As is the case in much of the country, the number of hunters in Mississippi has been declining even as the deer population continues to expand, exceeding carrying capacity in many instances. In response to these issues, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is seeking to increase hunter participation, license sales and harvest rates. Agency officials say that the primary goal is to enhance hunter opportunity without damaging the resource. Equally importantly, they want to achieve these goals within the general framework of current season lengths.

According to Mark Livingston, legislative chairman of the Mississippi Bowhunters Association, the special archery-only seasons were created during an era in which the MDWFP wanted both more-robust hunter participation and minimal biological impact.

"Bowhunting as we know it grew and prospered in the perfect tailwind of the founding era," Livingston said with regard to the reestablishment of the deer herd in Mississippi in modern times. "However, the wildlife management plan has radically changed. State wildlife agencies want more hunters and more harvests. This is the exact opposite situation from which special archery seasons were originally found.

"Today, archery season is catching the eye of our state wildlife authorities. They see it as a rather ineffective tool in modern game management. From their perspective, bowhunting doesn't kill enough animals and doesn't have enough participation."

That's where crossbows come in. With their legalization during archery seasons, hunters suddenly become much more proficient in culling the herd, albeit not at the same range or rate as that available to rifle hunters.

Ottie Snyder makes another point in favor of these horizontal bows. "Crossbows have great recruitment value for new bowhunters, especially women and youth," he suggested. "The ballistic performance of a crossbow is the equivalent of a 65- to 70-pound compound bow. However, a horizontal bow is much easier for a new archer to master and is just as effective as a vertical bow at taking game at distances of 40 yards or less."

In order to compare the effectiveness of a crossbow to that of a traditional bow, Snyder offered an anecdote: "We set up a 60-yard target with a bull's-eye on a post 6 feet above the bull's eye on the target. As a demonstration of the ballistic performance, an archer using a 65-pound compound bow aimed at the bull's eye above the bottom target with his 20-yard pin and shot. The arrow dropped into the bull's eye of the lower target. Another archer using a 150-pound crossbow, again using his 20-yard pin, did the same thing and the arrow stuck in the target right beside the longer arrow. Both had 72 inches of trajectory between 20 and 60 yards.

"The demonstration slammed home the point that the crossbow is a bow and arrow turned sideways and shot with a trigger -- nothing more, nothing less," Snyder concluded"

In 1982, the state of Ohio allowed the use of crossbows in their archery deer season. At that point, there were more than 60,000 traditional bowhunters in that state. Though there was initially some grumbling about whether crossbow users were really archers, the weapons proved popular, and now the Ohio deer season has been expanded by five weeks and the bag limit increased by as much as 500 percent in certain areas of the state. The number of traditional archers in Ohio has increased from 60,000 to over 100,000 statewide. But more than 30,000 of the hunters also take advantage the opportunity to use a crossbow. In all, better than 60 percent of Ohio deer hunters use archery equipment. If there has been any long-term conflict with the introduction of crossbows in that state, it's not apparent. Results of the same kind are likely to be seen here in Mississippi as well.

Although I still prefer to hunt whitetails with my compound bow, I most definitely plan to go "horizontal hunting" from time to time. Not because I think it gives me some sort of advantage -- just because it's just plain old fun to hunt with a crossbow! After all, isn't that the real reason we like to bowhunt? Because it's fun?