CoyotePup

Cross bows are great ... buy an excalabur !

kevin1

Crossbows rock !
I love mine .

1shot*1kill

This is probably the most controversal subject you can bring up. I will give you both sides of my story. I grew up hunting in Iowa in the 50's. Shot all forms of game from squirrels to deer, using the legal weapons at that time - .22 or shotgun. As I got older and spent many years in the army as a weapons expert, I moved on to other game - if you get the meaning. All the way up to 50 cal., crew served 105 cannons and M1 tank with 120mm cannon in the Gulf war period. Shortly after getting out after Desert Storm, I was diagnosed with Muscular Distrophy. A real bummer because even though I had a reconstructed left shoulder, I was an avid bow hunting, using up to a 45lb compound. Then it went down hill very quickly from there. Now I shoot exclusively with a crossbow and only at deer & turkey.

So what do I think about the issue? Crossbows do not shoot an arrow any further nor more accurately than my compound did. It's all in the "eye" of the holder, to paraphrase an old saying. Should they have their own season or be lumped in with high power or shotguns? Definitely NO. No one else should be in the woods when gunpowder powered projectiles are being used. It's just too dangerous. We as arrow hunters use much more stealth, camouflage and scent/noise control than do the majority of gun hunters. This on top of the having to wear blaze orange only points out the fact that we HUNT differnet than do gun hunters, we have far less projectile penetration into the woods and can usually see way beyond the impact area of the arrow. Most guns could easily shoot almost 1500 yards if shot at the right angle, shotguns a couple hundreds at the right angle, but we arrow hunters shoot way less than that. We as hunters need to promote all forms of hunting but done SAFELY. Would you go for moving the bow season into the firearms season? Why? Worried about your safety? Then why do any less for the otherside of the arrow equation? Let's work toward getting more people hunting so land use rights aren't the norm but an exception. The more hunting public we have the more our public lands are going to be made available for hunting. Here in the east it is becoming harder and harder to find places to hunt. Why? Because the animal rightest have a very large percentage of the population, if hunters had their number of the population we would still be hunting on all public lands.

So this is what I think. I'll let you hunt on my land with any legal weapon for the season if you will let me do the same. And let's both go out of our way to make each and every hunter have the seasons they want, to hunt the way they want, with the weapon of their choice. If we don't, the others out there will continue to take away our rights and our land use, thats for sure. So why should we bicker and fight about bow vs. crossbow vs. season? There's more deer now than ever before so they say, so lets get more people hunting.

teamster284

if they are legal then use them i say. in ohio they are legal and most hunters i know use them. not anymore acurate than a compound and they dont have any more range so whats the big deal.

dep214

i ,like a few others, do not understand why the people dislike crossbows during archery season. they have less distance and are not as accurate.we put that to a test this weekend.the compound bow out shot the crossbow.when we moved back to 30 yards the crossbow was all over the target.another thing is about a seperate season.they never tell you why.i assure you a compound has many more gizmos on it than a crossbow.you will not see the compound people taking off all those gizmos.the bolt on a crossbow is allot shorter than a compound.a compound can shoot many more different broadheads than a crossbow.with all this said what is the problem?we never get a straight answer. what you always here is that it has a trigger.what do the compounders use to release the arrow?not all crossbows have scopes. they have sight pens just like the compounds.sure it is cocked. do they think you can draw back 175 lbs?i wish for once the compounders would give a reason that is not bs.

mattisbob

i have one and i like to play with it but i will never go hunting with it

PABowhntr

I do not have as big a problem with them as much as some of the other PA hunters that I know. . If the PGC passes the new crossbow measure in April then I will be buying one to use during the after Christmas muzzleloader hunt.