virginia and crossbows

[Guest usneskimo]

don't get me wrong on this i myself use new equipment and love new inovations that help me out but i do not understand how a state is now allowing crossbows to be used by all hunters. I am a hunter from oregon and am stationed in virginia , and i can understand laws allowing handicapped hunters to use tools such as this to level the playing field but i just don't get how archery hunting now encompasses using a tool that is closer to a rifle that actually archery tackle.

[slaw]

Re: virginia and crossbows

With all the innovations in hunting, muzzle loaders, archery, rifled slug guns, proficiency over primitive is the goal. Some people would say the crossbow is more proficient than trditional archery equipment. KEY WORD ...SOME people. Alot are just as proficient with traditional archery equipment as the crossbow, yet some are not. Bottom line, an arrow is an arrow is an arrow. More people are going to harvest deer with this law implemented which is probably the goal. Just my opinion.

[Tominator]

Re: virginia and crossbows

This is a re-current discussion, and it gets heated sometimes. I'll just say this--crossbows have been legal in Ohio, for all hunters for as long as I've been bowhunting, so that's at least as far back as 1987, and you know what? Ohio's deer herd is as healthy as ever and is growing, so the argument that it's going to hurt the herd is bunk IMHO.

Unfortunately crossbows have the reputation as being the easy way out, or the "lazy man's" approach to deer hunting. I don't buy that either. I think it's a personal choice. Here in Ohio it's legal, and if that's what you want to do, go for it.