© By Othmar Vohringer
According to an article, published on the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Website, bowhunting is a popular pastime for millions of Americans.
The National Sporting Goods Association reports that more than five million Americans hunted with bow and arrow in the year 2010. This was roughly the same as the number of people who went water skiing that year. With the inclusion of crossbows into the archery season in many U.S. states the number of bowhunters is likely to increase in the coming years.
3 comments:
Othmar, this is an encouraging sign in the fact that more hunters means more voices in defense of our hunting rights. However, I'd be curious to see how many hunters only bowhunt and not both...there are a bunch of hunters who only gun hunt because it's easier and you can shoot farther.
This new crossbow rules popping up everywhere I see as a big hit to bow hunting. With the new high tech bows, bowhunting already is easier than it was just 15 years ago, but now throw crossbows into the equation and EVERYONE will be hitting the woods slinging arrows everywhere like they do lead...I just am worried that allowing crossbows is merely getting closer to having a gun season year round. I mean crossbows can shoot dang near like a gun...
Call me old fashioned but my judgement on whether this is a good thing or not is up in the air.
Thank you for your comment TYNI.
I can put your fears about the impact of crossbows to rest. Every US State and Canadian Province who included crossbows in the archery season or gave them a special season reports that there are no significant negative impacts.
As a lifelong bowhunter who later also adopted rifles, muzzlelaoders and crossbows to his hunting methods, I can assure you that most everythinmg you read about crossbows is unfounded hype perpetrated by special interest groups. Crossbows have the same limitations as a modern compound bow. It is a short range weapon. Although a crossbow in the right hands is capable of shooting past 100 yards, the effective kill range is the same as with a compound bow and hunters know that.
I am going to age myself a bit when I tell you that the same arguments and fears were voiced when the first modern compound bows came onto the market. The P&Y club even banned all trophies taken with a compound bow from entering the trophy record book.
Ten years later bowhunting has become more popular than ever before and it was thanks to the compound bow. As the ranks of hunters age faster then we can gain new young hunters the crossbow will do the same thing for bowhunting as the compound bow did. While it is true that a hunter will reach proficiency much quicker with a crossbow than a compoundbow it is not as easy as many like to make it sounds.
Besides that, I never viewed the degree of difficulty it takes to become proficient with a weapon as the true mark of a hunter. As a hunter, be that with firearms or archery equipment,I've to do many things right before I can pull the trigger or release the arrow. Doing these things right accounts more for a hunters success than the choice of weapon.
o.v.
Orthmar,
Thanks for your comments and you said a lot of truth. I guess it's merely unjustified worrying on my part, based only on a few bad apples I know which are in every bunch.
Love your stuff, and keep it up!
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