[petey]

Another tibit to add. Anyone can pick up a crossbow and shoot it once it's sighted in. Slap a scope on it get it sighted in and hand it over to your friend and I'm sure they can kill a deer with it.

You can't do that with any bow. Compounds are set for each person's draw and anchor point, plus take lots of practice. I switched over to a recurve this year hoping to make it a little more "challenging". It took me a little bit to learn to shoot instinctive and that's being a novice at archery for the better part of 20 years. I could hand either bow over to a friend who's never shot it and I guarentee they'd miss a deer target at 20 yards, but hand them a corssbow that's sighted in and they'd probably make a killing shot every time.

No biggie I guess, but where's the pride in that? You earn your animal with a bow. You practice for months on end, tune it and have to have patience and knowledge of where and when to draw and release.

Pick up a crossbow, slap the corsshairs on him at 20 and pull the trigger. Doesn't trip my trigger, so I wouldn't choose to shoot one... I still won't knock it, just the same as I wouldn't want people knockin me for shooting deer out past 700 yards with my long range rifle rig. Just a different way to hunt them. I think they'd need to create a different season for them though. One nice thing about archery is that I rarely see hunters in the woods on public ground. Allow crossbows here and I'm sure I'd see a lot more weekend warriors and may have to look for private ground, or even post my own to ensure my quiet time.

I doubt it would ever come to that, but I sure do enjoy archery. It's my favorite time of the year, especially b/c I get the feeling that I'm the only one in the woods. Yup, there's always that feeling of not wanting to let go or share a season you already have. Same way I felt when they created an early muzzleloader season right smack in the middle of archery. Even youths and seniors can hunt with rifles. Deer are so bugged out after that week it takes 2 weeks for them to calm down. I hit it hard the first week and the last and let the rest for the muzzleloader hunters and small game hunters. Don't know what I'd feel if I had to share my only free 2 weeks with a bunch of crossbow hunters.

No doubt I'll see it happen in my lifetime here in PA though, so I'm sure I'll just grin and bare it.

I do agree with gd though. If we had a crossbow season and with the new youth mentoring season, I'm sure I'd have my 4 yr old shooting one already getting ready for about when he's 6 or 7. I can't wait to bring him out and whack a deer. Some kids can't pull much more than 40 pounds at age 12...me I was shooting 65 pounds at age 11 and killed my first deer with a bow at 12 at 8 yards. I'm sure I wasn't the norm though. Still remember it like it was today. Jennings Unistar (sure don't miss that heavy club!), 125 gr Kolpin Twister broadheads, deer ran 20 yards and dropped...talk about exciting