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Originally Posted by Mike Harr
Duly noted.
Almost 700K people have voted in the Outdoor Life poll with a whopping 76% voting no for crossbows!!
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That OL poll is a meaningless farce.
Someone, presumably an LSBA member, emailed me with several questions. The questions and my answers appear below. I would be interested in reading the responses of other LSBA members to my position.
Don Zaidle
Editor-in-Chief
Texas Fish & Game magazine
"Can you please explain your logic to me regarding crossbows in the archery season?"
There is no valid reason to *not* use crossbows during the archery season. Effective range and "killing power" are the same. Stealth requirements are the same. Success/harvest/kill rates are the same. The only arguments are philosophical or, in some cases, religious. Read carefully the rhetoric of "dedicated" bowhunters and you will find it amounts to a belief system that invokes terms like "morals" and "ethics" and "creed" (your word). Many bowhunters (including Ted Nugent) liken bowhunting to a "spiritual experience," which no doubt it is to many, and that is fine. However, when you start trying to impose your belief system/religion on others by weight of law, that is just plain wrong. If you want to have a religious experience in the woods, that's fine, too--until you start trying to exclude others from the "cathedral" because they do not adhere to your belief system. The "cathedral" belongs to all the people of Texas, not just "dedicated" bowhunters.
"Don is not a bowhunter."
Back when I had the time to devote to it, I was the most dedicated bowhunter you can possibly imagine. I eschewed even sights (on a compound), let alone mechanical releases, stabilizers, and other gadgetry. I practiced daily; I had calluses between my right index and ring fingers despite the three-fingered glove. I still-hunted, and hunted (occasionally) from treestands. I spent hundreds of hours each year performing pre-season scouting, scent-proofing my hunting gear/clothes, tuning my bow, practicing with field points and broadheads, sharpening my broadheads (I used only solid one-piece heads as the most reliable and unlikely to break or otherwise fail on striking bone), reading everything I could find about the art and science of bowhunting (Chuck Adams was my hero), et cetera ad nauseum. I once even went so far as to eat a strict vegetarian diet for two weeks prior to the opening of bow season to test the theory that not consuming meat changes ones scent signature to that of a herbivore rather than a carnivore, hence reducing the risk of betrayal by scent. Anybody who claims "Don is not a bowhunter" is either ignorant, a liar, or just plain full of the stuff I used to step in intentionally to help mask my scent signature when walking to my blind. I stopped bowhunting because I no longer had the time to dedicate to practice and keeping my gear in top shape, and therefore felt it improper to continue bowhunting. Does that not suggest a higher ethic on my part--perhaps the ethic of a "true" bowhunter?
"...he will never understand a bowhunter or the creed they have or their lifelong commitment to the inherent challenges of archery."
I understand all too well. See previous paragraph. As for the "lifelong commitment"--so what? Why should that preclude the use of crossbows during the archery season? How would someone hunting with a crossbow impact that "lifelong commitment"? Is it that the crossbow hunter is perceived as not as committed or dedicated? Even if true, I again ask, so what? Is it perhaps because the bowhunter with the "lifelong commitment" feels as if a crossbow-wielding "heretic" has entered his cathedral and desecrated it?
"Bowhunting is a heritage with a self funded season from the beginning and bowhunter's are not willing to let that go..."
Nobody is asking anybody to "let go" of anything. All I am asking is to allow more hunter participation (a good thing) which yields more license sales (also a good thing) and stop with the elitist b.s. manifested as exclusionary bigotry based on a person's hunting arm of choice. *Nothing* would change except you might--*might*--see a few hunters sitting in treestands with crossbows in their laps. Further, almost all hunting in Texas is on private land. Let's say I have a season lease that only my family and I hunt. Who would be affected if my family and I hunt that lease during archery season with crossbows? I am not sure what you mean by "self funded," but a crossbow hunter buys the same license, pays the same Pittman-Robertson taxes on his gear, and in every other conceivable way "funds" his participation exactly as a "conventional" bowhunter.
"... Don sees it as fighting amongst a group..."
Which is precisely what it is, and it is damaging to hunting in general. It feeds the anti-hunting machine (antis love nothing more than hunters attacking hunters--divide and conquer, and all that; and when a hunter attacks another hunter's method or philosophy, is that not itself anti-hunting?). It is especially maddening when the fighting is over something as insipid and trivial as using crossbows during archery season: a crossbow uses energy stored in a flexible bow to propel an arrow--it's a friggin' bow! It is mounted to a stock and has a trigger. Big deal. Most "traditional" bows have intricate cable and pulley systems, glow-in-the-dusk sights, a mechanical release--with a *trigger*, no less!--a stabilizer, string peep, any one of a variety of technologically advanced rests, and hurls arrows made of space-age materials tipped with laser-cut or complex mechanical broadheads. Please do not give me the "traditional" argument unless you shoot a longbow and flint-tipped wooden arrows.
"...but what if archer's went out and petitioned to have a shorter rifle season for a longer archery only season." Is anybody doing that? Of course not. That is a silly straw-man argument irrelevant to the issue. And if anyone *did* propose that, I would call them elitist SOBs and fight them tooth and nail. I would also fight any proposal to shorten or otherwise curtail the bow (or any other) season for *any* reason other than as a temporary measure for protection of the resource.
"...fear that more uneducated hunters will be in the field shooting a weapon much more lethal at much higher distances."
On what is the fear of "uneducated" hunters based? Uneducated/neophyte hunters are everywhere using all kinds of hunting arms--including "conventional" bows. To propose that crossbow hunters are inherently "uneducated" is prejudicial and bigoted. Further, crossbows are *not* "much more lethal" nor capable of "much higher distances" relative to a compound. Compared to a longbow, yes, but not to a compound. And even if the crossbow was "much more lethal," why is that a bad thing? Would not that enhanced lethality reduce the crippling shots you say are among the fears of bowhunters about crossbows?
"...unpracticed hunters in the field not knowing shot placement etc..."
Again, why the prejudicial assumption that crossbow hunters do not practice or know about game anatomy and shot placement? Does the same assumption apply to rifle, handgun, and black powder hunters? If so, why does the bowhunting community not publicly and openly castigate "unpracticed" rifle/handgun/black powder hunters? To fail to do so is hypocrisy.
"...we side the way the majority of our constituency feels based on polls."
What polls? Please cite a legitimate poll. Internet polls do not count because they are 100 percent meaningless. Witness the Outdoor Life "poll" that initiated this discussion: An anti-crossbowite sent out a mass-delivery email encouraging recipients to artificially inflate the OL poll in opposition to crossbows. Please cite a legitimate poll of the general hunting population, not just bowhunters--and most certainly not just LSBA members. After you do that, I will cite credible polls that refute everything your poll supports. In other words, polls are mostly meaningless.
Leopold:
X-bow poll
My biggest concern is that it would have been a stepping stone law. If cross bows are legal then why not muzzle loaders. If muzzle loaders are legal then why not pistols and on and on. As far as I'm concerned I would have been embarrassed if we had not stood against this threat to bow hunting. The elitist title every one throws about does not bother me at all. I can live with that title, I have been called much worst :twisted:
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