interesting story for NY hunters....
 

TIMES HERALD RECORD July 13th 2010




Get recordonline.com Mobile Tuesday, July 13, 2010 76°
For the first time in decades, we may finally have the opportunity to legally use crossbows to hunt big game in New York.

In June, the Senate and the Assembly passed a bill that would give hunters in our state another hunting weapon to use. It still needs the governor's signature to become law, but before we celebrate what is clearly a step in the right direction, there's some bad news, too. It comes from the legislative efforts of a small body of well-organized bow hunters known as New York Bowhunters Inc.

For years, this group has fought against any crossbow use, arguing that the crossbow is not a bow. Instead, they say, it's rifle and could only be used during rifle season, if it was legalized. You can thank this merry band of hunters that have seen to it that you and I can't use a crossbow during the regular archery season.

For sure, the group does a lot of great work with our youth and veterans during the year.

It is for anything, as long as it isn't deemed by the group as a threat to the regular and late archery seasons. I might remind you that New York Bowhunters adamantly opposed a state Department of Environmental Conversation proposal several years ago that would have allowed a special "youth only" gun hunt the weekend prior to gun season opening. Kids encroaching on "our" archery season? Never, said the New York Bowhunters. And so it didn't happen.

They are for our youth as along as the youngsters don't encroach upon the sacred territory of the regular archery season.

We have special youth only weekend hunts for ducks, pheasants and turkeys, but not big game, thanks to the work of groups like New York Bowhunters. All this noise from a group that has at most, 4,000 members statewide.

So while many of us are happy to at least make the crossbow legal in broader applications in our state, we have more work to do. Overcoming the demands of the New York Bowhunters and allowing crossbows in the regular archery seasons is next.

David Dirks' outdoors column appears weekly. Contact him through his Web site, www.dirksoutdoors.com, or write P.O. Box 87, Westtown, NY 10998.

This properly belongs in the Xgun section below, not in bow hunting.

:confused: if there is a string that launches an arrow/bolt then its archery. not hard to figure out.:s5: