Most hunting, fishing, and trapping rules pass though Wildlife commission and then get presented in public meetings ( district 3 district 5 ) allowing citizens from across the state to voice their opinions and then the Wildlife Commission holds a final vote on whether or not to adopt the new rules. This for the most part works well and the majority of outdoors people across the state at least feel like they get some say in the changes. When this system that seems to work is circumvented and the legislators poke their noses into it one has to scratch their head. Initially the new law would have required a bow hunter hunting deer to wear hunter orange while his fellow hunter who is hunting doves with a shotgun would not have to wear it. I’m glad that someone caught this before it became law. The rewrite has been changed to make bow hunters have to put on orange only during a firearm season for deer.
SECTION 4. G.S. 113 291.8(a) reads as rewritten:
“(a) Any person hunting game animals other than foxes, bobcats, raccoons, and opossum, or hunting upland game birds other than wild turkeys, with the use of firearms, must wear a cap or hat on his head made of hunter orange material or an outer garment of hunter orange visible from all sides. Any person hunting deer during a deer firearms season shall wear hunter orange. Hunter orange material is a material that is a daylight fluorescent orange color.”
I’m not sure that orange makes a safe hunter any safer if you properly identify your target before discharging your weapon you shouldn’t have any problem. I personally believe that on private land the use of orange should be left up to the landowner and the hunter. Wearing orange while bow hunting is regulating a non issue I’m sure the number of people hunting deer with a bow during a firearm season is minuscule. One has to wonder if there are no other pressing issues in this state that the legislators couldn’t tackle rather then micro managing wildlife laws.
