Now legal for all hunters, vendors hoping they’ll come shopping
Walking into the Trade Mart in Jackson Thursday, during set up for the 27th annual Wildlife Extravaganza that opens at 3 p.m. today, one thing was pretty obvious.
“What’s with all the crossbows?” I heard a guy ask.
His friend had the answer: “Guess since they’re legal now, they expect to sell a bunch.”
Crossbows and accessories are prevalent through the many vendor booths in the Trade Mart, a reminder than this fall, anyone can hunt with a crossbow during all archery seasons.
Legislation passed in the spring did away with crossbow limitations that allowed only hunters over 65 and those with physical problems that prevented pulling a conventional-type bow (long bow, recurve or compound) to use a crossbow.
This year anybody can use a crossbow during any open deer season.
Vendors began stocking their booths Thursday and finished early Friday in anticipation of the 3 p.m. opening.
The sponsoring Mississippi Wildlife Federation is expecting about 30,000 visitors over the three-day show, which is open through 9 p.m. tonight, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
“We have our standard five-booths worth of space, and thought about expanding,” said Rocky Duke, owner of The Outfitter in Florence. “We are right next to the big buck display and we didn’t want to move.
“It’s a double-edge sword, being next to all those antlers. Everybody will come see them so they will pass our booth, but the flipside is that we have to get their attention away from the bucks and over to our booth.”
Duke has that figured out. The Outfitter, which is one of the leading hunting and fishing stores in the metro area, also does deer processing, which it pushes during the Extravaganza with hot samples of its many products, like sausage.
“We put our serving trays down there on that end nearest the big buck display, and that’s no accident,” Duke said. “We figure the more the aroma of that sausage drifts through the crowd, the more we can pull over to our space. That’s no accident.”
A lot of Thursday’s discussions centered on the deer display, especially whether or not some of the state’s giant deer taken in 2012-13 season will be entered in the contest.
“We still don’t know, and won’t know which ones will come in until they are brought in Friday and Saturday (till noon),” said Rick Dillard, a founder of and an official scorer for the Magnolia Records Club. “We hope we get the 236-inch buck from Giles Island. We hope we get the new record typical archery deer.”
We’ll begin finding out at 3 p.m. today.
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