Crossbow regulations for deer season have a wrinkle

By V. Paul Reynolds

For purposes of the law, crossbows this fall are now considered to be part of the archery community in Maine. That is to say that crossbows are treated like any other bow, compound, recurve or longbow. Hunter age or hunting season are no longer a criteria for the legal use of crossbows. If you possess an archery permit, you can use a crossbow during the expanded season in September, the regular archery season in October and even the firearms season in November.

So you could say that the Maine hunting regulations recognize a crossbow hunter as an archer. Or could you?

There is, come to find out, a wrinkle. It all has to do with when you are required to attire yourself in hunter orange as you take to the deer woods. Are you ready for this?

If you are a crossbow hunter you are not required to wear a hunter orange cap and vest as long as you are hunting during the September or October archery seasons. However – and here is the wrinkle – if you are hunting with a crossbow during the November firearms season, you MUST don an orange cap and vest!

Stay with me here. 

If, however, you are hunting during the firearms season with a vertical bow (compound, recurve or longbow) you are not required to wear any hunter orange. So what is going on here? There was a bill in the legislature that would have permitted November crossbow hunters to hunt without hunter orange just like the real archers. It got shot down.

If you are a sensitive crossbow hunter, whose feelings are easily hurt, you might exclaim through pursed lips “Give me a break, man! First you are treating me like an archer, and then you are not.”

Beyond the emotional dimension, there is also a practical one. Bow hunters need to get closer to their prey, and camo colors lend to a stealthy stalk, unlike bright hunter orange. Ergo, the wrinkle in the law now gives the conventional compound archer a November advantage over the crossbow outlier.

Personally, it makes no matter to me. In November, I put my crossbow away and get out the Ruger One .270. But you can bet that if I were bow hunting in November, regardless of bow type – crossbow or compound – I would be wearing hunter orange over my camo duds, at least to and from my tree stand or ground blind.

It is the safe, smart thing to do. If you are old enough to have been around in the 1950s, you will recall that in that decade Maine hunting fatalities actually exceeded a dozen in one deer season! That was before the mandatory wearing of hunter orange revolutionized deer woods safety.

Target identification law or not, we must not forget that lesson, or take Maine’s laudable hunter safety record for granted. There is no room for backsliding. Dressing up like a pumpkin for the deer woods is a small price to pay for keeping hunters out of harm’s way.

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books. Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com.