Extended bow season for traditional hunters

[Chris Shelton]

Well guys, I think this is a awesome idea.  And I was wondering what you guys thought of it.  

Traditional archery seasons that parralell falconry seasons!

I tried to get somewhere with this a while back, but who will listen to a kid.  I wanted my rabbit, squirrel, and duck seasons to be the same as falconry seasons.  When I finally got higher up within the Federal Game and Fish, the women I was talking to said this to me . . .

"Dont you realize what participants of Falconry are doing?  They are hunting with birds!"

I simply replied, "what is harder, getting a red tailed hawk to catch a duck, or for me to shoot on out of the air with my recurve?"

Of course there was no reply, which was kinda funny to me.

But I just wanted to hear some thoughts on this

[Tsalagi]

I think it's a great idea! It would be a great way to put the definite boundary on the season without what I call "season creep" (you know, where muzzleloader season is now using for all intents and purposes modern firearms loaded from the front; i.e. Knight inline muzzleloaders.) Season creep is a problem because basically lazy individuals who don't want to put in the time and effort it takes to be proficient in true primitive weapons still want to cash in on an extra season and use technology to make up for their own lack of skill.

I can see, though, the lobbyists from Big Sportinggoods opposing it. They don't make a lot of money from traditional archery, what with so many small-shop bowyers making bows and folks making their own arrows. Unfortunately, Big Sportinggoods has way too much "open door" access to game and fish departments. Big Sportinggoods is the one churning out the "Don't divide hunters because the antis love it when hunters are divided..." propaganda. They also have a lot of "hired gun" writers from various magazines working for them in a "wink-n-nod" system of writing that is barely discernable from marketing brochures. Sadly, these writers think they speak for all of us, as does Big Sporting.

[bobman]

I'd love to see one here in Ga after the rifle season we need more deer taken and the early season is too hot to hunt most years, to top it off when the muzzle loader shooters asked for a special season they took it from the bow hunters under the guise of primitive weapons ( inlines with scopes are allowed)

for the record I do hunt black powder sometimes but I use real black powder and a side lock with iron sights like primitive was meant to be

[rascal]

Unfortunately if you have a longer season dedicated to traditional archery gear I fear it wouldnt take long to experience that "season creep" as Tsalagi pointed out. Game agencies in my opinion have done an incredibly poor job of defining the seasons they allow.  The muzzle loader season is really the perfect example, it doesnt take a lazy person long to justify the use of something easier via some obscure relic from the past. Just because the first inline design of a muzzle loader was conceived long ago doesnt mean it was ever a viable historical weapon of mass distribution.  Often times the relics referenced would have been considered more as curiosities than standard arms of the day. Yes optics arent new to the scene but they were far inferior in quality and design compared to todays but one can justify it as a bona fide historical item of limited use so we should absolutely be able to use them in the "modern traditional muzzle loader season".

If you present the public with the idea of longer traditional archery seasons, on the surface which appears to be a win win scenario, it will only be a matter of time before it is poisoned and polluted with the modern trappings of our society.  Lets face it we are on a traditional archery web site and if you polled every member about what "traditional archery gear" meant to them I think you would have a wide range of answers. I hunt with a stick I carved myself, he hunts with a modern metal riser laminate limb recurve... etc.  If we have a hard time defining it imagine those unfamiliar with our sport deciding what traditional gear is.  I could successfully argue that crossbows are traditional simply based on their origins in history or how bout that crazy contraption the Chinese military had that shot hundreds of arrows out of bamboo tubes using what is basically a model rocket engine (nest of bees I believe they called it).  Apply a little modern ingenuity, modern materials, copius ammounts of pressure from the industry and there you go you could hunt next to a guy with a "traditional missile launcher".

Im not against the idea of giving traditional archers more leg room with some carefully crafted legislation that leaves no doubt as to the "spirit of the law".  Im against the idea of a bunch of politicians and industry types getting together and seeing how they can punch holes in the law to allow the crooked politician and the greedy manufacturer to come out looking good while sacrificing tradition on their altar of greed and corruption.  I would rather have a shorter quality experience than a longer one tainted by the mantra "for the greater good". The fact is we as traditional archers are a very small percentage of archers and not worth pandering to in the eyes of the politicians or game agencies which by in large are controlled by politicians.

I know all of this seems a little terse and perhaps pointed, not to mention cynical but a very likely outcome of what starts out as a good idea none the less.