I am planning on taking someone hunting for their first time on Saturday. Small game season is open, so I'll be taking a bolt action .22 rifle.

I would also like to carry my bow - archery deer season is open but deer rifle season isn't (also would be illegal with the .22 anyway). The way I see it, its 2 people, 2 weapons, 2 different game animals. The fact that we are walking and/or sitting together shouldn't make either of us illegal.

Additionally, there is a very slim chance of me taking a deer. If we get stopped by a game warden, I'm just going to say we are squirrel hunting for simplicity sake. Squirrel hunting with a bow is legal.

However, lets say the nearly impossible happens and I take a deer and we get stopped with the bow, the rifle, and the deer all in our possession at the same time. Is he going to be considered illegal?

I think just to play it on the safe side, if the nearly impossible happens we will just walk back to the truck and put the rifle up before we retreive the deer.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I would be careful with that one buddy. Depending on how the game warden see's the situation you could get in hot water. I know in maryland you can not have a firearm while bowhunting. It would be in my opinion easy enough for the game warden to make a case for that if you and your buddy are together.

Dave

Dave, thanks for the input.

In Virginia it is illegal to carry a firearm during bow season if deer hunting.

Lets take the deer out of the equation. There is nothing that I have found preventing us from having a bow and a gun if we are squirrel hunting. Squirrel season is in. To me this indicates that as long as we do not have a deer in our possession we are 100% legal.

I would do it. 22 is a 22. If you was squirrel deer hunting with a 22-250 loaded with 60gr partitions, well, thats a different story. Some wardens are POS. But most I have met up with have commen sense. A hunting friend of mine gets stopped once in a while with obsidian points. MD specifies metal points for deer. Most wardens just think its cool. Common sense prevails.

Not a good idear IMO.

Just be careful either way....I can't imagine a night in jail and hefty fines are worth trying to push a grey area situation.

VA has some very good game wardens that exercise great judgement and are truely happy to see people enjoying the outdoors responsibly.

We also have some young gun hot shots who think they are members of the LAPD SWAT. There was a ticket written near Maidens landing last year to a man in a canoe by himself paddling. Naturally, as he was by himself, he was sitting in the front of the boat, turned backwards to put himself more in the middle. The game warden.... standing at the take out.... noticed his registration sticker (required for any sort of motor... including electric trolling motors) was on the back of the boat (which was really the bow... but looked like the stern because the boat was reversed.... and remember... it wasn't under power). The ticket was written for not having the boat registration tag on the front 1/3 of the boat. Even though it was, and even though a tag was not required in this situation. It would be like being written a ticket for not having a license plate on a rusted junk car you were towing on a flat bed trailer.

I've seen them write parking tickets to women in front of church on sunday mornings who were dropping off their elderly fathers. Written tickets to people for wearing the 'wrong shade' of blaze orange. A Coastie wrote my father and his fishing buddy a warning ticket because he 'didn't like the style' of their USCG CLASS I PFDs!!!

The point of all this is that game laws in VA are largely up to the discretion of the warden. If a warden wanted to roast your buddy for deer hunting out of season, without orange, with an innappropriate firearm... he could do it. It would take brass balls and a retarded sense of logic.... but it could be done. If you killed a deer... it wouldn't take much to determine which weapon was used.... but I've seen some twisted logic applied... and while justice has ALWAYS in every case I listed above prevailed (one of those wardens was reassigned and another written a formal repremand for gross poor judgement), it is still a major pain in the butt.

By the letter of the law.. you are totally legal by the way. With a bow in hand... you can tell the game warden you are hunting whatever is in season... all your buddy has to do is say he is hunting small game. Nuff said.