Good point in terms of your individual experience in your area. But what about the folks who want to hunt with a crossbow on land they own or lease. What about folks who hunt in less crowded public areas and where there may not be any significant increase in hunters? I would imagine that when all the bow hunters starting hitting the woods back in the 60s and 70s, that a lot of small game hunters, etc. felt crowded too.

No offense to you, but folks who must have complete solitude in the woods really need to buy or lease some land. Don't think that public access land was ever intended to give every deer hunter out there hundreds of acres of elbow room.

If hunting pressure is that big of an issue, i would think that folks would want to join forces to try to expand public access hunting ground instead of fighting each other.

LCC
Because of the crowds I did get the courage up to ask for permission on some local farmsand didgain access to two.One is very promising. I posted last year about the monster I saw on Halloween. The other is so so. I hope to have more this year. Cross bows, on private land I have no problem. For the truly handicap,again no problem. As to their impact on the herd, I do not know. What I do know is that the sudden crowding of the woods in archery seasoncan be directly attributed to them and that is what bothers me the most.

Sounds like knocking on doors has paid off for you. That's the only way I could hunt where i grew up, until i bought some land a few years ago. I'm closing the deal on another small piece this week.

Matt, think BBVA summed it up pretty well, but in my case, I lived in Pa [Lancaster, Mountville] for 5 years in the 80's. Still have friends there and would hunt w/ xbow if/when legal. I also rifle hunted there, way up north, can't recall the names now, but if what I saw there at "deer camp", you guys have nothing to worry about as far as gun hunters w/ xbows. i used to get back there some going to a rendezvous out side of Lancaster, but since I blew a rotator cuff and can't shoot the smokepoles offhand any more I don't get there much. Probably another reason you see me on the xbow forums alot. Speaking of which, I've found over 20 of them so far and the number/names of new guys virtually daily tells me how the xbow movement is rolling like a snowball down hill. Have a good season!

In my opinion crossbows would definately add to the amount of hunters during archery . But , in my own experiance , they are no more effective that the current compound bows on the market today . I perfer not to see any added pressure in archery , but it is the muzzel loader guys who already screwed that up !

I don't really care if they do, actually I wish they could get there own season. All crossbow hunters can get the first three weeks of archery season. Extend archery season another two weeks past. All crossbow hunters can only hunt that time frame and then again after christmas.

Good deal, didn't realize you spent time in PA.......that's why I ask.

Here's the major problem with this thing and it has been alluded to. Even by yourself in your last post. PA is a very diverse state. We have 1,000,000 licensed hunters and the "Big Woods" or northern counties you remember from the 80's are NOTHING like they are today. The herd dynamic, habitat and people have shifted.

There simply are nowhere near the deer there used to be in the northern counties, the habitat has dictated that for them.
All one needs to do is check the harvest totals country by county since the 70's to present and you can see the unbelievable shift in harvest numbers and where the hunters and deer are.

In 1975 There were something like1000 total deer taken in my country(York) by ALL weapons. but 8,000 taken in a northern county like Potter..........TOday in 2008 they issue something along the lines of 51,000 ANTLERLESS tags just for my county (York)

The numbers have flipped and the deer are now concentrated in the lower counties where most of the development, posting and farmland is. I could get away from crowds in the those northern counties now too if I wanted to drive 4hrs to hike around and hopefully find the 6 deer per square mile where my camp is at $4.00 a gallon for gas.

You CANNOT get away from people here private or public land.

I keep hearing the argument that crossbows haven't negatively impacted any states where they are legal. I'm sorry Arkansas or Virginia or Ohio are NOT PA they cannot be compared.

The weapon is simply too easy to use effectively, it WILL change the harvest dynamic drmatically and we will see an influx of people taking it up. We've also been told that if it's adopted the season length will be reduced in the form of losing our Novemeber rut hunt.

WOuld it probably fit in some counties in PA where deer and hunter numbers are low? Probably.......we have a gigantic state forest system that ironically has the fewest number of deer.
The problem is the way this state works is that they will adopt something blindly because you have "Suits" making the decision and it will be jammed down the throats of guys like me who are in overpopulated areas that can't get away from even normal bowhunters. I do not even go NEAR the woods and farms around here in rifle season.
It is absolutely bananas.

Also many of the farms in the area that will grant you permission to hunt do so because they rifle hunt it only and do not bowhunt or have the time to learn how to shoot a bow. What happens to us now when the family figures out that a crossbow works a heck of a lot like they're favorite single shot rifle and they say "You know what the family and I have decided to hunt the bow season now ourselves since we can use crossbows so I'm sorry I can't allow you to hunt here anymore"

You guys think your fighting some fight you have knowledge of, and you might IN YOUR OWN STATE. You keep transposing that to PA and our available land mass to hunt, the number of hunters and the attitudes of those hunters do not compare.

Thi sisn't fear mongering it's facts:

We have 270,000 bowhunters now in PA, 1,000,000 total.
IF we pick up even 200,000 new crossbow hunters out of the remaining 630,000 hunters we've almost doubled the number of people looking for limited space in what is going to become a shorter season.

WHy would I be in favor of shortening what I already feel is too short of a season?

Listen I shoot all 3 types of weapons being discussed here, traditional, compound and crossbow and I'm speaking from experience (And I'm a national tournament winning archer) a crossbow is so much easier to shoot accurately for any level archer but for a novice or inexperienced archer it's not even funny. The accuracy potential in a short amount of time is simply staggering. There is no advantage to a compound over a crossbow I'm sorry there flat out is not.

The harvest in PA will shoot up like crazy, it's a fact........it will have to. we're not talking a couple guys here who decide ah heck lets give it a try, we're talking potentially hundreds of THOUSANDS of people.

These people will no longer have to wait for just the right chance to draw that bow, or get caught at full draw and have to let down spooking the animal. There's no comparison, they can just wait for an opening and shoot.

The yardages will be extended and the game will be easier to kill. I have over 40 deer killed with a bow to my name. Exactly 3 of them were killed over 30 yards with the furthest being 40. I can guarantee you I could easily and routinely kill deer at 50,60,70 yards or more with today's crossbows with little effort.
That's a fact..........I shoot them.

I keep hearing about how heavy, and comparable they are to today's compounds as far as energy and trajectory go? Hogwash. In a world where everyone wants the fastest and most powerful everything do you really think people aren't going to snatch up these new models doing 375,400fps etc with 400+gr bolts?
They simply shoot farther, easier and with very little inherent skill needed to get them on target.

I know I shoot them! DO you guys who shoot crossbows know what it takes from a compound shooter to shoot even 5" groups at 50 yards? That's UPPER END shooting and that's with target gear......the average guy with hunting gear will be lucky to shoot 8-10" groups at 50 yards.

I can do that at 100 yards with a crossbow simply by resting it on a bench like a rifle. Don't kid yourselves or try to kid us, the modern crossbow is a supremely capabale weapon in even mediocre hards.
The VERY first time I tried one. THE FIRST TIME I robinhooded my first shot with the 2nd at 30 yards offhand. I destroyed that bolt with the 3rd shot. The first time I picked one up I smashed 2 out of 3 bolts by hitting them together.

I don't know how I can say it without you guys hearing what you want and retaliating with the same "It won't make a bit of difference" argument.........PA is a screwed up place. It might work for 49 other states, I have no idea or stake in it so I simply don't care. IF guys in Virginia enjoy them awesome, glad it works.
I simply have ZERo confidence that it will cause nothing but problems here in PA.

We have the wrong population level, dispersal, attitudes and avaialble land mass to hunt. I don't see crossbows as evil, I really don't but I don't see them as being anything but a headache for the archery hunters of PA.

Matt,

We can argue this until we are blue in the face. But the simple fact of the matter is that no matter how unique you may feel PA to be, a few years from now folks will be citingyour stateas just another example of a state where the introduction of the crossbow has not been proven to have any significant adverse consequences. If the opposite happens and the deer hunting is totally ruined, you can come to Illinois and hunt on my land. The damn things are now a nuisance because some folks got their wish for anenormous deer population with only moderate hunting pressure.

Boy if nothing else I sure am longwinded.........

Lance seriously I think your gonna be wrong on this one. LOL There's already a reason why I am willing to pay $473 to come out to hunt IL now.

I don't see crossbows as ruining life as we know it here in PA, I see it as screwing it up further than what it already is.
Do you not see shortening the season as an "adverse consequence"? That's what is going to happen to PA if it's adopted statewide. The UBP fought for years and years to get bowseason extended into November so we can see what it's like to see a buck on it's feet in daylight hours.
IF we get crossbows statewide they're gonna take that back.........it's already been stated in black and white because they know the harvest is going to increase and to keep the harvest inline with management goals we'll lose days.
So while Illinois gets to bowhunt right on up to January? with a couple short breaks in between for shotgun season we will be putting our bows away for good before some IL guys even think about getting serious about bowhunting themselves.
Then we'll turn the rest of the deer management over to the 1,000,000 cenetrfire rifle hunters.

That's JUST ONE of the "adverse consequences" that WILL happen..........not MIGHT happen..........WILL happen.

Sorry that doesn't sit well with me.

Where do you hunt in Illinois