MN CROSSBOW NOW LEGAL FOR ALL DURING ARCHERY SEASONS

[Wind Gypsy]

I’m not sure what the deer strategy for the state of Minnesota is. I should really get involved somehow. In recent years I’ve seen the deer heard mid Gunflint trail and the end of the Gunflint trail completely disappear. 70 years ago those areas were wilderness deer hunts that people dream about. Currently the once flourishing deer population along the north shore of Superior has been reduced to a few yard deer. Yesterday while doing some duck and grouse hunting close to the Canadian border I was pondering how a hundred years ago people would hunt this exact area with the chance of shooting a moose, caribou, or deer. So far moose are the lone survivors of those 3 species in the northern half of Cook county. There is no desire to manage the predators or the forest. Soon the state will be spending millions of dollars trying to figure out why there has been a drastic decline in the wolf population in Cook and Lake counties.

My family has land north of Grand Rapids so I have seen the decline up there. Notably even over the past 5 years. I'm more pessimistic up there than anywhere. They try to pin the moose herd struggles on disease from deer yet look for every excuse to scape goat wolves and bears. The timber industry is heavily against any significant deer herd. While timber harvest does create a lot of food and helps in most cases, a lot of the long standing wintering deer yards have been timbered and have left deer without good winter shelter.

 

[F250]

Very few crossbows are capable of 100 yard accuracy. Too, very few hunters are capable of using those crossbows and achieving that accuracy. Shooting at game with a crossbow at distances over 40 yards is kinda foolish. Yes I use a crossbow (due to many injuries). I have a bit of experience having taken a couple dozen Whitetails with them. Crossbow use will not cause the end of deer hunting.

 

[Cattleman]

Very few crossbows are capable of 100 yard accuracy. Too, very few hunters are capable of using those crossbows and achieving that accuracy. Shooting at game with a crossbow at distances over 40 yards is kinda foolish. Yes I use a crossbow (due to many injuries). I have a bit of experience having taken a couple dozen Whitetails with them. Crossbow use will not cause the end of deer hunting.

I've watched my buddies 7 year old daughter hit the vitals on their target shot after shot at 100 yards so I'm pretty sure if she can do it most people can. She also has harvested multiple deer this fall with one shit kills at 60 yards.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Very few crossbows are capable of 100 yard accuracy. Too, very few hunters are capable of using those crossbows and achieving that accuracy. Shooting at game with a crossbow at distances over 40 yards is kinda foolish. Yes I use a crossbow (due to many injuries). I have a bit of experience having taken a couple dozen Whitetails with them. Crossbow use will not cause the end of deer hunting.

Never seen someone say crossbows will be the end of deer hunting. It’s just one more thing degrading the quality of whitetail hunting.

 

[trackerbacker]

@schmalts is dead on about WI. The two county deer councils near me are seriously talking about finding a way to limit the archery season due to crossbows having such an impact on the overall deer harvest, not just bucks. However, the impact on antlered deer is certainly being felt more than anterless.

Q: Since Wisconsin legalized crossbows for all archers, which group – crossbow shooters or “vertical-bow” shooters – targets antlered bucks the most?
A: It’s a tie. Both groups in Wisconsin shoot bucks at amazingly similar rates. After varying by only 3 percentage points in 2014, the rates basically merged in recent years:
— 2014 archery season: Of the 81,701 total bowhunting harvest, 46,201 (56.55%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (54,810) was 55.52% bucks, and the crossbow harvest (26,891) was 58.64% bucks.
— 2015 archery season: Of the 87,098 total bowhunting harvest, 51,823 (59.5%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (53,004) was 58.92% bucks, and the crossbow harvest (34,094) was 60.4% bucks.
— 2016 archery season: Of the 88,048 total bowhunting harvest, 51,734 (58.76%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (48,272) was 58.36% bucks, and the crossbow harvest (39,776) was 59.24% bucks.


— 2017 archery season: Of the 92,394 total bowhunting harvest, 53,214 (57.59%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (45,166) was 57% bucks and the crossbow harvest (47,228) was 58% bucks.
— 2018 archery season: Of the 87,629 total bowhunting harvest, 47,632 (54.36%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (40,405) was 53.65% bucks and the crossbow harvest (47,224) was 54.96% bucks.
— 2019 archery season: Of the 94,085 total bowhunting harvest, 54,380 (57.79%) were bucks. The “vertical bow harvest (42,128) was 57.86% bucks and the crossbow harvest (51,957) was 57.74% bucks.
— 2020 archery season: Of the 113,567 total bowhunting harvest, 64,681 (56.95%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (47,836) was 56.72% bucks and the crossbow harvest (65,731) was 57.12% bucks.
— 2021 archery season: Of the 99,141 total bowhunting harvest, 60,751 (61.3%) were bucks. The “vertical” bow harvest (39,733) was 61.2% bucks and the crossbow harvest (59,408) was 61.3% bucks.
Crossbow hunters and “vertical-bow” hunters in Wisconsin shoot bucks at nearly identical rates, which was 61% bucks and 39% antlerless in 2021.
Here are the grand totals for the past eight Wisconsin archery seasons: Of the 743,663 deer taken with all bows, 430,416 (57.88%) were bucks. The total “vertical” bow harvest of 371,354 deer was 57.44% bucks (213,158), and the total crossbow harvest of 372,309 deer was 58.35% bucks (217,258).
Jeff Pritzl, deer-program specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said the state’s trend away fromantlerless harvests is unmistakable and concerning. He notes, however, that it didn’t start with crossbows. Antlered bucks made up 27% of Wisconsin’s archery kill in 1970, but jumped to 43% in 1980 as compound bows took over. The buck kill then climbed to 53% in 1990, and 57% in 1995 — roughly its current rate.
Bowhunting’s buck kill fluctuated from 46% to 50% from 1996 to 2010 when “earn-a-buck” rules and other incentives forced bowhunters to increase their antlerless harvests. The Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill outlawing earn-a-buck in 2011, and former Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law shortly before the season.
“Incentives” like earn-a-buck, which requires hunters to shoot an antlerless deer before shooting a buck, dramatically increased antlerless harvests from the late 1990s through the 2000s.
Pritzl and other biologists are concerned because most hunters today only shoot one deer annually. If they shoot a buck with a bow, they’re often done for the year. They might keep hunting with friends, but they’re not motivated to shoot a second or third deer.
Therefore, Pritzl encourages bowhunters to try shooting antlerless deer in September. “We’d like them to step up their game, and not pass those early-season opportunities,” he said. “If you can’t use the deer yourself, donate it.”
Pritzl’s concerns underscore something important: When crossbows were legalized, some folks feared they would prove so effective that Wisconsin would have to shorten its nearly four-month archery season. That hasn’t happened.
In fact, Wisconsin is relying more than ever on its short gun-hunting seasons to manage its antlerless deer, but gun-hunting’s trend is also toward bucks.
Without incentives like earn-a-buck rules the past decade, Wisconsin bowhunters — whether they carry compounds or crossbows — are choosing to be ineffective at managing antlerless deer.


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Seems it's more dad vs son, bag phone vs cell phone, yellow pages vs ask jeeves. Yall afraid of anything new cause 'muh tradition'.

The argument can be made compounds have done more "damage" than crossbows, get rid of compounds.

If the argument made is ethical kills only, no bows period as they aren't as ethical as other options, no?

Or is it, crossbows=potheads as elvis=killing our society with them hips, as it seems to be posted with 'all doped up in treestands'.

 

[MNElkNut]

Interesting to see the trend of the number of bucks harvested by each method. In 2014, vertical bows harvested more bucks (54,810) than crossbow shooters (26,891) by a 2:1 margin. From 2014 to 2021, it steadily changed until in 2021 vertical bow users shot 29,733, while crossbow users shot 59,408, flipping the ratio to 1:2. In 8 years, vertical bow users went from shooting double the deer of crossbow shooters to shooting half the deer of crossbow shooters. What will be really interesting to see is if MN follows the same course.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Interesting to see the trend of the number of bucks harvested by each method. In 2014, vertical bows harvested more bucks (54,810) than crossbow shooters (26,891) by a 2:1 margin. From 2014 to 2021, it steadily changed until in 2021 vertical bow users shot 29,733, while crossbow users shot 59,408, flipping the ratio to 1:2. In 8 years, vertical bow users went from shooting double the deer of crossbow shooters to shooting half the deer of crossbow shooters. What will be really interesting to see is if MN follows the same course.

I know of a number of Minnesotans who used to go to WI to hunt with a crossbow because they weren't legal during archery season in MN. I assume WI will see a reduction in archery season pressure over what it would have had if MN hadn't legalized crossbows for the poor souls who couldn't learn to shoot a compound.

 

[EKYHunter]

I live in Kentucky. Crossbows are legal from 9/16/23 until 1/15/24. I do not own a crossbow, but their inclusion in our deer season has not caused the sky to fall or any other sudden doom. Since archery season came in on 9/1/23, there’s been 5 B&C bucks killed within 60 miles of my home, and that’s just in eastern KY.

 

[trackerbacker]

I live in Kentucky. Crossbows are legal from 9/16/23 until 1/15/24. I do not own a crossbow, but their inclusion in our deer season has not caused the sky to fall or any other sudden doom. Since archery season came in on 9/1/23, there’s been 5 B&C bucks killed within 60 miles of my home, and that’s just in eastern KY.

Yea but...this is HT.

Doom and gloom even with proof to the contrary & NR are killing opportunity...except when we need them to donate/help a cause/sign a petition.

It's (crossbow doom and gloom) as dumb as iowas .35 caliber+ rifle for shotgun 1/2 whitetail restriction.

 

[npaden]

Interesting to see the trend of the number of bucks harvested by each method. In 2014, vertical bows harvested more bucks (54,810) than crossbow shooters (26,891) by a 2:1 margin. From 2014 to 2021, it steadily changed until in 2021 vertical bow users shot 29,733, while crossbow users shot 59,408, flipping the ratio to 1:2. In 8 years, vertical bow users went from shooting double the deer of crossbow shooters to shooting half the deer of crossbow shooters. What will be really interesting to see is if MN follows the same course.

I think you missed a 10,000 there on the 2021 vertical bow count. At least based on the previous post numbers. It was 39,733 with vertical bows in 2021. Also those numbers are total deer taken with each type of weapon and you then have to multiply it by the % to get the number of bucks harvested by each weapon. I with the % being pretty close it isn't going to matter on the ratio that much but it will affect the actual number of bucks killed.

Once you multiply it by the % for each weapon you get 30,255 bucks killed with vertical bows in 2014 and 24,317 bucks killed in 2021.

Compared to 15,679 bucks killed with crossbows in 2014 and 36,417 bucks in 2021.

For sure a big increase in the bucks being killed and a shift, but not quite as dramatic as 2:1 to 1:2. More like 2:1 to 1:1.5.

 

[Ben Nicholson]

My family has land north of Grand Rapids so I have seen the decline up there. Notably even over the past 5 years. I'm more pessimistic up there than anywhere. They try to pin the moose herd struggles on disease from deer yet look for every excuse to scape goat wolves and bears. The timber industry is heavily against any significant deer herd. While timber harvest does create a lot of food and helps in most cases, a lot of the long standing wintering deer yards have been timbered and have left deer without good winter shelter.

We have a cabin north of GR as well. I can absolutely confirm the decline. It has really gotten bad up there.

 

[Cattleman]

According to the lasted statistics released by the MN DNR 43% of the archery deer killed thus far this season have come from crossbow hunters.