There are two big differences here. First, 90% were against the crossbow as opposed to a polled majority being in favor of AR/HR.

Second, there was NO science supporting EITHER side of the crossbow issue. It simply hadn't been studied. But there WAS plenty of accepted science to support AR/HR whether you now agree with it or not

Whoops! Forgot an important point. It was not just the UBP that opposed the xbow. It WAS 90% of all who chose to comment. Surely the UBP was well represented but not all those who wrote or called were from the UBP.

Agree BTB.

I read enough,both on past threads on this forum and the past two issues of the Outdoor News. Not all, but most responses from Crossbow users,is that they want the same rights as everyone else in archery season. The main thing they want is to be able to hunt the rut.They claim the recurve and compound users are being "greedy" and don't want competition for "their" big bucks. Lets just think about this for a minute. "IF" and I fully understand,there is a lot of unknowns with this "IF". If this crossbow thing takes off like wildfire. If the sales escalate to the point,that archery now becomes a glorified gun season, now what? Something has to change. The next and only change I see,is a shortened season. It would be the only way to resolve it. Then everybody looses. Again, I fully understand this so called "IF' is unknown at this time. But,no one can honestly say it won't happen either!

Do you think less deer would get shot if xbows had own season?
as for the xbow kills go way up question . Yes unfortionaly the archers have had the PRIVLEDGE. its not a right
All that should matter is it a archery equipment.
be like me saying you cant use a 06 because they could kill more
deer and i dont want gun season shorten. Would be BS

Can you produce the independent survey of PA hunters that showed 90% of hunters were against crossbows?

First, there was no accepted science to support ARs and the science to support HR was proven to be wrong. Second, the PGC had several years of data from the WMUs where crossbows were legal ,on which to base their decision.

There was no independent survey. the 90/10 against ratio was announced in the BOC meeting as the running total and stood undisputed in the meeting. No poll, just the real results as announced and agreed to buy the BOC members.

As for the AR/HR thing, lets please just leave it out of this crossbow thread. we both know we wont agree and it's not the point of this thead so lets not subject the members to yet another pissing match.

No I dont think less deer would be shot if xbows had their own season. It's just that if they had their own season and the kill goes way out of whack, it wouldn't be lumped in with other established weapons.

Whether it is or isnt archery equipment has been argued to death and both sides have valid points. It's truly neither and actually a bit of both.

I also agree with you that hunting is a privelege not a right for all of us.

As for shortening gun season, I dont believe we should do that either. I just wanted to point out that if the impact of the crossbow is too large, the crossbow is the only thing that should be restricted. Neither existing gun hunters nor vertical bowhunters should lose part of their season simply because a few BOC members acted against the wishes of 90% of the hunters who spoke out on the issue.

We should have eased the crossbow in the same way muzzleloaders were eased in. Remember that? The first muzzy season was on selected SGL's only for about 3 days. Ten they took off and the PGC expanded the season till around the early 80's when the muzzy kill began to compromize the control of the doe kill so they shortened the season for THAT NEW WEAPON. Things eventually sorted themselves out but in the meantime, no other hunters lost part of their season.

I guess I'm just saying that they are not like any other weapon and should simply be managed seperately till the true effect is known.

Their is a much bigger difference between long bows and recurves compared to compound bows , than compounds compared to crossbows. Should long bows and recurves have their separate season the last two weeks of archery season?

Now you're just being silly to fan the flames. Once again entering silly scenarios into an otherwise valid debate.

The compound bow has been legal for 35 or so years and the effectiveness and impact on the herd is well documented.
The impact that the crossbow will have in PA is an unknown. That is the difference.

It would have simply been wiser to treat the xbow as a seperate and weapon so that we could move forward on it with caution and intelligence.

That is true and the result has been archers in some WMUs are now harvesting 50% of the buck harvest before the rut and before rifle season and the PGC doesn't give a rip and hasn't reduced archery season. So what are you worried about.

Are you referring to the same kind of intelligence they used to justify ARs in SRAs? Intelligence is not a PGC strong point.

I WONDER...... if they even considered this idea: What if we had given xbow hunters THEIR OWN SPECIAL SEASON.....the week between archery and bear, when for no apparent reason (:s6:) there is never any deer season. There would be plenty of big bucks still chasing does so they could experience some rut action, and the week long season could then have been evaluated aftre the first year or even two, harvests tallied versus license sales to calculate success rates....then considered for full inclusion. Would have made a whole lotta sense to this armchair biologist. As well as provided additional hunting opportunity. Anyone ever wonder why they close archery down just as the rut is usually approaching its peak, and nothing but small game until bear opens the following Monday? I'm betting that would have been a prime time for a trial crossbow season. (Or even ML! hee, hee....)