Maryland we get 3 days in October, and then two weeks at the end of December. No "primitive" season.
Now in Alabama, they allow
single shot, breech loading, cartridge rifles (.35 caliber or larger), during "primitive" season, so you see a lot of .35 Whelen and .45-70 Govt. NEF Handi-rifles down there.
Why do I mention this?
Well the loss of what was once defined to be what we call a "primitive" firearm season is due, mostly, to the need for higher deer harvests to control the herd in each state. Add to that the sales pitch from the modern manufacturing folks that using muzzleloading rifles that look like modern rifles means more folks will use muzzleloaders and thus harvest more deer, and voila..., you have a muzzleloader season, not a primitive season.
Want to change this?
Fist, STOP calling it "
primitive". Anti-hunters use semantics as a weapon against us, so we now know to use the phrase "deer harvest". They will use the word "primitive" to sell the idea that such firearms are inhumanely ineffective, and the modern users use the term to imply vintage rifle designs are unreliable and inaccurate. So omit "primitive", and add to that list "antique" and "vintage". Go with
traditional.
To get the folks currently using modern muzzleloaders into traditional designed rifles, you don't need a new season..., you need to give them an advantage. That's how the original "muzzleloader season" often got newbies..., the original advantage was an extended season i.e. a chance at harvesting
more deer. So do the same now...
Instead of lobbying for a special restricted season..., lobby for additional deer for anybody using a traditional rifle or smoothbore
first. States have limits for bow, breechloaders, and muzzleloaders, it's much easier (imho) to sell the idea of increasing the bag limit for folks who use a traditional rifle than to get a special season first off. With an advantage restored to using traditional rifles, folks will gravitate to them, and should, in time, discover that the modern designs do not offer as much convenience, and have some disadvantages. (Wish there was an effective, inexpensive, factory built, traditional ML rifle for the market to defuse the "cost" argument
.)
The state Department of Natural Resources will have to be keeping track of the extra deer that us folks are getting, then you can use that data to sell the idea of an early, say 3 day, traditional season, about two weeks prior to the breech loading season. Again, you have to have a DNR that will keep the data.
In the places where there was once a "primitive" or "traditional" muzzleloader season, these season were lost in increments..., so we are going to have to recover them in increments, instead of (imho) going-for-broke, and getting a restricted special season.
LD
