Buck Huntin Girl

Indiana is bow/shotgun/muzzleloader No rifles here.

r33h

I am in Texas, and there is a bow only season for one month, then there is general season for the next two. During the general season, you can use anything. I haven't ever hunted deer with a shotgun...I either use a rifle or a bow. I guess that it is this way becuase there is a lot of wide open land in Texas (Texas has a ranch, the King Ranch, that is bigger than the state of Rhode Island), so rifles are allowed a lot more. I really have no clue why the set up the regulations the way they did. I personally like the bow / shotgun only idea. You can see a big, big difference in the way the deer act when the rifle hunters enter the woods!

il coyote

I always assumed that the reason for IL being shotgun only was because of the flat openess and the high number of rural residences.

Killer_Primate

In Virginia the terrain/population determines what weapons are allowed, but we have a wide variety of landscapes. Shotgun and bow only on the coastal plains. Muzzle loader and rifle begin to appear on the western side of the piedmont. Anything goes in the mountains.

bowhuntn87

Where i live in iowa, there is 2 shotgun season, a bow season, and 2 muzzleloader seasons. No rifle season yet, but they are starting in the southern counties i think. I'm not sure why, maybe for safety reasons. There is a TON of guys that go out for shotgun seasons.

sk74ford

I hunt in Indiana and we don't have a rifle season. We have early bow, then shotgun. A couple weeks after that we have about a week of muzzleloader, then late archery. I think we don't have a rifle season is because their are a lot of hunters out there and it is a matter of safety. Rifles can shoot a lot farther and during the season many hunters are in the woods. Shotguns also make it more challenging. You have to be within 100 yards to get one with a shotgun. A rifle is to easy because you can takea deer at 400 yards and sometimes farther. I mainly hunt with my bow but our shotgun season is only 2 and a half weeks long. So you have more opportunities with a bow.

The Deer Destroyer

Ohio is a bow and shotgun season only because we all know that rifles are the cheapest way to hunt deer. I'm glad I didn't get raised in a state that allowed rifle hunting and that's what I hunted with. I love bow hunting, and that's what I'm going to always do.

huntingson

I only hunt with bow, althoughI used to black powder with a Hawken .50 that I built. Well, built from a kit I should say. I think it is no rifle because the hillbillies shoot enough of each other in shotgun season. A rifle would just make it worse. I am not calling gun hunters hillbillies, just the ignorant ones who shoot at twitching bushes or anything that moves. It is actaully scary how many people shoot each other every year here.

justhunt

IL is shotgun only. One would deduce it's because of the population (people not deer). But, you can hunt varmints with a centerfire rifle so there goes that logic.

Western MA Hunter

Because Massachusetts is backwards!!!!