Crossbows Do Not Belong in Archery Season

Written By: Zachary Glay

Here is a hot take that is sure to stir up some whitetail hunters. Crossbows should not be lumped into and used during the general archery season.

210,977 deer were taken in the 2022-2023 Ohio deer season. 47% of those were taken with “archery equipment,” but of that 47%, 34% could be attributed to crossbow harvests. That is 71,701 deer killed with a crossbow in that season as opposed to 28,041 deer taken with a vertical bow. Illinois harvest statistics tell a similar story. With 66,630 deer harvested with “archery equipment” and 51.5% of those being attributed to crossbow harvests. This percentage has climbed every year since 2017, along with the total archery harvest except for 2022. In 2017 Illinois made crossbow hunting more accessible, more on that later. This is a trend across the midwest, where crossbows are allowed, they are used and used to great effect.

At the end of the day, these numbers simply mean that where people can use crossbows they do, and they kill a lot of deer with them. The point of this is to give my opinion, which is that crossbow hunting is not the same as archery and should not be legislated and regulated as such. The learning curve is simply not there, the pulling of a trigger is not the same as the drawing of a vertical bow. I am sure there are traditional archers out there saying that compound bows are unfair but take a look at the basics, the mechanics of drawing and firing a compound or a traditional recurve are the same, a physical draw and release of an arrow. The biomechanics remain the same. However, with a crossbow, they are non-existent, just a preloading of the bow and the pull of a trigger. The little things that go into the shot while bowhunting disappear when one uses a crossbow. A brand new hunter can make the shot on a deer with a crossbow with very limited practice, but with a vertical bow the story is different. Picture this:

A cool, crisp November morning rolls out and you are in a hang-on on a hillside, 15 feet off the ground in a travel corridor between bedding areas. You see in your periphery, a heavy bodied deer cutting through a thicket 70 yards away and through the grapevines and underbrush and you make out a rack. It’s the buck you have been chasing and he's walking away. On a hope and prayer you pull out a grunt tube and give him 3 long grunts and watch his ears perk up and twitch. His nose shoots to the sky and he wheels 180 degrees back toward you. On a beeline he heads to where that grunt came from. As he gets closer you can almost hear your own heart beating out of your chest, and as he passes behind a big white oak, you grab your bow from the hook above your head. He closes in 60 yards, 50, 40, you have a shot at 42 but you don’t feel like it’s the best shot to make, you know the trajectory of your arrow would likely contact an overhanging limb so you let him keep coming 30 yards, 25, 20, and he steps into a small grove of trees so you stand and begin to draw but as he emerges from behind the big red maple to your right he is moving quicker than you thought and he busts you mid-draw. The buck you've watched on camera and built a history with all season runs off, never giving you a chance again and another chapter about the one that got away gets laid into your mental hunting journal. 

That is not the ending you wanted, it is not the situation you wish would have happened. You play the scene over and over and beat yourself up for not drawing sooner or later, not having your bow ready early, or wondering if you should have taken a shot at 42 yards.This ending stinks, but it is what makes hunting such an addicting pursuit, the challenge keeps you coming back and makes the feeling when you finally arrow the big bruiser even sweeter; but crossbows take this moment away. There is no debating a 42 yard shot, slow draw to get busted on, no situation like the one laid out. I can think of more than a handful of examples where I would have killed big bucks with a crossbow that I did not close the deal on with a compound bow. At the end of the day, they are not the same weapon and should not follow the same season, just because they have a similar projectile, does not the same method make.

I hunt Ohio so I can speak to our season better but I think the fix is as follows. Either extend bow season two weeks earlier for vertical bows exclusively and give vertical bow hunters a chance to chase velvet whitetails in early September, create date range limits for crossbows (such as they are only allowed after Nov 20th, or that after gun season crossbow hunting ceases) or a combination of the two, extend the season and limit dates for crossbow hunting. All of this with an exception of disability and old age qualifying for crossbow use during archery season. Historically, Illinois had a similar program where crossbows could not be used until late season and it seemed to have an effect with much fewer crossbow harvests. I am not saying crossbows are the same as guns or should only be used during firearm season. I am simply saying that they are not a vertical bow. A vertical bow season needs to be longer than that of crossbows and the challenge of hunting with a vertical bow ought to be recognized. At the end of the day it is more difficult and totally different than a crossbow.