The age of the two-sport athlete is over.
What didn’t work for Michael Jordan shouldn’t work for Montana sportsmen either.
So says Victor Workman, a member of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission who wants big game hunters in the state to choose their weapons –- rifle or bow – and no longer be allowed to hunt with both as they can now.
“It’s an effort to curb the amount of wounding that happens by archery hunters who one might describe as part-time hunters,” Workman recently told the Billings Gazette.
The commissioner from District 1 in the northwest part of the state reasons that archers who commit to using only a bow and not switching to a rifle when the general big game season opens will become better shots with a bow. Full-time archers, if you will.
It could be the start of a trend.
In an effort to improve efficiency among outdoor folk of all stripes, perhaps limiting them to one discipline is the ticket.
Fly fishermen, tired of never catching any fish, would no longer be allowed to make the switch to bait.
And vice versa.
Catfish anglers, unable to wash the smell of rancid chicken livers off their hands, couldn’t change into color-coordinated outfits and flail the waters with 9-foot split bamboo rods.
Whitetail hunters who use shotguns and slugs in areas where rifles aren’t allowed would no longer be allowed to hunt elk with their 7–mags. Making the mental switch from short range to long is simply too difficult. Just ask Workman, who claims to have a lot of support for his proposal.
And if weapons-specific laws work, why not species-specific regulations, too?
Turkey hunters would be just that. The law would prevent them from ever taking off their camouflage head nets or face paint – a perfectly acceptable situation for most of them.
Upland bird hunters would have to choose a single species – snipe, for example, or sage grouse. Never firing a shot at anything in the air other than your chosen bird would undoubtedly make you a more efficient hunter.
On the other hand, there’s also the chance Workman’s idea would ruin hunting for a lot of guys who shoot both a rifle and a bow. Fewer opportunities and more rules in a sport some folks say is already dying may not be the direction the FWP Commission wants to go. Especially when even Workman admitted he had no figures on game wounded by either archers or riflemen.
But he’d like you to consider his proposal anyway.
It turned out Michael Jordan couldn’t hit a minor league curve ball. Think what a basketball player he could have been had he never picked up a baseball bat.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net