Since I have about 2 months to burn being laid up and haven't been on in a while, I figured I would see how some fellow lake linkers feel on the topic of crossbows now that they have been legal in the archery season for a few years.
I'm interested in knowing WHY (big emphasis on the "WHY")….you either do or don't support having them being a part of the archery season.
As the thread progresses I figure I'll have chances to support my own thoughts on the topic.
Interesting article regarding crossbow hunting with factual information. This was written by NDA - National Deer Association.
https://deerassociation.com/the-facts-about-crossbows-in-the-deer-woods/
Bullman - Did they send letters nationally or just Wi state residents? As the hearing states that anybody, nonresidents, no age or gender restrictions. This does leave the door wide open for shenanigans. The Congress claims they have in place some type of fraud protection. They also say they tabulate and look differently at votes from out of state. That's what they claim. The only way of being more legitimate would be that any participate must have a WIDNR customer number.
Sadly, the whole process of the Conservation Congress spring hearings and results don't really carry much weight anymore. The DNR and the NRB will still do what they want regardless the results of the votes. Just my two cents.
Any positive action resulting from the congress and the hearings, is like elephants mating. There is a lot of grunting and groaning, and it takes years to get results.
Old Hunter, it is definitely in the best interest of all hunters and fishermen to vote. The Sierra club sent a letter to all of it's member telling them to vote in our spring hearings. This is a national thing now and they are telling their members how to vote on all the questions that they want their anti hunting/trapping agenda to be supported. This is why we need to go back to in person voting at the meetings in each county. Please go on line and vote. All questions took about 20 minutes, but we don't want to give our rights away to use dogs for hunting or increase the wolf population.
Following is the link for the Wisconsin Conservation Congress spring hearing questionnaire home page.
Click on the blue highlighted box "Submit spring hearing input"
The registration is pretty much straight forward and simple. If you are from out of State (Yes, even non residents can provide input) Where it says to select state of residence, scroll down on the list to "other ". For County select "out of state". The box asking for DNR customer ID number and also the selection of counties that you recreate in is optional but not required to fill in. Additionally, anybody can participate and answer questions on the hearing, there are no restrictions.
If you want to do the whole questionnaire it will take approximately 25 minutes, However if you are just concerned about the crossbow question, when you sign you have the option of selecting a category of questions. For the crossbow question only, click on "Natural Resources Board ( Questions 17 - 18) Doing this part only takes about 5 minutes.
If you do take part in the complete questionnaire or certain categories that have questions you are not concerned about, they strongly suggest checking the "no Opinion" selection.
If you are supportive of and want to protect your rights of crossbow hunting in Wisconsin, It is definitely time to get involved and vote "NO" on question #17
If anybody has any questions or would like more info, please feel free to PM me.
This spring hearing questionnaire is open online until 7PM Thursday evening April 14th. Don't delay, and also get the word out to friends and family.
It's not definite as to how soon the results will be tabulated and made public, but I will monitor and relay the info as soon as it does become available.
THANK YOU
I recently saw this on a different forum, and thought it totally made a solid point. I also thought it would be worthy of reposting here. I don't believe to many hunters think about it to this degree.
"dtrkyman said:If you think crossbows have no effect on the herd, archery season or gun season then you haven't been paying attention.
I know of a pile of guys who are zero threat to a deer with a compound bow, however they are quite efficient with an x bow.
I am not generally opposed to crossbows, I just thought they had their place, IE. folks not capable of hunting with a compound or their own season, using them during firearms seasons."
"I agree with you with some xbow users suck with a vertical bow. But with that said I personally know hand ful of guys that should not be hunting with a vertical bow but they do and on avg they wound/killed 3 to 4 deer with their vertical bows but never find those deer (usually In guts) then they end up getting lucky and kill 2 with their vertical bows so possible they killed 6 deer already in bow season then they goto gun season and shoot 2 to 4 more deer with their guns.
Once the xbow law was came into effect here in MI those 3 guys now didn't have hardly any gut shots or wounds they usually killed the first two deer that walked by and were out of the woods till gun season.
So when a deer isn't found it's not reported in any states I know of. So in Mi it looks like the kill goes up with xbow but all those wounded or not found deer are not counted but in the 3 ppl case I know the actual kill rate went down due to xbow. I know small example but it's what I see.
Where MI is messed up is no mandatory deer check for any deer and hands out 10 doe tags now plus your buck tags can be used as doe tags.
I personally don't know any gun only hunter that went to xbow to kill deer early but I'm sure their is. "
Axel is just pushing everyone’s buttons to push their buttons…
Crossbow or compound, as long as you’re out there doing what you love ethically and legally, don’t worry about the naysayers…
World would be a better place if folks took the plank out of their eye before picking a spec out of their neighbor’s eye.
For those that have not yet seen the airbows coming down the pipe, take a look. Are they “bows” simply because manufactures call them air”bows”? They shoot arrows/bolts, does that make it a bow? No gunpowder, so by default is it then a bow? Or is it really just a gun? These will be pushed for full inclusion just like crossbows in the near future.
“Modern airguns do not use any gunpowder. They are held to your shoulder with the trigger mounted on the weapon and no gunpowder involved. They are not allowed during archery season”
Now we’re concerned with airguns, the modern version of airguns specifically. Again, we go to the Rules and Regulations for insight and clarity: On page 4 of the 2021 regs book, under “Weapons and Ammunition”, subsection “Weapons” it states:
It is illegal to:
You are correct!!! Not only can’t you use an airgun during the Archery Season, you can’t even use an airgun to hunt deer in WI, in any season (Archery, Crossbow, Rifle, Muzzleloader). No need to worry yourself.
Pick your favorite weapon, buy the appropriate license, hunt during the appropriate season, and enjoy!
I’m a compound guy and I hate to throw my hat into this ring, but wouldn’t gun powder be required for it to be a gun? Crossbow still uses a string. All guns I’ve ever shot required gun powder and a firing pin to fire and not the use of a string. Just saying.
