Why more Pa. hunters are using crossbows since they became legal statewide in 2009

There’s no doubt that crossbows have grown in popularity when it comes to archery deer hunting in Pennsylvania, but by just how much may be a bit surprising.

First allowed in the state’s special regulations areas, and also for use by individuals who had a disabled hunters permit, crossbows became legal statewide for white-tailed deer hunting in 2009. Since that time, horizontal bows have made up an increasingly larger share of the archery deer harvest with each passing year.

In 2015, according to statistics from the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC), crossbows accounted for 56% of the total archery deer harvest, while vertical bows — primarily compounds — accounted for 44%. By comparison, last year crossbows accounted for 68% of the archery harvest, with only 32% of bowhunters using vertical bows to take their deer. Of the 130,650 whitetails — 68,580 bucks and 62,070 antlerless deer — that were taken with archery gear in 2021, more than 88,000 were harvested via crossbow.

It’s also worth noting that Pennsylvania doesn’t have an insignificant number of archery hunters, which helps to explain why the archery harvest now accounts for more than one-third of the total statewide deer harvest each year. According to the PGC, 325,461 resident and 16,386 non-resident archery permits were sold in 2019, while 372,700 combined were sold in 2020, the year the covid-19 pandemic started.

PGC Communications Director Travis Lau says from his agency’s perspective, the increased use of crossbows has not had any type of negative impact on the deer herd or harvest, nor has it raised any concerns from the wildlife management perspective. He says one of the reasons that crossbows have become increasingly popular for archery deer hunting is the fact that they are easier to use than compounds.

“For gun hunters who don’t have a lot of experience with archery gear, you can pick up a crossbow, bring it to your shoulder and immediately feel pretty comfortable,” Lau said. “With a vertical bow, there’s likely a steeper learning curve to become proficient, and increased practice demands to maintain form.

“The increase in overall archery participation is being driven in part by older hunters who were not previously bowhunters but who have begun hunting in the archery season with a crossbow. I’ve been a bowhunter since I was 13, so pretty much my entire hunting career. Archery deer season has always been one of my favorites. Relatively mild weather, blood-pumping close encounters, active rutting bucks — it’s magical. I don’t think it’s a surprise that when hunters get a taste of that, they’re hooked.”

The fact that crossbows are so easy to learn to shoot and use is one of the primary reasons many hunters also opt for them when introducing their children to deer hunting.

“Many young hunters have success with crossbows,” Lau said. “They can be used with a tripod, shooting stick [or] rest; vertical bows obviously can’t. And vertical bows require strength to draw that very young hunters aren’t likely to have. So, crossbows allow some hunters who otherwise couldn’t participate in archery season to participate.

“So, if you believe starting kids hunting at younger ages helps to make them hunters for life, then I’d say crossbows are a part of that because they allow for participation in an incredibly enjoyable season.”

The growth in crossbow hunting’s popularity isn’t reflected just in the deer harvest; it also stands out in the PGC’s deer hunter survey conducted every three years. For the past three surveys — 2014, 2017 and 2020 — 6,000 surveys were sent out, with the response rate varying between 56 and 61%

According to the 2014 survey, 37% of archery deer hunters hunted only with a crossbow, while 13% used both a vertical and horizontal bow. That meant 50% of respondents at that time used a crossbow at least part of the time.

In the 2017 survey, that figure had grown to 61%, while the 2020 survey showed that 68% of the archery deer hunters used a crossbow, with 54% of those respondents hunting exclusively with a horizontal bow.