It's not that big of a deal. Bow season here is only a month long. Less than that if you are scared to go out on the final weekend of bow season, because it just happens to be concurrent with the youth rifle season.[:-] (Which was probably the stupidist idea ever to spring forth from the mental invalids at Texas Parks and Wildlife.) Bowhunters were lucky to have limited that to only the last weekend. The original proposal was for EACH weekend of bow season to be youth rifle season.

Frankly, it's not going to be much of a 'victory' for anybody, whichever way it turns out, because I'm sure October is going to be incorporated into the general season in the not too distant future. Too much money from the big game ranches are pushing the TPWD commission in that direction.

Just to muddy the waters some... I'm a member of an all traditional archery club. Since my shoulders don't let me shoot a bow any longer, I take my homemade replica midieval crossbow to shoot. It's gone to every tournament our club has put on for the past couple of years, even a couple of sanctioned Traditional Bowhunters of Texas tournaments. No class for it, certainly, but they have no problem with me shooting for kicks and giggles.

I've not gotten even one negative comment about it. Quite the contrary. There is always a great deal of interest and always a few people wanting to try it out.