Tens of thousands of bow hunters will take to the fields and woods of Texas this weekend for the start of the 2010 special archery season for white-tailed deer, mule deer and Rio Grande turkey. During all of the 2010-11 hunting seasons, archers probably will kill between 20,000 and 25,000 deer. That's less than 10 percent of the deer that will be killed by all hunters this year. To participate in this 'special' hunting season, archers need a hunting license with a 'special' archery stamp, which features a buck and an arrowhead. The special stamp for the special season costs $7. All of which is fine, except that there is nothing special about the archery season and the stamp is never actually affixed to the hunting license. Basically, the whole thing makes no sense. The program was created about 40 years ago to give bow hunters an exclusive period to hunt. To fund extra enforcement during this season, hunters agreed to pay an archery surcharge (the stamp). The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department reports that slightly more than 30,000 hunters purchased the archery stamp last year. That would be the minimum number of bow hunters. TPWD sells a variety of licenses, some of which cover a variety of hunting and fishing activities, including bow hunting. How many of these combo license-holders are bow hunters is anybody's guess. TPWD extrapolates an estimate from a survey. 'In our 'Super Combo' and 'Senior Super Combo' survey in 2009, 33.1 percent of respondents told us they hunted during the archery-only season,' says Clayton Wolf, director of TPWD's Wildlife Division. That would mean there are about a quarter-million bow hunters out there. That's farfetched. Another TPWD estimate put the number of archers at about 180,000. My guess is that it's fewer than 100,000, but it doesn't make any difference. The season isn't exclusive to bow hunters; there are no stamps; and the money raised just drops into a general pot of money called Fund 9. And nothing in Fund 9 is dedicated to anything special regarding archery. I say dump the stamp. Get rid of it. Keep the season; lose the stamp. I know this is not a popular thought among many bow hunters and archery organizations. There is a long-standing feeling that the bow season was created for archers because they agreed to buy the stamps. They bought this season, so leave it alone. They see, and vocally defend, this linkage. Ten years ago, when the suggestion was made that youth hunting also be allowed on October weekends, members of the Lone Star Bowhunters Association lobbied against any incursion into their season. The youths can hunt deer in November, December and January with everybody else. October is for the archers. Except it's not. Listen. Literally. Listen this weekend. Some of you will hear gunfire. Legal gunfire. Across Texas there are about 5,000 property owners who manage their deer populations under state supervision and who have what is called Managed Lands Deer Permits. These permits allow hunters to take any kind of deer at any time using guns, or bows, or blow darts, for that matter. There is no charge for these permits. In addition, the state has given away more than 48,000 Super Combo hunting and fishing licenses to military personnel living in Texas. Those hunters may be out in October, and they will not have to have paid a surcharge. Again, I say ditch the stamp. If TPWD or the Legislature is concerned about a revenue loss, charge managed lands permit holders $2 per deer harvested. Statewide, the annual harvest is about 120,000, so that income would replace the lost stamp revenue. Let TPWD prove archers are special by NOT charging them extra to hunt. Mike Leggett writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: mleggett@statesman.com. 