just to state my own personal feelings about the subjects being discussed:

I am only in favor of fair chase hunting ....period.

I am totally against canned hunting and my reasons are that it doesn't reflect on the hunting tradition and heritage aspect well and is certainly not fair chase.

I do consider a crossbow a type of bow not a gun.

I am in favor of using a crossbow during bow season but like the way they deal with here in Vermont. A person who wants to hunt with one needs to get a script from a doctor saying they aren't in good enough condition to draw a conventional or compound bow. Side note the crossbow has become a favorite tool for the deer poachers around here. It is quiet, deadly and can be shot out the window of a truck.

Personally speaking I would like to see a more traditional value set on hunting. I liked it much better when permission to hunt private land could be gained by a handshake not an exchange of money. Hunting has become big business and the proliferation of game farms with their canned hunts has made inroads into what hunting really means. In addition, the spread of CWD and other medical problems with the wild deer, moose and elk herds have been made worse by game farms. I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone other than greedy landowners and people with more money than brains looking for a shortcut would ever want to kill an animal behind a fence and call it a hunt.

Champlain...I have to disagree with the poaching and xbow. This has been another one of the rumors spread. Im sure it's happed before but it's simply not a rampid problem. If someone would want to use it like that there isn't anything to stop them if they are legal or not. Poaching is another issue all together. It's like some that blame our telecheck system for making it easy on someone not tagging a deer. An outlaw is not made by a weapon or a system but by the belief system and morals they have.

I have no problems with someone who can not use a bow using one.(most are injured bowhunters that go back to thier bow if/when healed)
So lets look at it this way,a muzzleloader is a gun right! lets see it has a steel tube with rifling,uses gunpowder shoots a bullet! looks like a gun,shoots like a gun must be a gun right?
So if a muzzleloader is a gun Why do we have special seasons for them? My.270,30.06 my AK and the rest of my rifles are guns too, so should we be allowed to use them in muzzleloader season? I think not and WHY? because they do not load from the muzzle!
Just as your xbow although shooting an arrow is not drawn,held and released by HAND to launch the arrow!!
Its like this you want to use xbow fine,but they should have thier own season even if only a few days,not substituted for something thier not!
If we start arguing for the right to substitute weapons for what ever reason in different season,then BC is 100% right, we should have a season that is weapon of choice.
__________________

Do you have any issue with someone using a compound bow when they are physically able to shoot a longbow or recurve? They are both bows. Why should we let people use a compound when they don't need to unless they are hurt?

The xbow does have it's own season...just so happens it overlaps bow season more now. They had the season lengthened. So why is this substitute ? You can use the bow in bow season and they can use the xbow in xbow season.

I am not arguing with you. I agree it isn't the crossbow it is the poacher. My point was not to discredit the method but to merely point out it is made to order for the poacher's devious intent. In the old days reports of a gun shot after dark would usually get a warden called. They seldom used a bow because it required them to get out of the vehicle and the range of the early bows weren't what the modern compound or crossbow is today. I have shot in a few bow shoots and they often had crossbow classes. Pretty deadly weapon when properly set up and used. The wardens are now finding lots of xbow bolts on people's lawns and fields. My point was that the poachers are liking the silent aspect of a xbow and the fact that they can roll down the window and quietly take an easy 50-70 yd shot.

Your nuts!
Injury is not the why someone shoots a compound.If you feel that way then lets outlaw the xbow altogether for everyone, because if your hurt you can use a compound!
Improvement is not evolution!
longbow to recurve to compound are improvements on the same design!
The xbow is the evolution of the bow into something new altogether.

I kind of equate the crossbow/ compound bow/ and trad bow issue with Muzzleloaders. Early ML seasons were made to allow primitive weapons to be used for game. That often meant a round ball, pillow ticking and loose powder with iron sights and usually fired by a flit. Then the ML guns got a bit more sophisticated and percussion caps came along, then inlines, then black powder pellets, sabots and scopes. Today’s modern ML can easily shoot accurately for hundreds of yards as opposed to older technology which had some accurate guns but for the most part they weren’t good for much more than 100yds. Some states keep the requirement to use early technology for ML season. Here in Vt we can use anything we want providing it loads from the barrel and is single shot. I have 2 ML. One semi primitive 54 cal with #11 caps, loose powder, iron sights and shoots maxi balls. The other is a modern 50 cal and is a tack driver with all the newer bells and whistles. I use them both and look forward to a future hunt out west using the 54 since the inline with scope, sabots and powder pellets isn’t allowed. To be honest when we were only allowed to use the older stuff it was more fun and a lot harder to score. My TC ML is just as accurate as any of my rifles. So getting back to my point I kind of consider the xbow like the latest ML. Something beyond where the initial vision was for the weapon and season. I am not against progress but do enjoy the older times when it was a lot less complicated.

You said that someone shouldnt use a xbow unless they are hurt so why not do the same for a bow? You said if someone is able to pull back a bow then thats what they should have to use.

The compound bow is nothing like a stickbow as far as ease of use. You want to talk about dedication then thats it. A compound user doesnt have to work nearly as hard as a longboy guy does. There are compounds with up to 99% letoff now with most being 75 or 80 %.

Why do you have a problem with one group having it easier but not another?

How popular would bow hunting be if not for the compound? I'll tell you...not very. The compound did great thing fro the sport so why not allow others the same oppertunity? Many guys in the old days were not happy to see the compound just as you are not with the xbow.

P&Y had a rule of no bow over 65% letoff could be in the record book. Now they have changed that rule because everyone was going to high letoff bows.... so they had to change or stand being left with little following.

We can't always look at the past as a way to run the future. I doubt the xbow will distroy the sport so relax and enjoy your time in the woods.

Why not facyor in real numbers from 20 years of 10's of thousands of hunter's in the field?
Might shoot holes in limited personal experiances?

Let me tell you a little tip. Rarely in life will you find anything on the internet no matter if its about politics, or product reviews, or about arrowgun hunting, that doesn't have some sort of spin or bias. I know you believe all thats on the internet, but I hate to break it to you.

But unlike you who can be swayed like a blade of grass from a poll on an internet forum, I can trust myself and my own observations.