As sports go, hunting is a long way from ping-pong. But hunters preparing for the 2009 archery season have watched a series of serve-and-return parries among the Game Commission's board of commissioners that suggest a lively match of table tennis.

It's all about crossbows. Specifically, commissioners have sparred over the degree to which crossbows should be used, and how they may be equipped, in seasons previously reserved for conventional archery. Instead of squabbling behind the scenes before the crossbow vote, the debate has been documented in a confusing and contradictory series of regulations.

For decades, hunting with crossbows in the archery season was prohibited in Pennsylvania, except for hunters possessing a "Disabled Person Permit" that declared them physically incapable of using conventional archery equipment, referred to as "vertical bows."

In the late 1990s, the commission approved the use of crossbows throughout archery season but only in urban Special Regulation Areas. That regulation was later amended to include Wildlife Management Units 2B, 5C and 5D, which cover essentially the same territory.

The pace picked up at the October 2008 Game Commission meeting when the board voted preliminary approval to "full inclusion of crossbows during big game archery seasons." That proposal won final approval in a 4-3 vote at the agency's January meeting, despite strong opposition from conventional bowhunters and a minority of commissioners, making it legal to hunt deer and bear statewide with a crossbow during the upcoming 2009 archery seasons.

Commissioner Thomas Boop of Sunbury, Northumberland County, cast one of the three dissenting votes.

"I ask my fellow commissioners, why the rush on this issue?" Boop stated before the vote. "Most commissioners I've talked to, the opposition [against crossbows] was 90 percent."

Commissioner Roxane Palone, of Waynesburg, and board president at the time, voted for expanded crossbow use and defended her stance on the grounds of wider hunter participation.

"If hunting were a growing and expanding sport, I might vote no on crossbows," Palone stated. "But, really, hunting is a waning sport. ... It's not like we have millions of new people knocking down our door to go hunting. And we need to look at ourselves as hunters and not as small factions."

Contacted later, Commissioner Russ Schleiden of Centre Hall, Centre County, said he saw expanded crossbow use as a way to widen hunter opportunity with negligible biological impact.

"I am the one who brought crossbow legalization forward," Schleiden said. "I recalled that [the PGC] had this same argument when we allowed compound bows and it didn't hurt the deer resource. You only get one buck anyway, no matter how you take it."

In January, Commissioner David Schreffler of Everett, Bedford County, complicated matters by offering an amendment prohibiting the use of "magnifying telescopic sights" on all archery equipment, including, and specifically aimed at, crossbows.

The "no scope" amendment passed and, according to sources, won over Schreffler's vote in support of the broader crossbow inclusion. The amendment did not, however, take into account that 60,000 hunters with Disabled Person Permits and unknown thousands in Wildlife Management Units 2B, 5C and 5D were already using scopes on crossbows legally. Plus, how would enforcement officers tell a magnifying scope from a non-magnifying scope without looking into each one?

The contradictory situation brought opposition from hunters already using scopes, and the commission called a special telephone conference vote on March 4 to propose a reversal of the Schreffler amendment. Commissioners voted final approval of the rollback at their April 21 meeting, allowing the use of magnifying scopes on crossbows and all archery equipment statewide.

At that meeting Commissioner Ron Weaner of Biglerville, Adams County, served up another new concept in the crossbow controversy. Weaner announced that he would propose at the July 8-9 meeting to restrict statewide crossbow use in the archery deer season to the first two weeks. Weaner's concept would also retain provisions for crossbow permits in urban deer zones, allow crossbows for deer in the fall and winter muzzleloader seasons (but only for hunters who possessed a muzzleloader license), and prohibit crossbows during the bear archery season.

"My reasoning is that this is a compromise," Weaner said, later. "To anyone who bought a crossbow after the April vote, thinking they could hunt with it, it would be grossly unfair to eliminate crossbows completely. If my proposal is passed [crossbow hunters] can hunt deer any time except the last four weeks of archery deer. It's a reasoned approach and I've gotten a lot of feedback saying it's a workable compromise."

There are indications that Weaner's idea has sufficient support for adoption, especially as the eight-year terms of Commissioners Palone and Schleiden, the two strongest crossbow proponents, expired after the April meeting (Robert Schlemmer, the governor's nominee to replace Palone, hasn't been confirmed by the state Senate; David Putnam, Schleiden's replacement, was confirmed May 5).

Even if Weaner's latest serve scores a point, it is not clear if it can take effect before the 2009 archery seasons, which begin in September. The proposal will require a final vote at some point and the agency needs months to publish hunting regulations in its annual Digest, furnished to hunters.

"Whether or not it could happen for this season, I don't know," Weaner said. "There are a lot of practical problems that staff in the agency would have to deal with before that time."

Weaner doesn't accept Schleiden's dismissal of the biological impact on the whitetail resource.

"I hated to just throw the crossbow thing wide open not knowing the possible impact," he said. "In my understanding, in the past, when the commission would move into something new they would move slowly and get a handle on things and this didn't seem to be happening that way."

According to Weaner, though, there is no ill will among commissioners.

"I believe this has been a case of philosophical differences among the board. Some people just feel that everybody ought to have a chance to hunt in all the seasons, regardless of their commitment or preparation. I respect that but I don't agree with it."

The back-and-forth rule making isn't over as the Game Commission prepares for another vote