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Archery season at a crossroads
Shooting crossbows
Submitted
Bob Frye covers the outdoors for the Tribune-Review. He can be reached via e-mail.
Pennsylvania's statewide archery season just opened yesterday, but it might soon be closing in a historical sense.
As soon as next year, the hunt -- for 58 years reserved for those using vertical bows -- could have a new look. That's because Pennsylvania Game Commissioners will consider a proposal to allow the use of crossbows in all seasons when they meet in Washington Oct. 23 and 24.
The vote figures to be close.
No commissioners contacted would speak on record regarding how they might vote. All, though, suggested that the tally -- with commissioner Ron Weiner expected to be absent -- could go 4-3 one way or the other.
With that in mind, hunters have been lobbying hard on both sides of the issue.
A group calling itself the Pennsylvania Crossbow Federation has formed to speak for that side. In place since about Sept. 1, it is essentially a state chapter of the North American Crossbow Federation, a national organization formerly known as the American Crossbow Federation. It has about 400 members so far.
The group's immediate goal is simple: to rally crossbow users together, said Joe Nisczak of Landsdale, Montgomery County.
"We want to be an organized presence in the pro-crossbow camp," Nisczak said. "Our focus is really going to be our membership in Pennsylvania, people who don't know about the organization but are open to crossbows, and addressing the issues of the day."
The group also hopes to dispel what it terms a myth: the idea that the only people who want crossbows in Pennsylvania's archery season are manufacturers who stand to profit from selling more bows, said Todd Bromley of Stoneboro in Mercer County, another of those helping to organize the group.
The reality is that there are a lot of crossbow hunters and potential crossbow hunters in the state, he said. They just haven't been working together.
"Hopefully, with a voice, the Game Commission will see that there is enough interest in the state to say this is something they need to look into. It's just to kind of unite everybody," Bromley said.
The group plans to send several speakers to the commission's October meeting to make that point.
Also present at that meeting will be members of the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania, the group that has most consistently and loudly fought against bringing crossbows into the archery season.
The reasons for that opposition "run the gamut," said president Wes Waldron of Trout Run in Lycoming County. Some group members believe that a crossbow -- which is carried loaded and cocked, rather than drawn back in the presence of game -- is not really a bow.
The concern most often voiced, though, surrounds the potential impact of adding significantly more hunters -- perhaps as many as 60,000, the group believes -- to the archery season, already one of the shortest of its kind in the nation, Waldron said.
When commissioners created an archery bear season, Waldron said, they limited it to two days and certain wildlife management units and made provisions for monitoring the harvest. There are no such plans to measure the impact of crossbows, he said.
"So naturally we're concerned about, No. 1, what the harvest is going to be, and No. 2, with what the impact of that is going to be. If the deer harvest surges, are (commissioners) going to shorten archery season altogether, or are they just going to limit the number of crossbows?
"And if they're going to just limit crossbows, how are they going to tell who's shooting what? There's no separate crossbow license," Waldron said. "There's just no oversight with this."
So the debate goes on, and may go beyond October. If commissioners don't legalize crossbows, their supporters might ask the legislature to do so.
In the meantime, Bromley -- who has killed several Pope and Young-class bucks with a vertical bow, and last year took an equally large one in Pennsylvania with a crossbow -- said the tools should be treated similarly.
"The hard part about archery is putting an animal within 20 to 30 yards of yourself," Bromley said. "When you take an animal that close, be it with a vertical bow or a crossbow, it's the same thrill."
Who might use crossbows in Pennsylvania?
John Galida of Butler, a manufacturer's representative for a number of sporting goods companies, including crossbow maker Horton, and others argue that crossbows would bring more women and children into archery. They would also attract people who are too busy to become competent with a vertical bow.
"It's an opportunity to get people out there who don't have time to practice long, hard hours. Yeah, it's easier, but easier isn't bad," Galida said.
There's no evidence that legalizing crossbows has done anything to boost participation by women and children in the 11 states that allow their use, though, Wes Waldron said. More typically, he said, crossbows users come from the ranks of existing rifle deer hunters.
• To learn more about the Pennsylvania Crossbow Federation, check out the group's temporary Web site.
• To learn more about the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania and its positions, visit www.ubofpa.org.
• To find out more about when crossbows can already be used in Pennsylvania -- such as in portions of the archery season in special regulations counties, bear season, the firearms deer season, and the spring and fall turkey seasons, visit the Game Commission's Web site.
