What do you believe is the biggest threat to hunti

I think yer putting an awful lot on bow hunters just because the people who want all these changes also happen to hunt with a bow. I've never heard a single one of them say they only bow hunt but I may have missed it.

I generally hunt ever deer season and use the most efficent weapon I have that the season will allow. I hunt with a bow, a muzzle loader, shot gun and 44 mag revolver.

I don't want a single thing changed about ANY DEER SEASON. There's some things I didn't want when they did it but it's done and over now. I don't support going back and screwing over people who've made a financial investment satisfying the legal requirments to hunt the season as they are designated.

That's not to say I think they desearve more or entrance to new seasons just because they bought a weapon they knew they could only use during the coldest two weeks or what ever of deer season. There is a sort of level of efficiency so to speak of what most weapons are capable of. A centerfire rifle is going to be a more efficent weapon for killing about any thing than a bow an arrow is for an obvious example. A guy who can kill a deer with a rifle is certainly not going to put an additional burden on the deer herd if he is allowed to use a bow and arrow IN PLACE OF A RIFLE, NOT IN ADDITION TO.

With that explanation I don't want to see crossbows, muzzle loaders, pistols, shotguns, or rifles allowed use of the early bow and arrow season. It is a long season and still is not capable of effectively damaging the population of Indiana's deer herd. I like a long season. I want to hunt and hunt a lot. I want the flexibility of all those days of hunting availability. Now if you want to add sling shots, bowier knives, or spears to early bow season I wouldn't have a problem with it.

In the same vein, I like to gun hunt, I don't want to see the gun season moved out of the rut, in to the rut, shortened, changed to weekends only or any of the other cockamamie schemes I've seen suggested. We enjoy a gun season that is relativly long compared to most other states and one that has been in place a long time in Indiana, several deer generations, and it's never damaged to population of huntable deer to the point of needing a reduction in hunting days or bag limits. I don't think any one who can kill a deer with a shotgun, muzzleloader, or pistol is going to significantly increase his damage to the herd by using a bow and arrow or a crossbow IN PLACE OF A SHOTGUN ECT. If the want to allow or denie the use of bow and arrow and crossbow during gun OR ALLOW THE USE OF IT IN PLACE OF A GUN, I don't have a problem with either one.

So my opinion goes on down the list.

Unless there is something I am totally unaware of in the regulations for the deer season coming up, I don't want to see a single word changed in the regulations EVER unless it was to eliminate depredation hunts and permits. I would support the elimination of depredation permits for every single acre of ground that is eligible for any type of tax payer funded relief, insurance, program, loans, or subsidy.

If it's owned free and clear, they don't mooch off the taxpayer every spring when it rains too much, every summer when it don't rain enough, ask the taxpayer to go halves with them on the interest when they buy it, or expect a subsidy when the price is low then I say it's your land and what ever is eating off your land is yours to do with what you want and it's nobody else's business if you are killing deer that are eating YOUR CROPS.

If the taxpayers are subsidising the crops or your purchase of the land then it is the taxpayers business what you are doing to them.

Bowhunters, at least the elitist bowhunter can be blamed for opposing crossbow usage when it's be proven hundreds of times over not to effect the individual bowhunter or his season or his chosen method of hunting.

I haven't seen the concept of gun hunters wanting to drasticly change their season out of the rut or even to shorten it. No, it's always a bowhunter that wants the best of ALL worlds. They already have the bulk of the season, and a lot don't want any intrusion into it. I believe that Pav is included in that group as opposing any expansion of other choices into bow season?

Wasn't long ago, that a season was set up to help promote youth hunting, which can't be denied is the future of the sport. Now at this very time, you'll see those elitists not wanting to allow the change to include a buck? The reason.......they want to kill the buck theirself. Try to spin that on somebody else such as a person with commercial interest in the future of hunting??

Exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the posts.

An elitist is a person or group that believes their way is the only way. No other opinion or choice should be allowed. When you talk of an elitist in the hunting sports, it can be pretain to a lot of different factions. Most of them have nothing to do with actual hands on management of the resources, but rather just personal preferrences. If everyone could forget about politics and just allow the game agency to manage the resource the best way possible, then we'd be better off, but that will likely never happen.

If the decisions were left entirely up to the game agencies, we would not be discussing crossbows at all. I don't recall the IDNR ever pushing for crossbow liberalization....as an agency.

Horse pucky..

Just how "challenging" is it really to kill a deer with a high tech, high let off compound bow?

The "challenge" in using and mastering bowhunting equipment left back in the early '70s.

The REAL challenge in bowhunting is getting close enough to arrow that deer, not with what kind of archery equipment that we had to master first.

So you're OK with difficult to master spears for early archery seasons?

Then you if you are worried about the "level of efficiency" or "shortening of the archery season" how can you be against the crossbow inclusion?

The crossbows harvest rate is almost identical to that of the compound bow hunters AND no archery seasons where crossbows have been allowed has ever been shortened. In fact they have been lengthened in a lot of cases.

Show us a percentage harvest rate where the crossbow is a "more efficent weapon for killing about any thing than a bow an arrow" and is "put(ting) an additional burden on the deer herd."

You want to keep a early archery season long? Build up the ranks of the bowhunters by including crossbowers to stave off any encroachment of firearms and muzzlelaoders into it.

Funny how people can all have a different opinion on the definition of one word. I thought an elitist was some one who thought every thing should be folded, spindled, bent and mutilated around them and their personal preferences rather than them learning the rules a million other people have followed and just follow them.

[/quote]Just how "challenging" is it really to kill a deer with a high tech, high let off compound bow?[/quote]

I'm going to pretend you didn't say that. If I typed what I'm thinking right now, it would likely get censored anyway.