in English, only through the archive, and each counts differently. We read both.

• History · 10 October 2026

  A hunter without a firearm

  In Hungary you can become a bowhunter without ever firing a gun at the exam and without a firearms permit. The route has existed since 1993, survived an attempt in 1996 to strike the bow from the law, and is still in force. In Romania, anyone who wants to become a hunter goes through the firearm.

• History · 2 October 2026

  The bow lost, and the bow almost won

  As far as the texts we read show, one country in the guide had the bow in its rules and lost it. Four others came within a step of it: a final vote, a minister’s signature, rules ready to take effect, a government bill.

• History · 2 October 2026

  How Denmark decided

  Four years of trial, two autumns of waiting, a meeting where everyone spoke their mind out loud, and a European directive that asked for at least three more months. This is how the bow reached Denmark’s deer: slowly, in writing, and without anyone having to take anything on trust.

• Technique · 2 October 2026

  What the wounding rate actually means

  Half of the animals hit with an arrow get away wounded: the figure has been going round for more than fifty years. We opened the papers it comes from and read what each one counts. What we found is no good news for anyone who wants a short answer, on either side.

• Education · 19 September 2026

  What is not examined

  Twelve European countries examine the bowhunter, each in its own way. We read every one of their tests in order to write a standard for ourselves. What stands out in the end is not what they ask for, but what none of them asks for.

• Education · 19 September 2026

  What the codes say

  The ethics of bowhunting is invoked often and written down rarely. We looked for the texts that put it on paper, in Europe and across the ocean, and read them one by one: what they ask, where they agree and where they all fall silent.

• Education · 19 September 2026

  The chosen limit

  The idea that hunters tie their own hands is old and beautifully written. It is also the very thing critics hold against the bow. We read both sides, each in its own texts.

• Technique · 18 September 2026

  What Ashby measures, and who reads him

  The reading list for the Danish bow exam carries two reports by a man the state documents never mention. Thirty years of measurement, a sentence that contradicts the way Europe writes its law, and a list of things that cannot be carried across.

• Technique · 17 September 2026

  What we know about broadheads

  Two blades or three? Fixed or mechanical? Three papers, read in full, give three answers that do not line up. They measure three different things — and in Denmark, the law decided what could be studied.

• Education · 17 September 2026

  How a number travels

  A figure passes from one report into the next and changes on the way: an estimate becomes a measurement, a study changes state, blade counts shift by one category. Five cases found in the documents European decisions rest on.

• History · 17 September 2026

  Three ways a law keeps the bow out

  Of the 31 countries in the guide, 18 do not allow bowhunting. The result is the same everywhere, but the legal route is one of three — and anyone asking how hard a ban is to change has to know which one it is first.

• History · 13 September 2026

  A short history of bowhunting

  From the Sibudu points to the compound bow, and to the European laws that took the bow out of the woods and, in some countries, brought it back: what the sources say, with their dates, and where the usual story does not match the documents.

• Education · 13 September 2026

  More than protection: what game managers have learned

  Letting game recover is an old idea. Several lessons that hunter courses have repeated for decades, from the Kaibab Plateau to the edge effect, have since been corrected by the research that followed them.

• History · 12 September 2026

  What was read before the decision

  Denmark opened large deer to the bow on the strength of two reports. Their bibliography holds four documents from four countries. We read them all, and one more written by the bowhunters themselves. They do not say what either side would like to hear.

• Technique · 11 September 2026

  What Denmark measured, and what it did not

  Before opening large deer to the bow, Denmark commissioned two reports. The figure that reached the press is 94%. The reports say more than that, and they say something else.

• Tool · 9 September 2026

  Which legal thresholds your bow clears

  Draw weight, arrow mass, speed. The table above shows which equipment requirements you meet, country by country, on the figures read off the legal texts in the guide.