Thursday, September 23, 2004
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Deer hunting with crossbows gets serious look
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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The idea of deer hunting with crossbows in Virginia takes an occasional wobbly flight only to quickly crash and burn. This time, it may be different.
“Attitudes are changing,” said Bob Errett. He is president of Parker Compound Bows, Inc., a top manufacturer of archery equipment headquartered in Mint Spring, Va. He would like to see restrictions on crossbow use relaxed.
Errett’s remarks captured the attention of wildlife officials during a Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board meeting in Richmond.
Look at it this way, he said. “Crossbows are only a different type of archery equipment, used in a different mode.” Crossbows can be to bowhunting what black-powder guns are to firearm’s deer hunting.
The major critics of hunting with crossbows have been traditional bowhunters, said Johnny Grace. They say, “This is my season and I don’t want anyone else out there. That is not a good argument.”
Grace’s background is about as traditional as you can get. He was a member of James Madison University archery team. He operated an indoor archery range/archery shop in the Roanoke Valley. His name frequently has appeared on the leader boards of archery tournaments. He is an avid bowhunters. Grace currently is the national sales director for Parker, one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States.
No one is suggesting that crossbows replace long bows/compound bows, Grace said. This is just another method that can be used for hunting.
Under current law, only disabled hunters who meet certain criteria can use a crossbow to hunt deer.
“We are in the business to encourage people to hunt,” said Sherry Crumley, DGIF board member from Botetourt County. “There is no reason in my mind why you have to be handicapped to hunt with a crossbow.”
Crumley would like for expanded crossbow use to receive serious considered, but any changes in regulations would have to be made by the General Assembly. Support from the DGIF, however, would go a long way toward assuring success.
Crossbow advocates have several things going for them:
>There is no scarcity of deer. They are everywhere, including urban areas, where crossbows could prove to be an effective new tool in thinning the herd.
>Bowhunters now have a long season and plenty of places to hunt; therefore, they may not feel as threatened by crossbows as was the case 20 years ago.
>Modern crossbow equipment is deadly and easy to master. It can be attractive to people who do not have the strength, time or will to learn to shoot a longbow. “Within 2 hours I was very good at shooting a crossbow,” said Crumley.
>Crossbows may give a much-needed boost to hunting license sales, which have been stable or declining. That would be attractive to DGIF officials who have had to cut programs due to budget restraints.
>Virginia now is in he minority of states that sharply limit hunting with crossbows. Ohio has had a season for 20 years.
>Interest in crossbows has been growing rapidly. “We can’t build them fast enough,” said Errett. The big push for their use is coming from gun hunters.
“Crossbows are fun,” Grace said, and to prove that point he and Errett took board members and other DGIF officials behind the agency’s Broad Street headquarters and let them fire at targets. Those first shots were impressive.
