Well if you are going to argue, you need to use what I say, now what you want to hear.
ORIGINAL: datamax
Bob H in NH if your archery season is that crowded, perhaps you need to start an intiative to ban compounds ?
Not crowded with hunters, just the deer herd needs to grow, so as they usually argue here for crossbows "to allow more people to hunt", this makes no sense, we need to kill less deer not more. In fact, historically for the last several years the largest increase in the deer kill has been muzzleloader hunters, this has skyrocketed. They get a 10 day season before general firearms season, and get more liberal doe allowances. Archers take I believe (couldn't find it for this year) less than 2K of these deer.
I bet 95% of your archery hunters are compound shooter are they not ? I looked and could not find what total percentage of your states deer harvest was gun killed and archery killed. Do you know ? My point is, most states from a harvest/management tool views shows archery kill a minimal impact. In states that they have a significant impact, its compound shooters doing the killing. So suggesting that a crossbow would be an impact like you suggest is merely pointing out the existing impact and subsequent problems that the compound bow presents, doesn't it ?
Overall statewide, all seasons NH runs around % success rate, we run around 80K hunters who take about 10K deer (using this years numbers) that's 12.5, I couldn't find the breakdown, but a "normal" archer success is around 5-7%. The states goals for the herd is to GROW it, so adding more weapons and more seasons is not the right answer. Statstically reducing the archery season won't matter, since we take relatively few, reducing the gun season/muzzleloader season would need to be done to make up for the increase, this wouldn't fly well with the NH hunters. I would assume a crossbow hunter to be as successfull as a compound hunter, maybe even less. So figure another 1600 deer killed on top of the 10K we already get and this will reduce a deer herd when it needs to grow, if our current kill rate is resulting in a steady to slowly declining herd, why add more to the kill?
Then you must be 100% against recurve and longbow shooters ? They do not hold near that kind of grouping.
I am not going to argue this with you, but no I don't consider a 3-5 inch group good enough to hunt, just ask my kids who will NOT bow hunt until they can hold inside 5 inches every time at 20 yards with a bow. As for traditional hunters, the ones I know that hunt with them will shoot 3-5 inch groups with them. I have one and won't hunt with it for just that reason. As a group, these folks are also more experienced hunters so less effected by things like buck fever. A typical in your yard 3-5 inch group will grow to 5-8 inches very quickly in the woods. i will conceed that if you can hold EVERY arrow at 20 yards INSIDE 5 inches, you are good to hunt AT 20 yards. But no larger than that.
30 minutes to accuracy vs 15 minutes ........... thats not huge at all.
READ what I said, crossbow shooters at 20 yards in 15 minutes SLAPPING SHAFTS together! HUGE DIFFERENCE from a 5 inch group to a 1 inch group.
A rifle takes that long to sight in. 3" groups with a rifle aint bad and you're expecting this of compounds ?
3 inch groups with a rifle, off a bench is horrible.
It seems that people use the " crossbow is easier " argument to validate banning them from archery season when compared to compounds. Yet when people say " compounds are easier " to validate banning them from archery season when compared to recurve/longbows it gets very quiet.
Can you explain that based on your views of accuracy between those weapons ?
I have never argued for them to be excluded based on accuracy. Never, I have pointed out they are much easier to get accurate quickly with over a compound, and you are right a compound is much quicker to get accurate with over a traditional bow.
I argue against crossbows for two reasons, one VERY valid in my state, one valid, in my opinion, anywhere:
- NH deer herd cannot handle another weapon added to the list. If they are looking to increase hunter participation (which NH has held fairly steady over the years) this will ONLY raise the kill, which will not be beneficial to the deer herd. Now IF we were in a state where they needed to take more deer, that removes this objection.
- Crossbow, in my opinion is NOT a bow. It is not hand drawn, its it not held at full draw by hand, it is not drawn in the presence of the animal. First two speak to the definition of a bow (actually we have laws against things like draw=loc etc, that keep a bow mechanically at/near full draw), the third goes to the primary difficulty in deer hunting. I was at a F&G meeting discussing cross bows when Mr. Horton from Horton crossbows said the reason he hunts with a crossbow is BECAUSE he got tired of the animals catching him drawing the bow! Well sorry, this is part of the game! I actually have no objection to crossbows, I just feel they belong in their own season, they are not archery. Of course, should they be added somewhere, at least here in NH adjustments need be made to reduce the kill in some other areas.
--Bob