With summer’s sweltering heat and humidity likely to bleed into September, it might not feel like hunting season, but it is.
Squirrels are legal now. Dove hunting opened Sept. 1. Teal, wood duck and Canada geese (early season); Virginia and sora rail, common and purple gallinule and snipe seasons open later this month.
Deer season for archers opens Sept. 7. Whitetail deer are Kentucky’s marquee and most sought-after game animal. Elk would likely claim that spot if more were available. The state’s elk reintroduction program has been an astounding success, and the free-ranging herd has grown to about 10,000 animals across the 16-county Eastern Kentucky elk zone. But elk hunting is by quota draw permit only, and there is no shortage of applicants. An elk tag is hard to come by.
Kentucky’s deer herd, by contrast, numbers more than 1 million animals and is thriving. The surging deer herd also is a product of wildlife recovery fueled by careful conservation practices and good management. Deer hunting popularity has grown with the herd. For the 2023-2024 season, hunters checked 141,065 whitetails. If one of every three hunters were successful (a generous estimate), that would put hunter numbers around 425,000.
I don’t hunt deer as often or as aggressively as I once did. This could be a function of age (I recently reached 69), but I doubt it. My enthusiasm has not waned, but like many hunters who have been at it for decades, I’ve become more selective. That doesn’t mean I’ve become so set in my ways that I’m not open to new ideas. Recently, Ethan at Gunpowder Inc., a PR/marketing company, invited me to try a Ravin Crossbow. I declined. I’m not much of an archer and had never hunted with a crossbow.
Then I thought, “Why not try something new?” Although there is nothing new about crossbows. They outdate the Bible.
The Ravin R10X that soon arrived is a technological marvel. It shoots fast (around 420 feet per second) and is compact (33 inches long), lightweight (6.8 pounds) and durable (nylon fiber stock and composite limbs). It is quiet, firm, accurate, easy to load and fun to shoot. And it comes with a quality scope.
While the R10X is a piece of well-designed, finely tuned hunting equipment, the crossbow itself is an ancient weapon, steeped in legend. According to Crossbow Magazine, they are thought to have been developed in China around the 7th century B.C. Those first bows were likely simple but effective with a wooden stock, bamboo arrows (called bolts in modern crossbow lingo), and a rough but effective trigger mechanism.
A few centuries later, the technology had moved westward, and crossbows were introduced throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, by which time their effectiveness in war had been proven in China. When it was discovered that an arrow launched from a crossbow could pierce armor, crossbows altered European warfare tactics. So effective was the crossbow as a tool or weapon, some segments of the early Christian church attempted to ban them.
The arrival of gunpowder pushed crossbows off the battlefield and into near obscurity. But they avoided the dustbin of history and have a made a comeback largely via the hunting and sporting community.
A crossbow is essentially a bow mounted on a frame: a stock, bow, string and trigger mechanism. Much has been fine-tuned, but little has basically changed.
Some hunters in the traditional archery community once looked upon crossbow hunting with a slight air of disdain. Some probably still do. But Kentucky’s crossbow deer-hunting numbers are growing. For the 2013 license year, the statewide crossbow deer kill was 3,311. A decade later, it had swelled to 12,501, but some of the increase must be attributed to an expansion of crossbow season dates.
For the 2024 Kentucky deer campaign, the crossbow season opens Sept. 21 and runs through Jan. 20. The senior/youth crossbow season opens Sept. 7. See you in the woods.
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Whitetail deer aren’t the only game available to Kentucky’s hunting community. Hunting opportunities abound for small game, upland game, waterfowl and more. Check the Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and the Kentucky Hunting Guide for Waterfowl for details. Both are available at fw.ky.gov and wherever sporting licenses are sold. For additional information, including public property open to hunting, contact the folks at the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources at 1.800.858.1549. They’ll be happy to help.