Hunting and fishing rules are too complicated and confusing

State House Augusta Maine 3_JPGMost everyone who hunts and fishes will agree that the laws and rules governing our favorite outdoor sports are far too complex. If you agree, it’s time for you to step up and help us address the problem.

On Thursday, March 12, at 1 pm, the legislature’s IFW Committee hosts a hearing on LD 157, An Act to Create an Advisory Committee To Review and Make Recommendations Regarding Hunting and Fishing Laws, sponsored at my request by Representative Matt Pouliot.

If you can’t get to the hearing in Room 227 of the State Office Building (next to the Capitol) to testify in favor of the bill, you can submit your comments via email to Heather.Maclin@legislature.maine.gov. Be sure to title your message: Testimony in favor of LD 157.

This bill would establish a Commission, organized by Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and led by Maine’s nonprofit organizations, to constantly review hunting and fishing laws and rules and make recommendations to simplify, clarify, or eliminate them. This proposal includes annual surveys of anglers and hunters on key issues. The survey would be created by the Commission with input from DIF&W’s staff, and be distributed to licensed hunters and anglers by DIF&W.

Commission members would be appointed by the Commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife,  for two year terms, and include Advisory Council members, a game warden, representatives of groups representing sportsmen, guides, sporting camps, and conservationists, members of fish and game clubs, and DIF&W’s Deputy Commissioner or the Deputy’s designee. One Senator and one Representative from this committee would also participate. We will suggest that a representative of private landowners be added to the Commission.

Commission members would elect a Chair who will lead the process and a Secretary who will be responsible for recording the process and all recommendations. DIF&W would provide clerical, funding, and other support, as needed.

At one time, the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine organized something like this, called the Pickering Commission, and it was very successful, recommending many changes that simplified and clarified our hunting and fishing rules. This bill recognizes the success of the Pickering Committee by institutionalizing it at DIF&W, broadening participation, involving lots more sportsmen, and doing this much more often.

 

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.