Crossbows and Compounds

[mrmiskin]

Any time we can get someone off the couch, EDUCATED and introduced to the outdoors it is a plus. Crossbow, compund bow, recurve, etc. the important thing is that people get involved. Whether it is during gun season, bow season or primitive weapons people need to be involved in our great sport. I consider myself lucky in that when I go into the woods on a weekday there have been several times when i was the only one on 55,000 acres of public land and not that many more people were out on the weekends.. Looking back now there was plenty of room for other hunters. If we dont attract others to our sport then the public lands are going to dry up and we are going to be like Texas where you have to pay 500 bucks to go out and sit in a shooting house to kill a deer, There will be no more scouting, shed hunting, hanging tree stands etc because there will be no place left to do it. P.S. I am not knocking places that offer hunts and especially Texas I realize that people work for a living and sometimes plan a vacation and have a limited amount of time. We need to get people involved period.

[Lilred]

I got my first crossbow this summer simply because I caint pull the same 55lbs that I used to could on my compund nor can I keep it held fer any length of time.
I think there is a big difference tween a man that can pull 75lbs on compound bow and someone such as myself who aint 5ft tall and wont weigh 100lbs soakin wet.
I'll quote Don here...

i, myself, find crossbows, ungainly, heavy, awkward to manuever, difficult to ready for the shot, and the ones i've used, were very noisy at release...but...that's me. if another wishes to use...by all means...feel free to do so.

Don is right, they are heavy, awkward and mine is noisy at release even after the silencer kit I put on it.
Also Don mentioned that the only difference tween a crossbow and a compound is that the crossbow is always at a "ready-to-fire" state. The big difference to me is that I can pull it! Ya'll have no idea how big of a difference it makes pullin a compound vs a crossbow.
It's different fer guys that one day finds out he caint pull 80lbs no more...so what?? Go down to 60 or even Lilred's lbs...55. You can still kill deer.
For me, other women, younguns and seniors & people with disibilites....it means the chance to bowhunt with everybody else. Crossbow huntin is now legal here....and I am glad.
So are the other 35 women that is huntin the forest this year on a 2 day women only bow hunt with me. Most are younger or older and just can't hold a compound.
I think ya'll might be a lil more sympathetic if ya'll were in "our" shoes. I would not feel sympathetic fer a braun young man huntin w./ a crossbow.

[Brother Rockeye]

I've got 2 stick bows,a recurve,a compound,and a crossbow at the ranch.They all have their pros and cons.
While I have taken countless animals with my old compound(30% let off?),I have never hunted with my crossbow.
I like my recurve for stalking because of the lite weight and simplicity.I find the stick bows too long for hunting purposes but my son and I love to porcupine bales with them.
Unless I missed it,no one mentioned that anyone can shoot a crossbow with little or no practice/training.
A friend of mine used to come out on weekends and target shoot with me.At that time I shot every day.It was literally 3 bolts before he was makin a contest of it,and had never even fired a rifle before.It was an easy thing to put the dot on the target at a known range and squeeze the trigger.
oh and you can't shoot a vertical bow out the window of a vehicle like you could a crossbow...

there are pros/cons to all forms of hunting...but it is all hunting and the more folks involved the better off we all are.
I say"to each his own"



A friend of mine that runs a sporting goods store once told me that most of the compound bows he sold got traded in the next season for muzzleloaders...

food for thought...

[Brother Rockeye]

y'know...I think the" how "you hunt is far more important than what you hunt with.

as long as you hunt ethically,with due respect all around(animal,others,weapon)and harvest the animal humanely,I don't think what you harvest it with matters a great deal...


if you took your deer first swing with a stone club and it didn't suffer...swing away!