Keeping What You Kill
Imagine scheduling vacation time this summer to take a five day trip several hours away to hunt ducks on public land. May be that WMA just out of a days reach near home or even that trip to another state that you have been putting off for so long and finally checking off your bucket list. Your incredibly honed in ability through years of experience enabling you to read the weather and find the birds has put you right in the middle of the mother of all migrations. Not only do you meet a few new friends along the way making the time spent outdoors a huge success, you are flat out on them, shooting limits on all five days. Did you know that not only do you need to leave a head or wing on to travel home, but you can only have three of those five hunting days worth of harvest in your possession?
I have talked to multiple game wardens regarding this topic and others, including how many can you have at your home and the most common response has been "depends on how the possession law is defined by the agent". I am blessed with the opportunity to travel a good bit and the possession limits thing has become an issue on multiple occasions. I have not been able to wrap my simple mind around the fact that if I can legally hunt migratory ducks on public land for sixty days, why can I only have three days worth in my pocket at any given time? Some say the law was put in place to help regulate the (at one time) newly instituted market hunting laws. I am honestly not sure and I can't get much help from the state either.
Trying to not be just another complaining soul about things, I try to do my part and have volunteered as a member of Texas Parks and Wildlife's Migratory Bird Advisory Committee. I have attempted to bring this topic to the table on multiple occasions. I was directed by TPWD to begin the conversation with local government officials and was referred back to TPWD by those local officials, creating an endless circle of me working to get nothing done.
We are putting a petition together to see what interest we can generate to help align our legal possession limit with our legal harvest limits. If we can legally harvest five mallards per day in our current location while traveling on a five day hunt, totaling twenty-five birds, we should be allowed to have all twenty-five of those birds in our possession. What I should be doing with my other legally harvested birds in the current situation opens an entire new can of worms as well. Remember the head and wing thing while traveling? I was told by a game warden at one point that if I was caught cleaning birds while eating my harvest on the road and they were unable to identify them, that I would also receive a citation. I believe in eating what I kill. Have you heard stories of birds being dumped? Could this regulations contribute to that happening? I don't believe in dumping birds and have donated many birds while traveling to organizations or local guys I have met along the way but are you familiar with that process? I believe it is time for a change to this regulation.
If I choose to hunt every day that I am legally permitted, never harvesting more than my legal limit, why should I receive a citation because of a fabricated random number put in place by who? For what?
My solution is to eliminate these regulations entirely but that's how I roll, I'm more of a less regulations and just do what's right guy. Maybe you have a better solution. Let's hear your thoughts below and if you agree, sign the petition and let's be sure that no harvested game is wasted and our coolers and freezers can be full of legally harvested birds to provide for our families and others whom we may be responsible. Petition can also be found on the home page of the Dr Duck website if you would like to share, thanks!
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