http://www.roanoke.com/outdoors%5C18569.html


Bowhunters quiet on crossbow controversy

When Del. Watkins Abbitt (I-Appomattox) recently introduced legislation to give the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries the authority to create a crossbow license, I envisioned some active opposition from die-hard bowhunters.

If there's been active opposition, I've missed it. I've gotten just a few e-mails and calls about crossbows, certainly less than I expected after my column supporting the legislation. Apparently Virginia's delegates and senators didn't get much pressure on the issue, either. House Bill 2200 flew though the legislature, passing unanimously in both the House and Senate.

Now all it needs is the governor's blessing, after which the ball will be in the game department's court.

It seems a pretty safe bet that the department's upcoming package of possible regulations changes, which will be released in late March, will include a crossbow proposal.

If there is to be opposition, that should trigger it.

Recent conversations and e-mail exchanges with fellow hunters haven't swayed my thinking on crossbows, but have helped me better understand the forces at work in this issue.

I realize now that I was oversimplifying when I wrote that killing a deer with a crossbow is for all intents and purposes as hard as killing one with a compound bow.

I'm more comfortable and more accurate shooting a compound bow than a crossbow. But I've been shooting bows for 30 years. Because there are fewer variables in aiming a crossbows, it stands to reason that the learning curve for a novice would not be as steep as it would be with a bow, even one of today's user-friendly compounds.

Interestingly, in Georgia's 2003-04 archery season, crossbow hunters were 24.8 percent of the total hunters, but they accounted for only 21.8 percent of the kill.

The success rate for compound hunters was .51 deer per hunter while crossbow hunters averaged .49 deer per hunter. In fact, the crossbow contingent wasn't too far ahead of the bowhunters using recurves and longbows. Those traditional archers averaged .46 deer per hunter, a testament to their impressive dedication.

Considering that about a third of those crossbow hunters had never hunted during archery season, that's a pretty good success rate. Still, it's also proof that the weapons aren't magic.

The bigger question is, is ease of use really relevant in this debate?

Were Virginia's archery season truly a "primitive weapons" season, it would be. But were it a primitive season we wouldn't be hunting with compound bows, because the technological leap from a recurve or long bow to a compound bow is a lot bigger than the leap from a compound bow to a crossbow.

Part of the credit for the lack of controversy - so far - about crossbows in Virginia must go to Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, and other states that have gone through this. There was heated debate in those states, but it quieted down pretty quickly when the world didn't end.

When the game department announces its intentions regarding crossbows I'm sure we'll hear some grumbling. But I suspect it won't take long to get real quiet again, which seems fitting for a hunting sport where silence is so important.