[Beleg]

Not allowing guns during the Special Archery Only season is important to the success of many bowhunters. Bowhunters need deer as relaxed as possible to make clean kill shots. Once the guns come out deer tend to become nervous decreasing bowhunter’s odds. Smaller acreage leases can't insulate themselves from the noise of the guns. I don't think TPWD Commission understands this. The Special Archery Only season is important to many bowhunter’s success. I hope to have the chance to explain it to them.

Texas is experiencing rapid growth. Large ranches are being broken up (land fragmentation), urban sprawl is continuing, and population is expanding especially in the Dallas-San Antonio-Houston triangle. Gun hunting leases are getting more and more expensive and many hunters are being squeezed out. Bowhunting is done at short ranges and can be experienced safely on smaller acreage even in urban settings. TPWD should be doing all it can to encourage bowhunting as a way to increase hunter numbers. Bowhunting may even be a way to keep gun hunters buying licenses that have been priced out of the lease market. The Archery Only Season is a great asset to TPWD, not a liability or the province of “special interests”. The Commissioners should be our best allies, not our opponents! Bowhunting has more growth potential than gun hunting in the long run.

The LSBA is doing more than most organizations to promote youth hunting. We promote youth involvement in outdoor activities and bowhunting by sponsoring free youth archery ranges at events all over that attract thousands of kids and their families. We work in conjunction with TPWD on many of these youth archery ranges introducing urban kids to archery, bowhunting and other outdoor activities. This year we had youth bowhunts where only the kids hunt. We have group bowhunts where youth are encouraged to bowhunt with their parents and the kids hunt free. We give up many weekends a year and considerable out of pocket expense traveling to these free youth archery hunts and events. It isn’t unreasonable or selfish to want to maintain and preserve the Special Archery Only season. Bowhunters are not selfish and welcome youth and new bowhunters to our sport.

The Commission should be seeking out bowhunters asking what the Commission can do to help us introduce youth and adults to archery and bowhunting. What are they thinking?