DETROIT -- It never fails to amaze me how many Michigan hunters fixate on deer all year long. Based on contacts the last 22 years, I'd guess that 80 percent of our hunters wouldn't be too upset if the other hunting seasons shut down, as long as they could hunt deer in November.
More evidence of that arrived last week. With steelhead fishing getting hot and turkey hunting just around the corner, what filled my voicemail and e-mail accounts weren't questions and comments about those pursuits but outrage over or support for a bill that would redefine a crossbow as simply a "bow," like stick bows and compounds.
"This is the latest move in a scheme by the crossbow manufacturers to sneak in by the back door," wrote an angry Jon Ellison, a hunter from Livonia, Mich., who has long been an opponent of legalizing crossbows for hunting.
"They managed to get the crossbow allowed last year for everyone in southern Michigan and people over 55 up north. I know that eventually they'd try to allow them to be used by anyone anywhere in the state, but I didn't think it would be this fast," the 46-year-old archery hunter said.
The present definition of a bow under Michigan game laws is "a device for propelling an arrow from a string drawn, held and released by hand where the force used to hold the string in a drawn position is provided by the archer's muscles."
HB5922, introduced by Rep. James Bolger (R-Marshall), would change the definition by adding: "or a weapon consisting of a bow, with a draw weight of 100 pounds or more, mounted transversely on a stock or frame and designed to fire an arrow, bolt or quarrel by the release of a bow string that is controlled by a mechanical or electrical trigger with a working safety."
I've tried shooting crossbows and haven't been very impressed. I still prefer a longbow and also have a couple of compounds. At 66, I can still draw those bows at 60 pounds, but there eventually will come a day when I can't, and if a crossbow allows me to keep hunting, then I'll probably buy one.
I also know quite a few people considerably younger who can't pull even 50 pounds. Some say it's because they have injured their shoulders, but some don't want to put in the practice necessary to use a longbow or compound.
That said, I have no problem with allowing people to use crossbows during the regular archery seasons. We saw this fall that allowing crossbows really didn't increase the number of archery hunters all that much, or the deer kill, and many who did buy crossbows told me that they were surprised to learn that they really should be used only within 20 yards.
Many were also surprised to find some crossbows unbalanced and hard to hold level. Some of them even bought unipods to hold up the front of the bow.
The myth about crossbows being used with deadly accuracy by novices at 50 yards doesn't stand up on closer examination. I've covered national archery championships, and it's not an accident that crossbow archers at 50 yards shoot the kind of groups that compound archers can achieve at 70.
Steven Lawrence of Northville is a 63-year-old hunter who belongs to the state Longbow, Traditional and Michigan Bowhunters groups. He opposed allowing crossbows, but now that they have been approved, he says he's a realist and knows that they aren't going to disappear.
But he does object to them being lumped in with stick bows and compounds "because there are no archery skills required to use them. It's disingenuous.
"They aren't going to go away, not after a lot of guys have gone out and invested $1,000 in one. I just want (the state) to have the intellectual honesty to make it a separate weapon with a separate license. Don't call it a bow."
As for the argument that crossbows let aging hunters continue their sport, Lawrence said, "I know a lot of guys who don't do a lot of things they used to do. A lot of it is just laziness."
He then added, "I feel the honest thing to do would be to classify it as a separate weapon. It is not a bow. It is not a gun. It is a crossbow, and when used in hunting seasons, it should have its own separate license."
We already have a ton of deer licenses available, but Lawrence's idea about a crossbow license makes sense. It would help the Department of Natural Resources and Environment track who is using them, where and when, and whether the movement to crossbows is going to be with us long-term or is merely a fad that will fall off when people discover you can't use one to kill deer at 70 yards.
Comments