Hunting Organizations Work To Repeal Sunday Hunting Prohibition

The Sunday hunting bans really just do not make sense to me. I have never understood them, and I’m glad Michigan doesn’t have such a ban.

It’s awesome that these organizations are uniting together, though, in the hopes of changing something, which needed to be changed years go.

It’s definitely a good thing.

Okay guys, I’ll throw myself at your mercy and go the other way here. I live and hunt in North Carolina. I am not religious – I do not go to church. I am in favor of the Sunday ban on hunting, though only for public land. One of the arguments I hear from hunters to lift the ban is this… “I work hard all week to have money so I can go hunting and the state says I can only hunt one day. That’s bull.” Well, the same argument can be made by those who like to go hiking in the public woods, with their dogs, or on horseback, or mountain bikes. They work all week for some leisure time too. For better or worse, 95% of the non-hunting public considers being in the woods during hunting season to be unsafe, to the point where there may as well be a state ban on non-hunters using the woods on Saturdays. If you lift the ban, you reduce the outdoor recreation opportunities for all of these people for what basically amounts to 5 months out of the year. And these people outnumber us hunters by 10 to 1, and they vote. So, should hunters have more “perceived” rights to state and federal lands than non-hunters?
And is giving our game animals a break just one day out of seven really a bad idea? In eastern NC, the deer season runs from Oct. 15 – Jan. 1, and that’s rifle season, and it’s legal to run deer with hounds here. If you include archery and muzzleloader, you can add another month to that. So I think it’s a pretty good idea to have a day that deer and non-hunters can enjoy the woods without worrying about getting shot or having a pack of hounds blast in and harass the family walking their pet poodle. Shoot, I use Sundays for that very purpose – to go hiking with my wife and our two dogs. I wouldn’t even consider trying it on a Saturday.
A caveat: unrestricted hunting SHOULD be allowed on private land, and the state made a small step toward that by allowing archery hunting on Sundays on private lands legal this past season.
That’s my take on it. Fire away.

Phillip, instead of leaving sleeping dogs lay, I’ll suggest that your and other’s argument of why the Sunday hunting ban should be lifted is also one that has been around for as long as I can remember. Just because an argument is old doesn’t mean it isn’t a good one. And I offer you a challenge – the next time you’re back during deer season, let’s you and me go to the Croatan (or you can pick the public land location) and we’ll go on a birdwatching hike on a Saturday. While we’re out, we can keep track of when we feel safe and when we feel unsafe, and we can take a poll of all the non-hunters we bump into during our outing. It’ll be easy, because there won’t be any.
Smart-assedness aside, if I look at this issue through the eyes of folks outside NC, I can see the merit in 7-day-a-week access for hunters. But, here in NC, where deer hunting with dogs is legal, the scene is VERY different. Dog hunting (as it is known) is a landscapewide activity. It covers massive amounts of land and is inherently unsafe for non-participants who get caught up in the middle of it. Forest roads are lined with trucks and shooters peering into the woods anticipating running targets. Volleys are loosed at fleeting glimpses of deer. Hunting parties often don’t know who shot what. Shots are taken at deer as they cross forest roads, dogs run into highways and the dead litter the sides of the roads.
Whether dog hunting should be banned or not is an argument for another day, but in states where it is legal, the Sunday hunting ban allows some respite for non-hunting users and the deer that are pursued relentlessly from Oct. 15 – Jan. 1. Imagine an entire deer herd that is for all intents and purposes driven completely nocturnal during the fall and winter. There is no rut, as bucks and does are constantly on the run, literally.
As far as educating the non-hunting public and its misconceptions about “hunters behind every tree” – that’s a pipe dream. John Q Public doesn’t give a rat’s behind about what’s true and what’s perceived to be true. Perception IS truth. If it were the other way around, people would kill every dog at large instead of every snake that crosses their paths (statistics show dog bites cause exponentially more hospital visits and deaths than snake bites). John Q Public isn’t going to some seminar to learn the woods are safe for he and his family during hunting season. He’s going to stay at home and do something else that in his eyes doesn’t jeopardize his family’s safety.
So far, I’ll stick to my guns (like that pun?) and remain in favor of the Sunday hunting ban – at least here in NC. This is not a fight we (hunters) want to win.

Deal. Hope they flew for you today.

Phillip, going to a 3-days-a-week schedule (like Holly Shelter and now my local spot, Sandy Mush Gamelands) would certainly satisfy my concerns. But how others would view giving up three week days to get Sundays I have no idea. I’ll try to dig up a recent survey of NC hunters (conducted by NCWRC) on the Sunday hunting issue. I seem to remember being surprised at the data.

I feel like a dadgum politioian reading down through the comments nodding my head as everyone was making sense. I guess its a new thought for me as I’ve never lived with any restrictions like no hunting on Sunday. I personally do very little hunting on Sunday as I have always to keep one day free for things of higher prioity as it keeps my life a little more balanced then if I didn’t. I have a tendency to go a little hog wild if I don’t restrict myself. This is kind of needed here in Idaho as there is always something to hunt year round.