MN bills introduced to allow crossbows during archery season.

[bwoods11]

The general attitude in my neighborhood is that there are plenty of opportunities to harvest deer and we don’t need expanded seasons. Most were not in favor of the expanded crossbow use and were not in favor of the early antlerless hunts.

Early antlerless season( and maybe even the youth hunt) seriously impede the bow season and the firearm harvest. We don’t like having early antlerless and youth at the same time. Just cancel the early antlerless all together.

Art.. I had email exchanges with my DNR area manager and he is still not on board with getting rid of the early doe season even after the harvest was down 18%!

He knows deer numbers are down ? I do not know what else he needs to determine the season is unnecessary!

Frustrating!

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Between this thread and Dawgs' thread about season regrets, it occurred to me crossbows could eventually help with herd management, and actually make some hunting better. There were several comments (myself included) that made the comment about not taking enough does in the early archery season or at all. If you watch a number of interviews with deer biologists, they unanimously recommend taking does early in the season for many of the reasons mentioned in the regrets thread. If crossbows are getting more people into early archery that would otherwise just be firearm hunting during the rut, maybe that means more does will be killed and the herd dynamics will be improved or maintained. This is certainly something we and our neighbors need to do a better job of in MO where we have too many deer. I know with the deer numbers being way down in MN this isn't quite as relevant, but I would think it might be in a year or two after this mild winter.

But if you look at a place like Kentucky where xbows have been legal and Missouri where they are just now legal, buck harvest still outweighs does. I don’t know that the weapon is changing mindsets

 

[Hoytvectrix]

But if you look at a place like Kentucky where xbows have been legal and Missouri where they are just now legal, buck harvest still outweighs does. I don’t know that the weapon is changing mindsets

I KNEW someone would mention this. I almost edited my post to include the same counter point about MO. I agree with you that the weapon alone doesn't change mindset. I think it really needs to be harped as a management tool, though. I just know of several people around us that try with the best intentions of waiting to harvest does that just don't get around to it.

 

[sandbur]

Art.. I had email exchanges with my DNR area manager and he is still not on board with getting rid of the early doe season even after the harvest was down 18%!

He knows deer numbers are down ? I do not know what else he needs to determine the season is unnecessary!

Frustrating!

I suspect the same from our manager.

Goal setting is supposed to be happening for our area right now, per the old schedule and I have seen nothing. Something is changing. I wonder if cwd has changed the state’s perspective or their plans.

Those early antlerless seasons are hard on the public land. Private owners can participate or not.

 

[omicron1792]

What I see with crossbow use is a fair bit of switching from compound to crossbow by experienced hunters for a number of reasons. I have not really seen an increase in the number of deer these folks kill with a crossbow - in fact - most end up killing fewer deer - as in my group of hunters. But, where I see a big increase in harvest is from new “bow hunters” - as in my grand daughters and wives who have not previously bow hunted. My grand daughters typically are killing deer with a crossbow before they are ten years old. New wives to the family are killing deer with a crossbow that they would have never even hunted if they had to use a compound. It is the new to archery that I see adding potentially an increase to total archery harvest. That said, in my state, there are still more compound deer kills than crossbow deer killed.

I take those new hunters joining our ranks as a positive!

 

[Skeeter]

I suspect the same from our manager.

Goal setting is supposed to be happening for our area right now, per the old schedule and I have seen nothing. Something is changing. I wonder if cwd has changed the state’s perspective or their plans.

Those early antlerless seasons are hard on the public land. Private owners can participate or not.

I don't hunt my land during the early antlerless season but most of my neighbors hunt theirs, so I still see the impact on my cameras. My thought has always been that early antlerless was made for putting more pressure on public ground.