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Changes intended to boost hunting
by Staff
Changes in hunting and fishing regulations proposed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission for 2009-2010 include requiring hunters to attach a physical tag to deer and other big game at the harvest site starting in the fall of 2010.
Hunters would still be required to check in a harvest and obtain an authorization number for Big Game Harvest Report Cards. A return to hard tags was requested by many hunters in North Carolina and would improve the commission’s ability to monitor harvest, stated a commission press release.
The commission proposed eliminating the winter either-sex turkey season, based on the belief that spring gobbler harvest is relatively low in some winter turkey season counties and some have experienced sharp declines in spring gobbler harvest in the past seven seasons.
A series of hearings for public comment on the proposed changes includes a session for Wildlife District 7 (which includes Wilkes County) at 7 p.m. Jan. 15 at Starmount High School near Boonville.
Also proposed was a limit on the number of consecutive days people could camp at Thurmond Chatham Game Lands in northern Wilkes County.
“Some people have been ‘homesteading’ at one of the designated campgrounds at Thurmond Chatham Game Land and the resulting trash accumulation, human waste disposal (or lack thereof), soil erosion and/or compaction and drug use are in conflict with the management goals for game lands,” the release stated.
“Under current rules, law enforcement officers cannot remove campers who stay for extended periods and cause problems.”
The proposal is to limit consecutive nights stay to 14 days in any 30-day period on designated campgrounds on Thurmond Chatham from May 1 to Aug. 31 and require removal of personal property at the end of each 14-day period.
Increased opportunities
The goal of several proposed changes is to increase opportunities for hunting. These include:
• remove the daily bag limit for deer. There is little biological justification for the current daily bag limit of two deer, stated a commission news release;
• allow bow hunting on Sundays on private lands only, except for migratory game birds to increase hunting opportunities, particularly for hunters who can only hunt on the weekends because of work obligations. State law prohibits hunting on Sundays with firearms, not archery equipment;
• allow use of crossbows, without permit, any time bow and arrows are legal weapons to provide more opportunities for hunters who use archery equipment and to open up archery hunting for those with limited arm strength;
• let hunters use archery equipment to harvest deer during the muzzleloading firearms season on state game lands such as Thurmand Chatham in northern Wilkes. Hunters already can harvest deer during the muzzleloading firearms season using archery equipment on private lands;
• open all counties in and east of Yancey, McDowell and Rutherford counties to the maximum either-sex deer season to increase chances for doe harvest;
• allow bear hunting on the Daniel Boone Bear Sanctuary by permit only, based on the belief that the bear population in and around the Daniel Boone Sanctuary is healthy and continues to increase and due to increasing conflicts between people and bears;
• shorten bow season by one week and begin the muzzleloading firearms season one week earlier to create a two-week muzzleloading firearms season to increase opportunities for hunters using muzzleloading rifles or muzzleloading shotguns to harvest deer, while not reducing the total time available to hunt using archery equipment;
• change the season for crows to include the state-observed holidays of July 4, New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and change the opening day of the season from June 1 to the first Wednesday in June to give crow hunters more opportunities to hunt when they’re likely to have a day off from work;
• remove bag limits on otters in the western region of North Carolina due to successful otter restoration efforts;
• set the season on red and grey squirrels to open Oct. 1 and end on the second Saturday in February to give more opportunities to small game hunters without negatively affecting the squirrel population;
• allow falconry on Sundays, except for migratory game birds because there is no biological, legal or management reason;
• remove all restrictions on the types of firearms allowed on game lands during open hunting seasons, but while big game seasons are closed. Currently, it is illegal to possess on game lands a shotgun shell containing larger than No. 4 shot or any rifle or pistol larger than a .22 caliber rimfire during the closed big game firearms seasons. This change would eliminate those restrictions and open up opportunities to hunters;
• allow the commission to authorize the use of unplugged shotguns and electronic calls, when also allowed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for hunting migratory game birds;
• allow raccoons to be trapped in and west of Madison, Buncombe, Henderson and Polk counties (District 9) due to abundant raccoon populations.
Uniform deer season
Another proposal is to establish a single uniform deer season on private lands with a structure matching the current eastern deer season in the counties of Yancey, McDowell and Rutherford and all counties east of them (WRC Districts 1-8).
The segments of this season would be:
• bow and arrow only opening on the Saturday on or nearest to Sept. 10 and
ending the fourth Friday thereafter (or the third Friday thereafter);
• muzzleloading firearms season opening the Saturday on or nearest to Oct. 8
(or Oct. 1) and ending the following Friday;
• all lawful weapons (“gun”) season opening the Saturday on or nearest to Oct. 15 and ending Jan. 1.
This proposal is intended to reduce complexity for new hunters and provide more gun hunting opportunities for hunters in the Central, Northwestern and Western deer seasons.
Wild hogs
Regulation changes requested by U.S. Forest Service personnel to control increasing populations of wild hogs on Forest Service property as well as private lands in the western six counties include:
• open bear sanctuaries to wild boar hunting during the entire wild boar season;
• open wild boar season on the Monday on or nearest Sept. 10 and end it on the last day of February;
• allow hunting with dogs only during open bear season and never on bear sanctuaries;
• allow wild boar to be taken in the deer bow-and-arrow season, deer muzzleloading season, deer gun season and any small game season using only weapons and manner of take prescribed for that hunting season.
More on deer hunting
• require people harvesting deer through the Deer Management Assistance Program to use tags provided by the commission and report their harvests, whether those deer are antlerless or antlered;
• allow harvest of deer on Deer Management Assistance Program areas under the Big Game Harvest Report Card and the Bonus Antlerless Deer Harvest Report Card (where applicable) to ease administration of the program;
• change the description of where Bonus Antlerless Deer Harvest Report Cards may be used from “private lands” to “lands other than those enrolled in the commission’s Game Land Program” to permit the use of these cards on military installations, national wildlife refuges, and other public lands that are not game lands.
More on turkey hunting
• replace Youth Only Wild Turkey Day with a Friends and Family Afield Wild Turkey Day and make this day the first Saturday in April. Every person hunting on that day would have to be accompanied by at least one other person. The shooting hours would end at 1 p.m. and the bag limit would be one bird (male or bearded). This would promote the social aspects of hunting and could promote hunting among non-hunters, the release stated;
• open Spring Wild Turkey Season the day after Friends and Family Afield Wild Turkey Day (Sunday if the proposal is adopted) and end the season the Saturday of the fourth week thereafter. During the first six days of this season (Sunday through Friday), shooting hours would end at 1 p.m. The bag limit would be one bird for the first six days of the season. If a hunter took a bird on Friends and Family Afield Wild Turkey Day, the hunter would not be able to take another bird during the first six days of the season. After the first six days of the season passed, the shooting hours would end at one-half hour after sunset and the season bag limit would be two birds.
Trout fishing
Proposed changes in fishing regulations include designating:
• 3.5 miles of Wilson Creek in Caldwell County as Delayed-Harvest Trout Waters;
• 1.6 miles of Winkler Creek in Boone as Wild Trout Waters;
• the upper boundary of Delayed-Harvest Trout Waters on the Watauga River in Watauga County as “adjacent to the intersection of SR 1557 and SR 1558” to eliminate stocking of 0.2 miles of this river that is posted against trespassing.
They also include removing the Public Trout Waters designation from Hoskins Creek in Ashe County because it is poor trout habitat and provides limited angling opportunities and doing the same with Ramey Creek in Alleghany County because land on the stream was posted against trespassing. |
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