The Pope and Young Club was founded to promote bowhunting and to record for posterity the outstanding examples of North American big game animals taken solely with the hunting bow.

For the purpose of the Pope and Young Club, a bow shall be defined as a longbow, recurve bow or compound bow that is hand-held and hand-drawn, and that has no mechanical device to enable the hunter to lock the bow at full or partial draw. Other than the energy stored by the drawn bow, no device to propel the arrow will be permitted.

Consequently, the Pope and Young Club does not consider the crossbow to be a hunting bow and will not accept any trophies collected by crossbow hunters. Further, the Pope and Young Club considers the use of crossbows during bowhunting seasons to be a serious threat to the future of bowhunting.

The Pope and Young Club therefore recommends the crossbow should not be considered for use in any bowhunting only season. Also, the Club strongly recommends that crossbow hunting be abolished from all existing bowhunting only seasons and the use of crossbows for hunting be restricted to firearms seasons.

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