RE: NYS bow hunting license
well there are some definitely strong opinions here. I took the class last year, I had licenses in three states - all three required it. I thought it overlapped the Hunter Safety Course a bit, but personally, I found it more applicable since I only intend to Bowhunt, if they could combine both courses and you add a few hours for bow hunting specifically for those interested, that could reduce the # of hours, but all in all, it was a good course and there were several seasoned hunters in the class that really claimed to get a lot out of it. I was new and took both classes back to back. One last thing, perhaps you all just had a poor environmentset-up for the class, we spent a lot of hands on time, including 3D target shooting (why wouldnt you want to spend more time shooting?) and doing actual tracking as well as tree stand safety & set-up. If you havent used them before the class helped.