Well, PEAKRUT, you left things a little too wide open for me. I mean, what if someone wants to hunt with a machine gun? I'm not about to say he should be allowed to use it, just because MY choice of weapon happens to be legal for the season. [:-]

I vote yes because the preponderance of evidence shows that, even with the few functional differences between crossbows and compounds, those differences are moot. Hunter success statistics are practically identical for the two, hovering in the 35% range. Hunter success rates for traditional bowhunters are in the 12-15% range.

That's where overall bowhunter success rates were, some 30 years ago. Where there used to be an argument to be made against allowing crossbows, ever evolving compound technology has made the compound every bit the crossbow's equal in ease of use. So, with a slight amendment to his orignal statement, PEAKRUT's right on target. Nowadays, between the compound and crossbow, it SHOULD come down to hunter's choice.

Just as an aside, when looking at scores from 3D tournaments where crossbows are allowed, I've not once seen an instance where a crossbow shooter posted high score for the shoot. I've never even heard of such a thing happening.