Originally posted by delaney:
This again is one angle to the deer discussions. A lot of the posts on other threads have been about not having enough deer and what to do about that. Then there is always the discussion about trying to apparently produce more older bucks. When the discussion comes to moving guns out of the rut, the logic reasonably goes to one of favoring the bow to the gun. To remove, seemingly, favoring the bow over the gun, then the logical next thought would be to close the rut to all weapons. Simply shut it down to all weapons If this were done, then there would be a harder argument that one weapon was being favored over the other. But, when this has been briefly discussed before, the bow guys have quickly spoken up and said that they don't make that much of an affect so they shouldn't be shut down. That immediately brings an appearance of favoritism be it real or not. If I were the DNR, considering the gun hunters do the heavy lifting of controlling deer numbers through harvest, I'd simply have a hard time agreeing, even though many other states have moved to that. Now, if the DNR were to decide to move more so to trophy management, then that creates a different scenario. But, regardless, where does it end?
I agree Delany... I have asked bow guys that very question and they all came back "That wouldn't be fair"
I told one guy that bow hunters have never giving up anything which he said "We gave up a buck" but I told him you can still take one just like the gun hunters get so we are all on equal footing now to which he wouldn't accept...
Bow hunters will not give any rut days up cause like they say "We are not that much of an impact" but they are regardless of how they feel... If it was all about growing bigger deer, then you would think they would be all for it but at the end of the day it is all about keeping other hunters out of the woods... I remember one guy who owns a sports store was talking to my buddy and I and I made a comment about Indiana having a "Buck Season" that the crossbows and bow guys got the first 15 days of November and gun a muzzy guys got the last 15 days and he was totally against since he was a primarily a bow hunter... But like I said we would all be on equal footing and have something at stake but to him it wasn't....
