Cross Bows in Iowa....? I hope not

[IowaBuckSlayer2013]

It's easy to say that crossbows will be the new future of hunting. I believe Iowa got it right to test it this late season and then hopefully open it completely for next year for all of archery.... I for one will support it 100%....

 

[Sligh1]

It's easy to say that crossbows will be the new future of hunting. I believe Iowa got it right to test it this late season and then hopefully open it completely for next year for all of archery.... I for one will support it 100%....

FINAL QUESTIONS for the pro-crossbow folks.... 1) Do you think Iowa has a delicate resource, habitat situation. Do you think most the state has faced some extremely serious damage to the deer resource and/or habitat in the last 5 years due to regulations, special seasons, politics/special interests, habitat loss, lack of habitat, etc, etc, etc? 2) Do you think access for Archery land NOW, in current conditions is difficult? 3) Do you think Special Interests like FARM BUREAU, etc will side with you on Crossbows or folks who want to keep crossbows out of Bow & arrow season? 4) Love answers to above, is any added season a "go" for you?

Thx IowaBuckSlayer - can you give me your answers/opinions to these 4 questions?

 

[IowaBuckSlayer2013]

I do believe access to hunting grounds is difficult, why? Because so many people have gone out to private areas and fucked it up for all of us. Prime example cutting fences, tearing up access roads with atv's etc. I don't know how many times I have had to go out and call the owners because the cattle they thought they had secured in there poster were out on the road due to people cutting our fences to make access. I went out yesterday to my only private land I managed to keep and found 6 stands all on our side and fences cut. Is the deer quality down sure it is, but can you tell me this is due to crossbows absolutely not. The quality is down due to loss of habitat due to modern day development, CWD, and more importantly the ability to obtain ungodly amounts of extra tags. I buy one statewide resident tag and am done. I have only harvested one deer in the last 5 years. Is this due to crossbows no, it's due to the fact of human error and not be in good in the right place at the right time. As for farm bureau siding with us I don't think that is any issue towards what the Iowa Department of Natural Resources decides. Either way all us pro crossbow candidates will keep pushing for them to be legal to everyone. *Note* we are not asking for a added season. We are just pushing to allow it during the whole allowed current archery season. No added season. If I'm in the woods and am using a crossbow who cares. You like your compound he likes his recurve and we like our crossbows who cares. We are out because we like to hunt and put food on the table.

 

[loneranger]

1 Crossbows added will not mean a lot more deer shot. Can't be compared to a Rifle. Or Seasons when bucks are shed. Hunters who care about their local heard and how many they take will not change. 2 Land access and Big Money for Big Bucks and all the hype that goes with it will not change regardless of the weapon. The FB and all those that consider deer ,"Big Brown Rats", will always hold that opinion. They may think another weapon will killmore deer, but the stats just don't show that in most states. From my 40 some years of bow hunting with a bunch a guys up in MI, I believe less deer would be lost. Most guys,,upon losing a deer ,go on hunting for another one. Whether they come to Iowa or not,,really does not matter to me. I have severe scoliosis, and enjoy using one. Just don't like being looked down upon as less of a hunter.

 

[IowaBuckSlayer2013]

1 Crossbows added will not mean a lot more deer shot. Can't be compared to a Rifle. Or Seasons when bucks are shed. Hunters who care about their local heard and how many they take will not change. 2 Land access and Big Money for Big Bucks and all the hype that goes with it will not change regardless of the weapon. The FB and all those that consider deer ,"Big Brown Rats", will always hold that opinion. They may think another weapon will killmore deer, but the stats just don't show that in most states. From my 40 some years of bow hunting with a bunch a guys up in MI, I believe less deer would be lost. Most guys,,upon losing a deer ,go on hunting for another one. Whether they come to Iowa or not,,really does not matter to me. I have severe scoliosis, and enjoy using one. Just don't like being looked down upon as less of a hunter.

You don't have to disclose your personal health to other hunters. These guys will always have their opinions. At the end of the day I won't lose sleep either way.

 

[Liv4Rut]

1 Crossbows added will not mean a lot more deer shot. Can't be compared to a Rifle. Or Seasons when bucks are shed. Hunters who care about their local heard and how many they take will not change. 2 Land access and Big Money for Big Bucks and all the hype that goes with it will not change regardless of the weapon. The FB and all those that consider deer ,"Big Brown Rats", will always hold that opinion. They may think another weapon will killmore deer, but the stats just don't show that in most states. From my 40 some years of bow hunting with a bunch a guys up in MI, I believe less deer would be lost. Most guys,,upon losing a deer ,go on hunting for another one. Whether they come to Iowa or not,,really does not matter to me. I have severe scoliosis, and enjoy using one. Just don't like being looked down upon as less of a hunter.

What it appears you keep forgetting is all these other states that I have seen are one buck rule states. One and your done. Adding crossbows to a one buck rule state will have little impact. It would have little impact in Iowa if Iowa was a one buck rule state.

Iowa is unique in a sense we are a two buck state. There are a lot of guys that gun hunt that only gun hunt right now using only one any sex tag per year. Those additional 50,000+ hunters may be highly attracted to a crossbow versus a regular bow and they can get a 2nd archery season tag thus the increase in pressure, land access etc etc

That is the whole worry to most. I personally know at least 12 guys that will buy crossbows and hunt with them during the archery season if crossbows are included in it. Right now they only gun hunt because they tell me they don't have time or patience to get proficient with a bow. These boys talk about it all the time and I suspect there are many others out there chomping at the bit.

If Iowa was a one buck state, I would say add them. If you can only choose one or the other most the gun hunters would choose the gun tag but since with our current laws the 2nd tag would just be a bonus to them.

 

[IowaBuckSlayer2013]

Either way you look at it the current law for archery for a state wide any sex is black and white. Crossbows during archery is not going to affect anything because you're still using one archery tag for one buck. Crossbow or compound you're still shooting one buck. Shotgunners have nothing to do with how our archery season is run.

 

[Liv4Rut]

Either way you look at it the current law for archery for a state wide any sex is black and white. Crossbows during archery is not going to affect anything because you're still using one archery tag for one buck. Crossbow or compound you're still shooting one buck. Shotgunners have nothing to do with how our archery season is run.

How about when 10,000 or 20,000 shotgun hunters now by an archery tag where in the past they only bought one shotgun tag. This could easily happen.

Those additional tags will affect pressure / land access / harvest numbers.

This is what most are failing to see.

 

[Oct-Lull]

If its about using a crossbow why not be happy with using it late season??? Bows and crossbows cannot be considered similar. They are completely different. Should they allow lighted sights and mag lenses on sights? Why can't a line be drawn somewhere. Why does it have to be fair for everyone? What the hell is wrong with having a season just for bow hunters? It takes more work and skill to take a deer with any hand drawn bow. You have to want it to make yourself successful.

 

[Tim Hull]

My son who is 14 started shooting a compound bow last year. He was not allowed to hunt with it because of his accuracy isn't up to par yet. He is a great marksman with a shotgun, .22, .223 and could easily hunt with a crossbow, same as my daughter who is 10. If crossbows were allowed that would be two extra hunters during archery season in just my family. If you don't think this will add a burden on the deer resource you are mistaken. Just my opinion.

 

[loneranger]

If a young person or individual has access to property and wants to hunt. Why isthat a "Burden", to the Deer pop? Guess I am always going to be biased on the number of hunters argument. I spent most of my life hunting in a state with a human pop of 9 million, not 3 like Iowa. I hunted with 400,000 bow hunters and 800,000 gun/rifle hunters. Iowa will never see hunting pressure like that. Least in my lifetime!

 

[SCOFFIN]

If a young person or individual has access to property and wants to hunt. Why isthat a "Burden", to the Deer pop? Guess I am always going to be biased on the number of hunters argument. I spent most of my life hunting in a state with a human pop of 9 million, not 3 like Iowa. I hunted with 400,000 bow hunters and 800,000 gun/rifle hunters. Iowa will never see hunting pressure like that. Least in my lifetime!

There are days I feel like my public hunting spot had this kind of pressure here in Iowa.

 

[Jdubs]

It sounds like loneranger came from Michigan or PA where there are more hunters but also is a ton more huntable acreage than in Iowa. Although I do agree Iowa has lighter pressure comparably the archery season will see considerable increase in pressure with the intro of crossbows. Sorry I'm being redundant but a crossbow is on a firearms platform, much different, and easier to shoot, than a recurve or compound bow platform.

 

[Liv4Rut]

If a young person or individual has access to property and wants to hunt. Why isthat a "Burden", to the Deer pop? Guess I am always going to be biased on the number of hunters argument. I spent most of my life hunting in a state with a human pop of 9 million, not 3 like Iowa. I hunted with 400,000 bow hunters and 800,000 gun/rifle hunters. Iowa will never see hunting pressure like that. Least in my lifetime!

Michigan has 19.3 million acres of forested land. Iowa has 2.7 million acres. That is 19.3 / 2.7 = 7.15 times as much forested acres as Iowa. That also in my mind means michigan should have a lot higher deer population than Iowa.

Iowa has approximately 174,000 deer hunters.

To me that equals 2,700,000 acres / 174,000 hunters = 15.5 acres per hunter

Michigan has 19,300,000 acres / 1,200,000 hunters = 16.0 acres per hunter.

Seems like our current pressure could be right on par with Michigan if the hunters dispersed.

 

[hoosierhunter]

Here's real life Indiana numbers via the DNR

Pre full season crossbow

2008- 26,369 bow/827 crossbow
2009-28,497 bow/930 crossbow
2010-27,186 bow/928 crossbow
2011-26,715 bow/1,091 crossbow

All season crossbow

2012-27,580 bow/8,452 crossbow
2013-24,288 bow/10,171 crossbow


2008-2011 we averaged 28,136 deer harvested during archery season.

2012-13 we averaged 35,246 harvested during bow season when crossbows were legal.

2012 saw 12,200 bucks taken
2013 saw 11,556 bucks taken

2011 saw 8,9338 bucks taken
2010- no data
2009- saw 10,384 bucks taken

That's an additional average is 7110 deer per year with archery equipment. That's a 25% increase! Remember Indiana is a one buck rule state the entire time.


The number don't lie and it certainly put additional pressure on the deer and resulted in a much higher harvest during bow season.

 

[hoosierhunter]

Btw I'm pretty sure I just threw up in my mouth after researching this knowing rifles are in the table for next year.

 

[JUNIOR]

I see what you are saying Liv4Rut but Iowa has a lot more food so I think we'd have more deer. Just my opinion. Also you can't compare wooded ground in the states because that is like all Michigan is, wooded! Iowa is crop ground. People here don't only hunt wooded areas, so our acres per hunter ( I mean Iowa's) would be greater.

 

[Daver]

If a young person or individual has access to property and wants to hunt. Why isthat a "Burden", to the Deer pop? Guess I am always going to be biased on the number of hunters argument. I spent most of my life hunting in a state with a human pop of 9 million, not 3 like Iowa. I hunted with 400,000 bow hunters and 800,000 gun/rifle hunters. Iowa will never see hunting pressure like that. Least in my lifetime!

Ed - how many people do you know that moved to and/or bought hunting land in Iowa from states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc, with the express purpose of getting away from over hunted and over populated states with poor regulations and/or harvest culture? I know of several and I doubt I know about even a small percentage. Conversely, how many people moved away from Iowa to another state for the same reason?

People are coming to Iowa for a reason and that reason is that we have a far better opportunity to pursue and harvest a mature deer here than many, many other states. In large part, we have that advantage due to different regulations here in Iowa. (There are certainly other factors too that contribute to Iowa being a "destination" state for serious deer hunters, but I am focusing here only on the regulation aspect.)

Well informed residents of Iowa do not want to duplicate the overall poor hunting here that others have "escaped from" in other states. I don't think anyone is arguing that crossbows shouldn't be an option for those that have physical limitations, etc. But to open the general archery season to crossbows would likely have a negative impact on what is still one of the best archery states in the nation. If it were not true, then why do so many come here from miles and miles away to pursue Mr. Big with a bow?

I personally think it is quite clear that the primary motivating force behind "expanded opportunities" in the form of allowing crossbows for everyone in the archery season is the equipment manufacturers themselves. Once they supply the market they are hoping for and helping to create...what's next?

Iowa has a fraction of the timbered acres that some other states like Michigan has, yet it has far better deer hunting. We need to be careful when it comes to changing our regulations before we move ourselves towards these other states...the ones that people are leaving to come here, ironically.

 

[loneranger]

Believe me there is no comparison to the hunting pressure from MI to Iowa. I have hunted both now. The deer herd in Iowa has mild winters and a lot of farm food. Most of MI is forest,, sticks and twigs for food. Fewer deer hunted by more people. You can site stats all day. I have seen them from other states that show small or no harvest increases. Well now I have said all I will say. signing off! on this subject. really,,I mean it! Done...

 

[akcarv]

I don't live in Iowa, but I would be very wary of allowing crossbows during the regular bow season, other than to those with age or medical reasons. The stats that Hoosierhunter posted are a prime example of why. Sitting in an enclosed gun stand over a food plot during the pre-rut and chase phase with a crossbow would be a done deal for almost anyone with a little time on the farms I hunt. IF your goal is to make hunting easier for the masses, go ahead and do it, but I don't think it wil take very long for Iowa to become a one buck state. The days of seeing the numbers of deer you had ten years ago are over. All of the CRP ground that left, combined with all of the woodlots bulldozed for cropland, and wet areas ditched and tiled, and you are left with a lot less available habitat. Large well managed partials will still hold lots of deer, but competition for the little remaining public grounds will get nothing but stiffer, especially with liberalized regulations. Another point that you you might want to remember is that your crossbow regulations would also pertain to non-residents as well. I don't think you want to go down that slippery slope.