Okay I'll be the bad guy and confess to my reasons I still oppose their inclusion in bow season.

First ask yourself this; why do we have primitive weapons seasons? Any and all game management goals could be met just by using gun seasons. Want more animals killed? Lengthen the season, increase bag limits, or issue more gun tags. Want less killed then do the opposite. So what is the purpose of a particular season like muzzleloader or bow season? To me those seasons exist to promote the use of a particular weapon so that the skills associated with it will not fade from our collective consciousness. Want to be able to kill an extra deer or hunt a few extra weeks then the price of that option is to learn to use a bow or a muzzleloader. You get more hunting time and that weapons use is preserved in our society.

Now comes crossbows being dumped into bow season. Anytime you give people an easier option they will take it. Oh sure there won't be much of an immediate effect because all the older hands like myself who already have bows and know how to shoot them aren't likely to undergo the unnecessary added expense of buying a crossbow and decking it out with everything needed to make it woods ready when we already have a bow. But what about the young kids? All they want here in Alabama now is a crossbow. Why? Simple, it's easier. Why learn to shoot a bow with proper form; worry about learning to tuning a bow; fuss with over or under spined arrows; get busted trying to draw on a deer under your tree; be handicapped by a short draw length; etc, etc. Just get a crossbow. Minutes to master with no effort on your part and bow season is all yours.

It's the same dumbing down of America you see across the board. Don't demand that our kids study harder to get the national grade average up, just make the tests easier. That will get the scores up too. End result is the same right? LOL! God help us.

And in that same vein lets discuss what was at the root of the crossbow push in this country. MONEY!!! Ding! Ding! Ding!
There was no grass roots crossbow movement. No crowd of people clamoring for crossbows. Handicapped people could already use them. This will not get anyone into hunting that wasn't at least already gun hunting. It wasn't for the children. This was a push purely by crossbow companies and associated businesses that stand to profit from the inclusion of crossbows in bow season. Crossbow companies dream of selling one to every gun hunter in America and outfitters dream of being able to sell archery season hunts to thousands of gun hunters that heretofore could not master a bow. So they bribed state game commissions to open the door for them to make big profits. End of list.

If national crossbow advocates, and I've never met one that didn't stand to profit off them somehow, want a season then give them a separate one. But don't take the season that others have fought so hard for.