Originally Posted by Bob H in NH

Told you we were closer than you thought!

My ONLY consideration is the health of the herd to protect hunting for my children/grand chldren. There are several ways to adjust deer kill. Tags, as you point out will do so, so will changing either season length or changes to allow more hunting chances.

I am 100% for anything (well within reason) that allows more people the chance to hunt! All I am concerned about is with ANY change made, you want to be able to track the effect of the change. Simple as that. then if the effect is not what you wanted, or had side effects, you can adjust.

In the case of allowing crossbows, great. My guess is that this will increase participatoin which will increase deer kill. By tracking the weapon used, either via a tag, a season, or simply requiring the weapon used to be on the registration (we have requried registration), then you know if the deer kill changed by "x" and the only change made was "y". Then "y" caused "x". You'd probably have to track over multipel seasons to remove weather etc. variables.

If the "x" change resulted in a good "y" we are all set. If "x" caused a bad "y" or a side effect of "z" that overrules "y", then you know what to adjust.

So in your area, you say you want to increase the deer kill. Great. Add crossbows. Now did you increase the deer kill? If not, change tags, season length etc. If you increased it more than desired, you know it was the crossbows, so now decide what to change to reduce it a bit, that could be tags, season length or some article of any weapon.

the point would be, you make a change, see the effect of the change, and adjust.

If you add crossbows AND increase tag allocation, you don't have a solid understanding of what caused the change.