Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Shorten Crossbow Season (for some)in Wisconsin?

Actually that is not a factual statement. Nothing was ever poached and no conviction was made. I did however receive a civil citation (a simple fine for feeding deer) but hey, its your story, fly your freak flag any way you see fit. If you want to manufacture a reality all your own, who am I to say otherwise? Play pretend all you want. It sounds like fun. [/quote]

Feeding deer is like poaching deer Ron Ron. Especially if baiting was illegal and you were hunting over it. So maybe you got the charge changed to something less because it was a first time offense, but it's still illegal.

=( That's naughty. I crossbow hunt, but never baited deer. Am I following wisconsin bowhunting traditions better than you then?

Lol Kingston.. You Rock. Then, this dude tries to blame his Dad. Wow.. I'm done even bantering with this guy. That's not the kind of human worth my time anymore.

well............... "Like" poaching???? No but its fun to play pretend.



Maybe. Sure. Lets go with that.

Even I am surprised by the low turnout . less than 6,000 statewide (about 6/10ths of 1% of sportsmen bothered to turn out for this question which is why the results won't factor in the decision making.)

45% support the concept of a shorter crossbow season

54% opposed.

I expect that season to be shortened of the 2019 season and beyond since this question was only advisory and non-binding.

http://dnr.wi.gov/About/WCC/Documents/spring_hearing/2018/2018StatewideResults.pdf

Serenity now.

I have several of those too. Welcome to the club. The one sad D-Bag from Saint Johns Michigan made the list right off.

Of course I made the ignore list. I know way too much info that painfully hurts. Do we need to drag your little crabapples into this? Might as well since you pretend to be one of them on Archerytalk because youve been banned. Actually you pay to even be your son posting there. A simple google search of the little buggers tells us all we need to know.

Ron, illegal is illegal. It's like being a little bit pregnant. Trying to explain to us your illegal activity is like trying to put lipstick on a pig. It is a waste of time and probably annoys the pig.
Lets face it pal, you done wrong

Poacher poacher poacher

If the spike was eating off the corn pile and it walked off unshot at, you could stretch it to feeding. Shooting a spike over the illegal corn pile is what I would call poaching. BIG difference!!

Data.

Tags...........bought and filled.

Coworker bought our state's "bundle" which is 3 tags and never went.
Myself and my bud bought a bow and gun tag each, saw deer, but none big enough........so we let em all walk.
7 tags not filled by 3 guys, and one never hunted.

Neighbor kid filled a couple with tiny deer.

If bow hunter tags drop 20% in sales, and X bow tags make up that difference.........one could assume that there was just a transfer.
But if there was a non transfer loss in the bowhunter ranks, then there could have been recruitment by X bow.
Plus I wonder if people might be buying tags of both types.....maybe bowhunt early, X bow late season.

To find those answers one needs to do surveys IMHO.

What you suggest is exactly the data gathered. When a person buys a license they use their own personal customer number. When they register their kill they likewise use that same customer number. The state collects the usage and harvest data by weapons type. That is how the state can tell exactly what the success rate is by weapons type. That is the direct survey being conducted annually.

Look, I'm just a bystander in this, but I can't help but make a few comments. I've hunted Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky since the early 80's. I've hunted KY exclusively since 2001. Ohio has had very liberal crossbow rules. KY has had basically "anything-goes" rules for centerfire rifle. When I was hunting in Ohio and Indiana, I was primarily bow hunting. I've had to give up the bow for medical reasons. KY allows crossbow in all archery seasons with a doctor's affidavit. I tried crossbow and just didn't like as much as my compound.

Some observations:

1) Poaching by the definition we generally use in the US, includes any illegal act. Basically, if it breaks the first rule of Fair Chase, it can be considered poaching. If the baiting was legal ( as it would be in KY) then it wouldn't be poaching, but the rule is : Obey All Rules. For the unfortunate sap who performed said poaching, all I can say is that it sucks to get caught. I am a semi-public person myself. I hunt outside my home state. I'm under potentially greater scruitiny by the state enforcement folks, just because they don't want to see guys like me break the law and then flaunt it. Transporting game over state lines opens a guy up to Lacey Act prosecutions, so I try to be meticulous. I try to keep everyone in my camp similarly motivated. I also stay squeaky clean, because the last thing I'd want is to give up my reputation among other hunters. It was stupid to bait, but it's even more ill-advised to keep up the activism once you've been caught. My advice to the poacher is to take two STFU's and give it a rest.

2) I have hunted under the most restrictive and the least restrictive rules for crossbow, and frankly, I never saw a difference. Crossbows are not so much better than other forms of archery that they constitute an unfair advantage. They may have bought a hunter a couple extra yards decades ago, but the contemporary compound and the contemporary crossbow have similar performance. A crossbow is not a rifle. It has advantages but also some considerable disadvantages. I much preferred hunting with a compound bow when I could for that reason. I found crossbows cumbersome.

3) The success rate of crossbow hunters that the preceding graph shows is probably indicative of a higher motivation among the hunters to be successful and not much more. Having hunted with all three, I honestly can't tell you of a feature of crossbow hunting that would make it that much better.

4) I have seen all manner of reasons given for folks hating crossbows, and I've heard it for going on 40 years. Most of these views are completely misinformed, and I have witnessed deliberate prevarications by folks trying to keep crossbows out of the woods. Anyone who would tell you they are just as "bad" as rifles or that they have 80-meter ranges are feeding you manure. They talk about the fact that you don't have to draw in front of the deer, but they forget to tell the fact that you've got these two big arms, perpendicular to your body line that are waving about out in front of you. Crossbows are not all that much to worry about.

Great post Shaman.

So your saying your input and opinion in this WI matter wont play any sort of a role and wont have any impact on the WI outcome?

No, what I'm saying is




Back when I was pro-staffing at D&DH, I got a bellyfull of the anti-crossbow charlatans. At this time, I was something like 2 years into my retirement from hunting with a compound bow. I made the pronouncement that I was going to go out and buy a crossbow, get my medical waiver and document the process of taking a nice fat buck with it. I documented it all for the folks at D&DH and put up the highlights on my weblog.

It was pretty much as I guessed. The spin-up was considerably shorter with the crossbow. I was months at it with a compound, getting to where I was functionally accurate and consistent. With the crossbow, I was keeping it in the bull within the first session. I still had all my bow stands up, so it was no big deal to get them rigged for hunting.

As I said in an earlier post, the thing the bow pimps want you to think is that crossbow is SOOOOO much easier. No. First off, Yes, you can get 20 yard accuracy in one session, but getting out to 45 yards consistently takes some doing. The operating envelopes are remarkably similar. Compound bows have to be drawn in front of the game, but the trade with a crossbow is limbs are sticking out, waving in front of you and there is no stealthy way to present it to the deer. A compound bow can be kept parallel to your body line. The deer doesn't have good binocular vision, so anything you do in front of your body is fairly hidden to them. The crossbow can't help calling attention to itself. I left mine leaning on the shooting rail of the stand.

When it came down to it, I had a perfect shot at buck and muffed it. The details are here:

Crossbow Update

I put the crossbow down and haven't picked it up in 10 seasons. Honestly, I've enjoyed my Octobers a lot more as a result. I get out in the woods more and do a lot more scouting, and then spend November rifle season filling the freezer.

My advice to the people of Wisconsin is to distrust any person or group that wants to tell you how to have fun hunting. There are enough deer out there for everyone. Crossbows are not your problem. Crossbow nannies are.