I do all of my hunting in MD and I was VERY disenheartened to hear MD is going to allow crossbows. I agree totally with Rack in that anyone who has wanted to take advantage of the achery season, has done so long ago. The only people that are going to take advantage of the crossbows in archery season are the gun hunters who don' t want to take the time, energy, and patience to learn archery. You can' t use the " archery numbers have been down, so crossbows will get more people involved" argument in MD, either. MD' s archery numbers have been strong and climbing for years now.

My biggest fear is the gunhunters who will now jump into the archery season with their crossbows. These are the guys from the cities who go out and buy their gear 2 days before the season, and then go out hunting. The same guys that don' t have respect for landowners, the game or the sport. The same guys who trespass.
The same guys that wound animals and give up the blood trail after 50 yards. I could go on and on.

I can' t tell you how many places I could hunt as a kid, but now can' t because some yahoo shot the landowners cows or broke his fence or wounded animals and let them lay or shot deer with a bow in the ham and the landowners wife saw the deer 2 weeks after the season with the arrow still in its' ham walking around.

This stuff is all real. All of this has happened in the past on land that I used to hunt. And none of these landowners allow ANY hunting because of it.

Go ahead and use your " we should all stick together as hunters" argument, but it won' t work on me. I love hunting, but I don' t consider some guy who buys his license and weapon 2 days before the season and wears his Mossy Oak with the tags still on it a hunter.

It' s guys like this that I can thank for losing my hunting land and probably eventually, my hunting rights.

See you all in the Frederick Watershed.


Slice