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Post by wklman on Feb 18, 2022 16:22:59 GMT -6
Minnesota has the perfect recipe for killing the maximum amount of deer as possible. A 4 month bow season, which starts during the summer feeding pattern, A rifle season during the high part of the rut, and a muzzleloader season when deer are back on the feed wagon seeking food for the winter. The only thing I'd back for crossbow is taking a week of muzzleloader out and replacing it with a crossbow season. That's it. 2 weeks of muzzleloader is way too much. Shit, I can hit a 4" circle at 200 yards with mine. There's no need for basically another 2 week rifle season. Are you guys worried about buck harvest or just overall harvest? Because if it's buck harvest and you only get 1 tag per year who really cares what you shoot it with. If it's overall, then the appropriate measure is # of tags issued in controlling the harvest. Again, who cares what weapon is used. Quit issuing so many tags if that's the issue. I know that'll never happen probably but at least on this side of the river it's reviewed yearly and changes are made. I know our county went from 4 free tags w/ each license a year ago to 2 this past year. And we still have a shit load of deer. Maybe that's why the harvest numbers dropped this past year. Less tags to be filled. I worry about both kinds of harvest. You forget about Minnesota allowing cross tagging of deer. A guy can feasibly shoot as many deer as he wants as long as he can find somebody to buy a tag for him. Just keep his tag open and have all his family and friends get tags for him to fill. I know of "hunters" that have shot 10+ deer just by group hunting. A very efficient way to lower numbers and kill off any age to your bucks.
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Post by badgerfowl on Feb 18, 2022 17:02:12 GMT -6
Are you guys worried about buck harvest or just overall harvest? Because if it's buck harvest and you only get 1 tag per year who really cares what you shoot it with. If it's overall, then the appropriate measure is # of tags issued in controlling the harvest. Again, who cares what weapon is used. Quit issuing so many tags if that's the issue. I know that'll never happen probably but at least on this side of the river it's reviewed yearly and changes are made. I know our county went from 4 free tags w/ each license a year ago to 2 this past year. And we still have a shit load of deer. Maybe that's why the harvest numbers dropped this past year. Less tags to be filled. I worry about both kinds of harvest. You forget about Minnesota allowing cross tagging of deer. A guy can feasibly shoot as many deer as he wants as long as he can find somebody to buy a tag for him. Just keep his tag open and have all his family and friends get tags for him to fill. I know of "hunters" that have shot 10+ deer just by group hunting. A very efficient way to lower numbers and kill off any age to your bucks. Then you need to fix the loophole. Although that happens here too, legally during gun season and illegally during bow.
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Post by Bwoods11 on Feb 18, 2022 18:03:19 GMT -6
Minnesota has the perfect recipe for killing the maximum amount of deer as possible. A 4 month bow season, which starts during the summer feeding pattern, A rifle season during the high part of the rut, and a muzzleloader season when deer are back on the feed wagon seeking food for the winter. The only thing I'd back for crossbow is taking a week of muzzleloader out and replacing it with a crossbow season. That's it. 2 weeks of muzzleloader is way too much. Shit, I can hit a 4" circle at 200 yards with mine. There's no need for basically another 2 week rifle season. Spot on. Late season crossbow hunt. I’m all for reducing the seasons. I’d be for an Oct 1 archer season and end it around Dec 15. A 16 day Muzzy season with scopes is ridiculous.
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Post by caveman on Feb 18, 2022 20:29:41 GMT -6
meh. Make changes that would actually be significant. Allow each hunter to only hunt one season. Pick between archery, regular, or muzzy. That would be reducing seasons.
Or put the special back in the special archery and special muzzleloader seasons by making it that if you are successful one year you cannot purchase that license the following year. Make the regular season great again.
(Unpopular opinion, I am fairly happy with the current regs and don't see the need for any changes. If any change it would be no archery hunting the week before regular season. I am not buying a crossbow if they become legal, just don't have the interest to use one myself.)
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Coda1
Full Member
Posts: 242
Likes: 303
Location: Hunting north of Staples, MN
Zone: 3B
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Post by Coda1 on Feb 18, 2022 22:06:05 GMT -6
The number of archery hunters has increased over the years. I believe a big part of that is the advances in equipment making it easier. I have a friend who is a fairly serious bow hunter who said he wouldn't bow hunt if he had to use a recurve. A high end modern crossbow is probably more effective then a standard smooth bore shotgun. I would expect to see a fair number of gun only hunters taking advantage of the longer season if crossbows are allowed. Between the new hunters and the existing ones switching to the more lethal crossbow it won't be good news in any area already suffering with low deer numbers. I don't know if I would buy one if they made it legal. It would kind of seem like cheating but would hard to resist the increased odds it would provide.
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Post by terrifictom on Feb 19, 2022 6:31:27 GMT -6
A lot of you guys have a misconception that a crossbow is more effective than a shotgun. A shotgun is way more effective than any crossbow. A shotgun slug travels 1750 to 1850 per second. Most new crossbows are in the 350 to 450 fps. A few new models in the 500fps range have just come out this year. You guys also have the misconception that if a guy has a crossbow in his hand that they are going to shoot every thing that they see. That just is not the case. If a guy bow hunted or gun hunted for years and switched over to crossbow his ethics wether good or bad are going to stay the same. Hunting is a dieing sport. The more people and opportunities you can get into deer hunting the better off you will be if not keeping hunting numbers up to defend hunting in a matter of years the tree huggers will have have it banned. It is already happening in some states.
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Post by smsmith on Feb 19, 2022 7:36:40 GMT -6
Are you guys worried about buck harvest or just overall harvest? Because if it's buck harvest and you only get 1 tag per year who really cares what you shoot it with. If it's overall, then the appropriate measure is # of tags issued in controlling the harvest. Again, who cares what weapon is used. Quit issuing so many tags if that's the issue. I know that'll never happen probably but at least on this side of the river it's reviewed yearly and changes are made. I know our county went from 4 free tags w/ each license a year ago to 2 this past year. And we still have a shit load of deer. Maybe that's why the harvest numbers dropped this past year. Less tags to be filled. I worry about both kinds of harvest. You forget about Minnesota allowing cross tagging of deer. A guy can feasibly shoot as many deer as he wants as long as he can find somebody to buy a tag for him. Just keep his tag open and have all his family and friends get tags for him to fill. I know of "hunters" that have shot 10+ deer just by group hunting. A very efficient way to lower numbers and kill off any age to your bucks. Party hunting is legal in WI too. And each hunter can kill two bucks.
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Post by caveman on Feb 19, 2022 8:18:28 GMT -6
same difference
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Post by Bwoods11 on Feb 19, 2022 9:02:14 GMT -6
Minnesota allows cross tagging and many hunters take advantage of it. There would be many hunters shooting a buck with the crossbow, and another during slug. Possibly a third with Muzzy.
Big food plot, box blind, 80-100 yard shot with a scoped Crossbow. It would be a game changer.
Ask hunters in Missouri & Wisconsin. They see the impact.
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Post by terrifictom on Feb 19, 2022 10:06:03 GMT -6
Minnesota allows cross tagging and many hunters take advantage of it. There would be many hunters shooting a buck with the crossbow, and another during slug. Possibly a third with Muzzy. Big food plot, box blind, 80-100 yard shot with a scoped Crossbow. It would be a game changer. Ask hunters in Missouri & Wisconsin. They see the impact. I hunt a big food plot ina box blind with a very accurate crossbow. Been doing it since 2017. Shot 1 buck and 1 doe. Longest shot was 45 yards. Longest shot I will take is 50 yards. Just because a crossbow shoots 100 yards does not mean that is how far crossbow hunters shoot. As far as impact the number of bucks shot has not changed and has been steady in Wisconsin, just a shift in what season they are shot.
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Post by Bwoods11 on Feb 19, 2022 11:52:39 GMT -6
I don’t see any situation where adding crossbows or rifles in my area/farm country…would help get bucks to age 4 or 5. It can only hurt those odds. So I’d be against it. Most if my friends and fellow hunters would be against it.
They are fine with age 60 and/or disabled.
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Post by caveman on Feb 19, 2022 15:51:49 GMT -6
I don’t see any situation where adding crossbows or rifles in my area/farm country…would help get bucks to age 4 or 5. It can only hurt those odds. So I’d be against it. Most if my friends and fellow hunters would be against it. They are fine with age 60 and/or disabled. It may reduce the hit-and-not-found deer by more than any additional kill added. Everyone who is going to fill their tag already does, so might as well have less deer loss in the process. In my experience archery and slug hunters have the highest percentage of deer killed and not recovered.
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Coda1
Full Member
Posts: 242
Likes: 303
Location: Hunting north of Staples, MN
Zone: 3B
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Post by Coda1 on Feb 19, 2022 21:16:40 GMT -6
Maybe in areas with higher deer numbers crossbows might simply shift the harvest from one season to another. In areas with low deer numbers a lot of hunters want to fill there tag but can not. I hunt land within a state forest that borders a WMA on two sides. It appears most will shoot anything that they can. Giving them a more effective way will increase the number killed. Given that total success rate is only around 35% there is plenty of potential for crossbows to increase the harvest.
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Post by caveman on Feb 20, 2022 5:33:42 GMT -6
Maybe in areas with higher deer numbers crossbows might simply shift the harvest from one season to another. In areas with low deer numbers a lot of hunters want to fill there tag but can not. I hunt land within a state forest that borders a WMA on two sides. It appears most will shoot anything that they can. Giving them a more effective way will increase the number killed. Given that total success rate is only around 35% there is plenty of potential for crossbows to increase the harvest.
Crossbows don't make deer magically appear. If the deer aren't there to be harvested the kill isn't going to go up. People are already shooting everything they can, and crossbows don't have the range of a modern slug or modern muzzy used in regular season, so there will not be any increase on what they can shoot. Who is going to kill the increases number of deer? The slug hunter that already is successful but wants more time afield doesn't increase the kill by picking up a crossbow. The unsuccessful archery hunter with a shitty place to hunt and no scent control isn't going to increase the kill by picking up a crossbow.
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Post by Sandbur on Feb 20, 2022 8:24:34 GMT -6
Maybe in areas with higher deer numbers crossbows might simply shift the harvest from one season to another. In areas with low deer numbers a lot of hunters want to fill there tag but can not. I hunt land within a state forest that borders a WMA on two sides. It appears most will shoot anything that they can. Giving them a more effective way will increase the number killed. Given that total success rate is only around 35% there is plenty of potential for crossbows to increase the harvest.
Crossbows don't make deer magically appear. If the deer aren't there to be harvested the kill isn't going to go up. People are already shooting everything they can, and crossbows don't have the range of a modern slug or modern muzzy used in regular season, so there will not be any increase on what they can shoot. Who is going to kill the increases number of deer? The slug hunter that already is successful but wants more time afield doesn't increase the kill by picking up a crossbow. The unsuccessful archery hunter with a shitty place to hunt and no scent control isn't going to increase the kill by picking up a crossbow.
I counter with the zone 1 rifle hunter who can’t get a doe tag and wants venison for his family. He will pick up a crossbow and shoot a doe in areas where doe kill needs to be curtailed. It will take the state time to adjust the amount of doe tags or shorten seasons in these areas. They don’t respond very fast, if at all.
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