Don,
I wouldn't count on the archery manufacturers to get too politically involved based on my experiance. (If it mattered a great deal, then the CVA's, Knights, etc's of the world would have stopped the 'centerfire' primitive weapons season. Black powder rifle sales are dead in this state.) The archery manufacturers tend to work through the ATA and all the ATA can do at the moment is to promote crossbow legislation. BTW, crossbow legalization also plays well into the concept of the liberalization of equipment regs by the state.
Joebuck,
Bobby is against baiting but has tempered his rhetoric on the subject as of late. As far as a single season format, that's not really public knowledge at this point. It's a legislative issue and it's a slipperly slope proposition based on time and speed. I don't neccesarily see this as a covert plan of the legislature or the MDWFP...but rather an acknowledgement that wildlife biology has changed and the future will reflect it.
In the past there were more people wanting to hunt than the resource could tolerate...so 'special seasons' based on a restricted harvest were created. That need is no longer in play as we have the need for more harvest than we have hunters. Special seasons have become partly the nemesis of wildlife management and they exist only based on a desire of sportsmen to have them.
All that has to be done is to change the desire of sportsmen and condition them to accept change. That is being done nicely in this state by evidence of recent equipment regulation changes.
The effort to preserve the future of bowhunting in this state is about to get much harder.