wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
dipper, this is the exact reason that I would choose to use a xbow if I ever decided to re-enter the world of hunting during the archery season. I am physically capable of drawing a vertical bow(up to about 80lb draw weight) and I was very, very proficient with them back when I could practice regularly(300-500 arrows per week) and I have many actual deer kills and a box full of broadhead shoot trophies to prove that prior shooting prowess. Trouble is that now, due to living in a city and not having the extra time to practice as I deem necessary, I will not allow myself to hunt game with a vertical bow because in my mind I could not be for certain that I would make an ethical killing shot on a high enough percentage basis to be comfortable in my own mind. Because I have limited time to practice my shooting, does that mean I should not be allowed to enjoy whitetail hunting during the time between mid Sept and mid Nov and be relegated to only hunting deer for 9 days at the end of Nov just because I am trying to be a more responsible and ethical hunter/killer of game?
On the bigger picture of states having to shorten the general archery seasons due to extra kills by xbow users, maybe the state DNR's need to look into the many other options of decreasing the overall kill to meet their harvest objectives. I know in WI, even though I do not currently archery hunt, I would be behind the DNR closing all the extra "specialty" mini-season gun hunts(like the 4 day antlerless only gun hunts), before I would support an early closure of the general archery seasons. If the extra xbow kill makes it necessary to decrease harvests in other areas, they have those opportunities to eliminate some of the overall kill by taking away seasons that were only put into play to increase the kill in the first place. Maybe not every state has these choices, but many of them do and that is where they should be looking first. On the topic of Ohio, don't they have some odd seasons that were added just to increase the hunter opportunity to strictly increase kill numbers? I seem to remember something about a "straight-walled cartridge" specialty season or some such thing, that could be done away with to make up for some of the extra kill. They call it "primitive weapons season" in some states, but there is absolutely nothing primitive about a .45-70 Govt. shooting smokeless powder-propelled jacketed hunting bullets through a modern lever action rifle. If you want to use them, do it during the regular gun seasons, there should be no extra season for those types of weapons if the deer numbers are stable or need rebuilding. Of course xbows could be looked at in the same light, a "special" weapon season that was used to curb increasing herd numbers, but it runs concurrent with another season(archery) and a percentage of those xbow kills would still take place even if xbows were not legal, just with vertical equipment instead. Obviously there are many pros and cons to the xbow debate, and the state DNR's have many options to curb the extra kill numbers provided by xbow use, it is what each individual state decides to do with those options that will make xbow use a legitimate player or a thorn in the side for many hunters.
