New deer hunting regulations

The Great Outdoors

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By Ryan Rhodes

Earlier this month, the Louisiana government passed a series of new regulations in the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for the deer hunting seasons of 2008-2010.

Deer hunters will now have to obtain deer tags regardless of age or license status and have them in their possession while hunting deer. Immediately after a kill, the hunter must also tag the deer with the appropriate carcass tag and document the kill on their deer tag. Hunters are also now required to validate the kill and record the validation number on their license.

Hunters can validate kills by using WMA checkpoints, calling a toll free number or using the validation Web site. Basically this is like getting your driver’s license, but then having to report every time you honk your horn.

Also new for the upcoming season is the limit to the number of deer you can harvest in a season. You used to be able to kill six deer total of any sex, mix and match. You can still kill six, but it can only be three bucks and three does. This one doesn’t annoy me as much since I don’t know too many people who kill six deer in a season unless they’re ticks.

There are also changes to the primitive weapons regulations for the new seasons. When I first heard that, I thought they were finally going to let us use rocks and throwing knives, but I was sadly wrong. The change is to the definition of primitive firearms.

In addition to using muzzle loaders, any single-shot, breech loading rifle .38 caliber or larger manufactured before 1900 or a replica, reproduction or reintroduction of a such a weapon with an exposed hammer and using metallic cartridges containing black powder or smokeless powder. So basically, any Civil War buff who always wanted to hunt with a Spencer carbine can now do so, and during the old muzzleloader season.

There’s also been a slight change to the rules concerning wearing blaze orange. It is now required that hunters hunting any game and possessing buckshot, slugs, a primitive firearm or a center-fire rifle to wear at least 400 square inches of blaze orange during the open gun season on public land. Those hunting on private land that is legally posted can just wear a hat in lieu of the 400 square inches. All the other regulations concerning blaze orange or “hunter orange” as it is legally defined remained the same.

Probably the biggest change, or at least the change that’s getting the most attention, is Senate Bill 165 approved by Bobby Jindal on June 5. This action amended the LDWF regulation on crossbow use. It used to be that only those who were handicapped or over the age of 60 were allowed to use a crossbow for hunting in Louisiana. Now crossbow use is legal to anyone with a hunting license during the also newly formed archery and crossbow season, which for most regions this season will be October 1 – January 31. You can learn more about all the new and existing regulation by visiting the LDWF’s Web site at www.wlf.state.la.us.

Now what do all of these changes mean for us? Changing the seasonal kill limits to help maintain the number of bucks and does available for the rut in order to keep the numbers balanced. This seems pretty reasonable to me. Making sure the deer populations are balanced for the rut means stronger deer populations in the seasons to come. Of course, I say that now, but if and when someone has the opportunity to take four bucks in a season, but can’t, they will be pretty pissed.

Basically, the tagging system is put in place to help prevent illegal kills, but it’s obviously going to be a certifiable pain in the ass. Why do you think people throw back tagged fish sometimes? They don’t want the hassle of having to report the catch; fishing is supposed to be fun, not work. It’s the same with hunting, only this time you don’t really have a choice.

So, in order to alleviate some frustration during the deer season, they decided to let us shoot deer with some new weapons. That’s probably not exactly why they did this, but it’s just by conspiracy theory. I’ve got another one about the aliens replacing all the squirrels on campus with little fuzzy robots, but that’s another story.

Originally Published: Issue 690 - June 25, 2008

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