Hunting Archery Duck Deer

Hunting changes - I hope everyone had a safe hunting season and a happy New Year to bring in 2006. I had a friend of mine who always calls to wish my family a happy holiday season just before Christmas and tell me he has fallen into a gold mine for hunting of all types.

Chris lives in Oklahoma, but teaches school in Fort Smith just over the border in Arkansas. He’s a die-hard duck hunter and could care less about anything that doesn’t pertain to a duck. He called to tell me he had just seen three of the biggest bucks that he has ever seen in his life on a piece of property that a church member let him lease out for the year for duck hunting. This man has over six thousands acres of farmland with nobody hunting it. So he gave Chris the rights to the backside of the property, which his cattle and horses do not use, for hunting. It has a ten-acre pond with hardwoods all around making it a supermarket for all types of game. But Chris doesn’t hunt deer.

He gave me an open invitation to come to Oklahoma and give deer hunting a try in 2006. My response after him telling me about the big bucks he had seen was “I’m there.”

But after looking into the Oklahoma hunting regulations I may need to take out a loan just to go hunting. It seems that their licenses are a little bit more expensive than here in Arkansas. If I wanted to hunt a year, an out of state license, which would entitle me to hunt all of deer season, would cost me $500.00. Here in Arkansas it’s only $225.00. So I don’t have all year to go hunting with Chris, I decide to just spend the week with him hunting a five day license will cost me in Oklahoma a mere $250.00. Here in Arkansas it’s only $125.

I think the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission should make the license for bordering states the same as what they charge for out of state licenses. If they come here to hunt, it should be the same price for us to go over there to hunt. If a hunter from Arkansas goes to Colorado and elk hunts for a week and their license cost them $500.00, then the residents from Colorado who come to deer hunt in Arkansas should pay that amount for the same privileges for hunting.

It may just be me but what’s fair for one state should be fair for the next. We as hunters here in Arkansas put our monies into our deer, ducks, turkey and other types of game, but it costs us twice the money to hunt your state as it does for you to come to ours.

Sounds like we need to do something here in Arkansas to level the playing field. So here’s a plea to the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission leaders of our state. This issue needs to be addressed for the sake of all hunters who live in, or around, the borders of our state.

I guess one good thing Chris did tell me is the pond on the property was stocked full of largemouth bass, and he has a boat waiting for me when I get there. I think maybe I’ll turn in my gun for 2006 and pull out the Ambassadeur reels and spinner baits and just go fishing in Oklahoma.

Unless Ed McMahan from the Publisher Clearing House Sweepstakes comes to visit the Wilson household, the deer hunting will just have to wait.

Happy 2006!