Hit there, I have been watching this forum for a few months now. I am from Ontario and have recently married an ex albertan and thought I would see what I could learn about hunting out there as I would like to take advantage of my new family connections and go hunting out there some time. It is absolutely beautiful country and I am a little jealous of all the land and animals and lack of sprawl like we have here in Southern Ontario.

Anyways I couldn't resist weighing in on this topic. In Ontario Crossbows are treated exactly the same as compounds and long bows for hunting purposes. I was surprised to learn that that is not so in Alberta. I have been bow hunting for over 12 years. My first year out I borrowed a friends compound bow that he no longer used. I got it about three months before the season started and practiced just about every day. I got to were I was pretty good with it, it was a pretty old bow, with none of the cool features of today’s but I was quite confident with it. September rolled around and I went to University, a month spent without an opportunity to shoot more than once or twice, deer season came and I missed two does on my first night, I missed them clean, because of my inexperience with bowhunting I just kept shooting and I shot all 6 of my arrows before I gave up (now I know that I was lucky to have missed and should have stopped before I wounded something). I have never hunted with a compound since, I went out and bought an Excalibur crossbow which is made right here in southern Ontario and have never looked back.

The number one advantage I see to a crossbow is that I can spend my time hunting rather than target shooting. I now live in the suburbs and can't shoot in my backyard, when I go back to the farm on the weekends I grab the crossbow and head out, I always shoot a number of arrows at the beginning of the season and make sure things are still working throughout, but the practice time is significantly reduced, also I can use the time when I am not bow hunting to go goose hunting and duck hunting. Another major advantage is reduced costs, since I live in the burbs if I had to use a compound I would have to join the local archery club which would cost a few hundred dollars a year. This may have something to do with resistance to crossbows in Alberta, I don’t see many crossbow hunters joining a bow club, they just don’t need that much practice time, but I am not there and don’t know. That and I think it is similar to someone who has exclusive hunting access on a great property, they are never to happy with someone new getting permission, crossbows would almost certainly increase the number of bowhunters. Although you can currently use a crossbow during the rifle season I doubt many people would buy a bow to use only during a time of year when they were allowed to rifle hunt, I also think the idea of a separate crossbow season is strange.

I think one of you said it best earlier when he stated that the challenge of hunting should be getting close to the animal and not in making the shot, I do everything I can to make the actual shot as easy and as high a percentage as possible. I have never shot a deer more than 20 yards away and I don’t feel a crossbow increases your range. I personally believe the advantages to each balance out and I feel that I am just as good a hunter as any compound hunter, I just require less practice time, I like to hunt much better than target shoot.

So good luck with the debate.
Dave