Clubs against xbows

[chris4570]

After reading some of the posts, I had this realization: Bowhunters(well vert bowhunters) maybe our biggest threat to the continuation of hunting, with any firearm! What kind of mental picture do they paint for themselves when they think of people hunting with crossbows?

[mejt]

take a look at the ted nuge's home page, it has excaliburs as his fav crossbow, I guess he like them too!!
Mike

[DOXNUT]

The more ATTENTION we draw to this great sport, the more we all DIG the grave! We must ALL get along, and keep the Respect for both forms of archery and bowhunting.

[Lyn-X]

If ALL HUNTERS would STICK Together NOBODY could budge us. Never understood the separation. We all need to support all aspects Longbow; Compound Bow; X-Bow; Rifle, Shotgun; Pistol. Lynn

[franklinm]

I wish I new how to take a post off one forum and put it on another .
I was reading the( Georgia outdoors news forum) this morning , a gent had a post of lesson learned , What a good read , it explained how he had fought against compound bow`s and how sorry he was now , also how he had lost lot`s of friend`s in doing so .

[A.W]

I wish I new how to take a post off one forum and put it on another .

Just highlight the print, do a right click onit then copy. OR Right click the address and copy then paste it.

[Evan]

These guys are shooting themselves in the foot by alienating one archer against another. I bet most people who shoot crossbows also shoot traditional archery equipment. I certainly do, and enjoy both. Here is the situation I face. In Illinois I cannot hunt deer with a crossbow because I am not "physically disabled". However, I do not have (nor have I ever had throughout my life) the physical strength to pull any type of bow (longbow, recurve, or compound) of sufficient poundage to ethically hunt deer. This has left me completely out of the picture until that day when I am "disabled" enough in the view of the state of Illinois to obtain a crossbow permit (if that will ever happen). Is the situation in Illinois that different from Ohio, which has allowed crossbow hunting for everyone for quite some time? I don't think so, the politicians and political climate regarding use of the outdoors are just different.

Evan

[DJH]

This post should be entitled “Clubs with leaders against the crossbow”. Those groups that were listed in pope and young’s dramatic and anti-hunting decree were represented at the summit by the radical members of those organizations. Members who were not truthfully representing their membership, as a whole, but were serving their own personal agenda. The repercussion from their actions are biting them in the posterior in their home states as they scratch their misguided heads and ask themselves, “WHAT’S ARE OUR MEMBERS SO UPSET ABOUT?”

My home state of MN has a whopping 500 members (or at least they did before the leadership sold them out at the Missouri Summit) A large number of the members indicated to the leadership at their annual banquet that they supported the use of the crossbow, still their fearsome leaders turned their back on their members to kiss up to robed, hooded elitist leadership of p & y. Leadership that allowed attendance to their summit by invitation only (you can get a lot more done when you select only the attendees that agree with your anti-hunting philosophies and keep open-minded thought away).

So, we have several representatives attending the summit, signing p & y’s anti-hunting statement, while claiming to be the voice for the MN bowhunter. Full while, knowing a large portion of their active members support the crossbow and not knowing how the other 65,500 bowhunters in the state feel about the crossbow. Well, we already know how they feel about the MBI because they refuse to belong to the organization because of a big difference of opinion, thinking and philosophies. Truth of the matter is MBI doesn’t want to know what the majority if the bowhunters in MN think because most of them disagree with MBI, but they are not organized.

The same tragic story is going on in Wisconsin. Their organization is shrinking because of the radical leadership claiming to be their voice when what they voice is the opposite of what a large portion of their membership wants. That is what has the anti-crossbow camp so riled up and ready to fight. They are losing ground to common sense and logical pro-hunting actions, which in turn is causing them to lose their minds and their civility!

The anti-crossbow crowd can say that the bovine excrement that was drawn up by the questionable leadership at the summit in MO is not anti-hunting. It is one thing to state that they are going to stop any further use of the crossbow during the archery season. I will give them a hearty, “Well good luck to you, then!” But when they say they are going back into states, some of which have had a crossbow season for over thirty years (Wyoming has always had a crossbow season), and remove the crossbows from the archery season there, then they have crossed the line and accurately identified themselves as anti-hunters. For you see, when a group, regardless of how righteous they believe they are, launch a campaign to remove licensed hunters from the woods, how can they be anything but an anti-hunting organization.

[Moxie]

I was a traditionalist until I shattered my left elbow and archery as I knew it came to an end. I didn't believe the compound bow belonged in the archery season because of the advantages it gave the shooter. I don't want to go back to that very narrow minded way of thinking, but I could!

[Jim C]

DJH is right-its maybe 75 braindead morons who speak for all those clubs. 75 people that hunting as a whole would be better off if they took up ballet or badminton and gave up hunting

[Roy65]

I have been in Archery since 1962 both as a competitor and a hunter. I started before there was any such thing as a compound bow. Recurves were the Hi Tech bow of the day. As Compond Bows came onto the scene i fought tooth and nail against them. Us die hards figured they might as well be using a rifle instead of our 65, 75 and yes even 80 pound recurves. They weren't bows as we knew them and they simply had no place in our world. We could not compete against them. But there popularity grew by leaps and bounds so maybe they did have a place in our world, and guess what, i gave in and became one of them. And i grew to love these compound bows. And we saw archery in general grow by leaps and bounds. Maybe it was because the charcteristics of the compound made it easier for people of all ages and genders to shoot. It became a very large draw for families and the elder generation. My wife and i both became proficient enough to shoot in the big Las Vaegas Indoor Tournement. I was able to take numerous game animals with my compound hunting bow. It certainly was much easier to go to full draw and hold a 50% letoff bow until a decent shot at your quarry presented itself. And then came the 65%, 75% and 85% letoff bows. I Understand there is even a 95% letoff bow available now. I Enjoyed it all. And then, all of a sudden the word Crossbow crept into our vocabulary. No way we all said thats not archery. Guess what, now i am a wheelchairbound paraplegic. I cant shoot a compound bow anymore. Thank God for Crossbows. And guess what else, I draw my crossbow to shoot a projectile very much like the projectiles i shot out of my compound bows. And i make those projectiles out of the very same materials and use the very same equipment to do it. Afterall, they are just short arrows, in fact they are the very same length my Grandson shoots out of his new compound bow. The limbs on my Crossbow are very much like the limbs i had on my old rercurve bows. I wish i had not been so biased those many years ago when i waged my battle against the compound Bow. Maybe, just maybe i would have enjoyed the out of doors that much more.
Now i know all this sounds like i am touting the Crossbow for the Disabled only, but i don't feel this way at all. What i am touting is the freedom of choice for all of us, able bodied not who wish to enjoy this form of archery without ridicule or chasstisement. As Rodney so aptly put a few years ago, "Can't we all just get along". If we did, maybe there wouldn't be so much anti-hunting sentiment as exists today. Look how much stronger we could be.
Roy65

[ecoaster]

I am very new to archery, but I have to say it has opened my mind and my soul to hunting once again.

I chose a crossbow because I thought it would be "easier" to get started with. As far as using the bow itself, once it was dialed in, I became very confident with it very quickly. That was target practice............................

Now for hunting....................... I encountered dozens of deer this past season which would have been easily in my freezer if I had been hunting with rifle or shotgun. I learned very quickly that to get a deer within that magical 30 yards, broadside, and standing still was going to be very challenging.

I watched many deer go about their business and I learned to pattern them and unravel the deer sign I found in the bush. It took me until the last few days of the season to finally bag one. It was almost as exciting as my first deer when I was a teenager.

I learned a lot from those mornings in the woods, and most of all it was a peacefull getaway from the hustle and bustle of city life. My wife called me crazy one morning for getting up at 4AM to go out and sit in a tree in -20deg C weather.

I just looked at her and said, "I could explain it to you, but you just won't understand unless you watch that sun come up and the woods come alive."

As far as a crossbow being "easier" than another form of archery, I don't know yet, but I will someday, because I want to explore every avenue of this great sport.