I think shot placement with archery is more important than kinetic energy, under nominal conditions, when hunting. However, hunting would be less desirable than trapping it seems. In any case, I would also prefer my compound bow to my recurves, even for hunting small game.

Using fish to bait the traps makes sense, as all the predators there and other scavengers would probably go after it pretty quick. I'd think with the right combination of DIY and bait you could harvest a lot of critters in fairly short order.

Not knowing what the rules were, I suspect there was probably some discussion about what could and could not be done to secure big game. Since the contestants were already breaking hunting and fishing rules, hard to say what they felt comfortable with. In a real survival situation, things would be quite different from what they did on the show.

Now that the season is over, I wonder where they will go next?