tmontgo1, One reason for this is that there are so many more people that gun hunt than bow hunt. Another reason is the long bow season we have. bucks only gun season runs for 2 weeks. As for check in numbers, bow kills really pick up the first couple weeks of November when the rut hits.

First of all, I'm not a member of the NRA and I really don't think they have any buisness in this fight. That being said, If I was a land owner in one of the bowhunting only counties, I'd get all the help I could find if I wanted to gun hunt on my property. I hunt with a gun as well as a bow and it would suck for me to have to leave my property in my county to hunt in bucks only gun season. I think poaching in those counties might become a bigger problem if they allow rifles in. There's something about big antlers that bring out the criminal gene in some people....[8D] I was at the hunt show last weekend and was looking at the "Wall of Shame" at the DNR booth and most of the illegal kills were from those counties.