The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

Deer hunting in Minnesota is a very big deal. License sales to date for Minnesota this year total 395,000. That is a lot of guys and gals in orange spread across our great state. One great fact to remember is just how safe hunting actually is. There were a very small number of injuries this season and most, if not all, of them were associated with an adult hunting with a youth during their special season.

Deer hunting in Minnesota is changing faster than it has in the past 30 years in my opinion. The options available to hunters these days are much greater than in the past. Not all of these changes pass muster in the opinion of this outdoor writer. I will set the foundation of my opinions with this statement. Many of the changes in deer regulations will most likely have little to no effect on the deer populations overall.

The first change seen this year is the availability of archery hunters to use a crossbow. Archery hunters have been a very specific breed in that they choose a bow and arrow as their method of harvest for the extra level of difficulty it requires. Sitting in a tree stand for hours making almost no movement or sound at all requires a much higher level of concentration, patience and skill.

Bow hunters practice regularly to keep their shooting skills at a very high level. Many hours of practice are required to make consistently good shots with a bow. It takes specific muscle groups to pull a bow and hold it drawn for longer lengths of time. If you see a deer coming from a long distance the bow hunter will draw their bow and hold it until the deer is close enough to take a shot. Even with the mechanical advantage of a compound bow, one that uses pulleys and cams to reduce the draw weight, you still need to be in pretty good shape.

Enter the crossbow. The outward appearance of these look much like the medieval cross bows of old movies. This is the only likeness they share. Today the modern crossbow is drawn and set. You load the projectile called a bolt and then pull a trigger much like a firearm would have. Crossbows can legally be mounted with a scope. I won a rudimentary crossbow in a fire department fundraising raffle in Cable, Wis., a few years back. It was entry level but even with a super cheap scope and a half hour I was putting the bolt into a pie plate at 40 yards with little effort. Archery went from an intense discipline requiring hours of practice to novice shooting like a skilled archer in about an hour.

Archery hunters now have the ability to harvest much higher numbers of deer than they might have been able to do in the past. Time will tell how many new hunters will opt for a crossbow or how many traditional bow hunters will switch to a crossbow. Archery hunters normally all have the ability to shoot a doe. This was because there were not very many archery hunters and their success rates were actually pretty low because of the level of difficulty. Their season is also very long, starting in mid-September and ending on Jan. 1. These extra weeks might result in higher harvest rates now that a crossbow is legal. If crossbows explode in popularity, there may need to be some changes in season lengths and available doe permits.

My contacts within the Minnesota DNR currently don’t think this is going be a big problem but are confident they can control populations to designated goals by changing seasons dates and other tweaks. This change has created quite a stir on some bow hunting circles. Some welcome the change because it might keep older hunters in the field who otherwise might quit because of their inability to draw a traditional compound bow. It might also help encourage more new hunters to try deer hunting because you can participate with less stringent practicing requirements.

Others take a very different direction.  Traditional bow hunters liked the fact that there are not tons of other hunters in the field during the bow season. Their commitment to this skill was not shared by others in large numbers and this fact was attractive to them. Others think a crossbow is a short cut and is “taking the easy way out.” 

I don’t archery hunt so I don’t use a compound bow or crossbow. For the most part I am a deer hunting mentor. My greatest feat was helping five youth, all 12 years old, to harvest their first deer off of my property in only one season. Smiles all around. Time will tell how the crossbow fits into the new world order of deer hunting.

Regardless of your point of view on crossbows, I always try to circle back to my 90-year-old dad saying, “Son, things are rarely ever as bad as they look, they are rarely ever as good as they look, almost all the time it will be somewhere in the middle.”

Muzzle loader deer season started on Nov. 25 and runs through Dec. 5. Next week we can visit the subject of changes to this season which has the same two differing opinions.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.