My son is doing an internship at the state house and evidently there is a bill coming up for discussion on modifying the supplemental feeding law for deer. They are trying to modify it to eliminate the "100 yards, out of sight" rule or something. Something to do with hogs too. I haven't seen it although he's supposed to email me a copy. Y'all know anything about this?

Dr. B

Last I heard they wanting a permit to put up a feeder

What a joke. Just make it legal.

requiring an individual person to get a permit to hunt over bait is a FUBAR plan from the get go. One guy in a club has a permit to hunt over bait but his buddies nearby can get arrested?? WTH is that?

http://www.aldeer.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2372839&Searchpage=1&Main=173651&Words=%2BLegislature&Search=true#Post2372839

Make it a $50 permit to bait. If 80% of hunters buy a permit that would put about $20-25million in revenue that could be ear marked strictly for conservation. Hire more game wardens and give them raises. Take the rest and start a bounty program for predators and set a limit on how much each hunter and trapper can make each year from those bounties . This would help the turkey and deer population and if your gonna allow baiting make it worth doing because if the individual is wanting to bait it isn't going to matter if its $15 or $100 they will pay it.

if Montgomery has 100 million extra they still wouldn't hire more GWs. GWs are the ugly redheaded stepchild of the DCNR. I heard a past Director say thet he didn't even need GWs, that his biologists could make more deer than the outlaws could kill.

Agree, and I once didn’t feel this way. Let the wardens focus on the trespassers, poachers, and bag limit offenders.

Put hunting clubs in a data base and make each club pay a baiting fee depending on acreage of club ( The more land the higher the fee). Then make the fine for baiting without a permit so high you wouldn't want to chance it. Its eventually going to pass ( its like big citys in the bible belt on alcohol sales there's too much money to be made to keep fighting it) you might as well have a good plan to profit off it.

Yeppers.

That is sad Fred I hate to hear that

Just put it $10 a feeder and make sure $9 is earmarked for game and fish give the general fund $1. Make it where it’s voted on by the people and the state can’t touch any money except the $1 per they get. You would make a shucks load of money at just that rate. Make it a $1000 fine if caught Hunting over a non permitted feeder.

Those bills may be more about allowing the use of poison to control wild hogs than about hunting with the aid of bait. Why else would Dial's bill (SB61) exclude deer and hogs from 9-11-245? He knows excluding deer wouldn't fly, but may want the exclusion of hogs to slip through with the attention on bait. Bills often see amendments that make the bill nothing like the one introduced.

Feral hog poison field tests

Neither myself nor my club is paying Jack to the state to hunt over bait unless they remove all these bears from here .

Looks like HB21 by Rep. Williams has been amended to eliminate changes to 9-11-245. That doesn't mean that changes aren't still looming in the near future.

Poisoning hogs

A database for clubs? They still have some issues with GameCheck now in its second year.

Fifty bucks for a permit?

Good grief. What have we come to?

I still don't understand how a group that supposedly is majority conservative screams about about Big Government and votes for legislators who play to the base of Less Government, yet will turn around and voluntarily ask for more permits, fees and regulation.

How about we go to individual weapons permits and fees like Tennessee and Mississippi? You buy a license, and then pay extra for a bow permit. or a rifle permit. And a muzzleloader permit. And a crossbow permit. License plus x-permits. Hog hunting permits and fees. Fees for the "privilege" of hunting hogs at night - maybe a "Thermal Optics Fee." Might as well. More money. Fishing guides and hunting lodges should pay permit fees, too. Tournaments should pay fees, too.

If we're going to open the can of worms with a "feeder permit" then the gates will be wide open. And then it'll be "They're taxing us to death!"

Ain't that the truth Clem. What in Tarnation is this place coming to?

WNSP Outdoors had the rep that sponsored the bill on their program last week(they have a recorded podcast). To paraphrase, he made it sound like hogs were the biggest concern and could not kill them during deer season around a feeder due to deer rules. No other time during the year when the hunters would be out in greater numbers to actually kill the pigs.

I would gladly pay $15 and not feed IF it meant more GW's throughout the state. Mentioned two years ago, but was floored that Choctaw County had ONE GW. You have to be pretty unlucky to get busted.

The simplest thing would be to just legalize it. But then that requires common sense, and I believe none of the law makers have it. It's not ideal at all, probably even ridiculous. But they could just make like a $50 permit per property to legally feed how ever they want. If they restrict it to feeder only that would be the most ridiculously stupid thing they could do.

In the last 25-30 years, maybe longer, there have been several counties with one or zero game wardens. Some counties with one or zero would have GWs from other counties slide in from time to time to help with problems. Has been an issue for a while.

In the time I've kept up or followed the DCNR, the Law Enforcement Section has never been at full strength. Ever. And I've heard everything from "It's tough to find good recruits to get through the training" to "We can't pay enough and lose them to other states."

IMO the only way to specifically have any license/permit fees go directly to hiring GWs would be to have the money dedicated and unable to be pilfered by Legislature or used for anything else. If I remember correctly, that's how our current general hunt/fish license money is set up - it's dedicated only to DCNR and the Legislature can't get its hands on it. They've tried, before, and can't legally get it. Some states don't have this and get screwed by their legislatures during budget time.