My proposals to the Board of Game

Last week I mentioned that several groups and individuals are preparing comments for the Board of Game statewide regulations meeting coming up in March in Fairbanks. The groups are, for the most part, fish and game advisory committees such as the Matanuska Valley group. I qualify as an example of an individual since I’m working on written and oral commentary for my personally submitted proposals.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission is another group preparing some commentary and is starting to prepare proposals for submission and consideration during the Upper Cook Inlet Board of Fisheries meeting scheduled for Feb/March of 2017. The deadline for proposal submission for the 2016-2017 BOF meeting cycle is April 10, so don’t delay too long if you want to submit something.

My two proposals coming up in front of the BOG involve crossbows and blackpowder cartridge rifles.

Surprised?

Basically, all I’m asking the BOG to do is allow a couple of other hunting tools to be used during certain types of hunts where they are not currently legal to use.

Let me explain.

Crossbows are legal for hunting during the general season for big game. That means you use your crossbow at the same time the majority of hunters are using their high-powered, modern rifles. Crossbows are currently not legal to use is any “special weapons” (bow-and-arrow and shotgun), drawing permit, and registration permit hunts, or any other hunt which is not a general season hunt. I’m avoiding and not suggesting that crossbows be considered the same as “bow-and-arrow” simply because there is a large faction of archers who, for reasons beyond my understanding, don’t want crossbows to be allowed in archery-only hunts.

My proposal asks that crossbows be allowed in non-general season hunts where a firearm like a shotgun, muzzleloader, or modern firearm is allowed along with bow and arrow equipment. This includes places like the Palmer-Wasilla Management Area, and hunts like the “targeted” antlerless moose hunts along highway corridors in Southcentral.

Fish and Game is neutral on allowing the addition of crossbows to the mix of gear types, but opposes making the regulation statewide. That puzzles me! A somewhat similar analogy would go like this: if you fish, you can use fly fishing, spinning and baitcasting gear in one area, but only fly fishing and spinning gear in an adjacent area – no baitcasting gear allowed there. Why? Is that reasonable?

I think the bias against crossbows comes from a lot of longstanding misconceptions and misunderstandings about what a crossbow can do and how it compares to current “vertical bow” equipment. Crossbows have some distinct advantages and many real disadvantages as a hunting tool when compared to “bow-and-arrow” equipment.

Jumping to blackpowder cartridge firearms, I’m asking that the larger caliber rifles: 44-caliber and larger, shooting a 350-grain lead bullet or larger, and burning 70-grains of blackpowder or more be allowed in bison hunts in Alaska.

Under the current regulations, a standard blackpowder cartridge load in, for example, a 45-70 caliber rifle (405-grain lead bullet and 70-grains of blackpowder), being a centerfire cartridge, doesn’t meet the required energy specified for centerfire rounds. The kinetic energy measured here uses a formula heavily biased toward the velocity of the centerfire load. Blackpowder cartridge loads work because of the momentum of the heavy bullet fired at a much slower velocity. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.

And here’s the rub — that same load in 45-caliber: a conical lead bullet of 400-grain weight, with 70-grains of blackpowder, fired from a muzzleloader with the equivalent length barrel is legal.

How does that make sense?

The larger blackpowder cartridges of the professional bison hide hunters of 140 years ago were used to kill millions of these animals. Why now are these same cartridges apparently considered underpowered to kill the same animals? The 50-90 caliber cartridge was specifically requested by and designed for the professional hide hunters.

In their proposal comments, Fish and Game states that blackpowder cartridges are more closely aligned to modern centerfire cartridges than they are to muzzleloaders.

Say what?

Whoever wrote that knows nothing about modern verses blackpowder ballistics and further, ignores what is printed in the muzzleloading hunter education manual. We instructors tell the students that the same weight bullet with the same amount of blackpowder fired in the same length barrel is ballistically identical, whether the bullet comes out of a muzzleloader or a cartridge firearm.

I’m constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge and misinformation circulated in making hunting regulations!

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. This column is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman or its parent company, Wick Communications. You can leave Delo a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.