Arty:

For the record, I hunt with everything there is to hunt with that is legal, with the exception of inlines. I hunt in the regular season and special season with whatever strikes my fancy, sometimes a Hawken, some times a ML shotgun, sometimes a longbow,sometimes with a Sharps, sometimes with a modern smokless rifle. I hunt alone, sometimes I outfit for friends , although I no longer do it as a profession. I have entered no heads in any competition save one, and shouldn't have bothered , even though it won.

My biggest issue is with people, not with what they hunt with , but what they try to do with it. I believe that the B&C ,Seirra, etc., rules are too hard to enforce except by one's own concience. That has proven a downfall with many well known hunters being disqualified, and in some cases charged by the authorities. I hunt and fish because I love it, not to prove anything to any body. I don't have to.

catnthehat

This is a fun topic.

Here's my 2 cents (1.5 cents USD)....

I don't care what kind of firearms or bows or whatever that people like to shoot and/or hunt with. In-line muzzleloaders, high tech compound bows, crossbows, 50 BMG's etc, are all pretty neat, and it doesn't bother me if people like to hunt with them.

Here's where it starts to get tricky, though, for me at least....

If a weapon restriction is placed on a hunting season for safety reasons (ie. related to discharge of firearms in populated areas), then who cares what weapons are included (eg. shotguns with shot or slugs, muzzleloaders of all types, bows of all types)? As long as they have been deemed safe for the particular conditions, then why not include them? If, for example, a crossbow is considered a safe weapon choice for a rural area, why should it bother traditional bowhunters?

If, however, a particular hunting season was designed to allow hunting opportunity based on the fact that the associated weapon restriction reduces the odds of success (ie. more hunter days per kill, or less total mortality per season), then there may be a legitimate argument about the inclusion of weapons that increase hunter success in those categories. Hi-tech weapons in any category can jeopardize hunter opportunity in some cases, by increasing odds of success beyond what the season was designed for. And I can certainly understand why a particular user group would be upset if they lobbied for a hunting season, and then lost it because of others that used weapons that compromised the intent of the season.

The other main source of controversy, and I do believe it has some merit, is in regard to qualification for inclusion in the various record books. Fortunately for me, I don't really care about recording trophies, so this topic doesn't really get me too excited. But, I do think that the "purists" have a point. If you are going to have a record book to record trophies taken with a muzzleloader (which is separate from B&C for the same reason as P&Y, which is because it is recognized that getting a trophy with a weapon limitation is more difficult to do), should the modern in-lines be included? Is it fair for the true traditionalists to be compared at the same level with high tech in-liners? Personally, I think that at some point it kind of defeats the purpose of having a separate record book. By way of example...am I impressed that Jim Shockey has a dozen or so ML world records with his scoped in-line ML? No. I have killed comparable game (of a few of the species, not the NA 29!) under comparable circumstance...no big deal really. If he had done it with a flintlock, would I be impressed? Ya. That would be a feat. But do I have a problem with Jim Shockey's choice of weapon? Hell no. I think its cool that he hunts with something a little different, and a little more challenging than your run of the mill centerfire.

The rest is really just semantics to me. It doesn't really bother me that a cross-bow is considered a bow like my recurve. Nor does it bother me that my Thunderhawk is called a ML just like my Dad's Hawken. I am not so anal as to get hung up on names.

Anyway, I could ramble on, but I just thought I'd share a few of my disjointed and incoherent thoughts on the subject, FWIW.

Cheers,
Canuck

Arty,

Some of us have been around since the time these hunts began. We remember the original intent. It bugs us that ML development AND game management practice have made the primitive intent of these hunts a thing of the past. It is disingenuous to suggest that using the latest Savage ML with 300 gr. saboted bullets over a charge of smokeless lit by a waterproof 209 primer is taking you back to your roots and is somehow a return to the past.

In general, game regs are often contradictory and/or unreasonable. Not in the amount of game allowed to be taken but in the method or cartridge/weapon limitations.

I will note again that I saw this in a magazine ad and could not find it on the web site.