Biologists propose new deer tag program

Deer hunters will have an option when it comes to their individual limits for the 2012-2013 hunting season if a plan offered by state biologists is approved by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

Under current hunting regulations, each hunter is required to use one of six Department of Wildlife and Fisheries-issued tags on deer taken during the more than four-month season. Three of the tags are allotted to the taking of bucks or antlered deer while the other three are reserved for antlerless (doe/female) deer.

The new plan outlined during Thursday’s monthly LWFC meeting will take one of the three tags allocated to a buck and convert it for use on a buck or a doe. The move gives a hunter the option of taking as many as four doe each season, which would restrict his or her take of bucks to two per season. The hunter could use the “choice tag” to take a third buck. The overall season limit of six whitetail deer will not change.

LDWF wildlife biologist Randy Myers told the commission the agency’s Wildlife Division responded to pleas by landowners for additional ways “to better manage the deer herds.”

Another major changes to the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 seasons is the extension of special deer season dates in the Atchafalaya Basin enacted for the 2011-2012 season after the opening of the Morganza Floodway last spring. Myers said the special dates and bag restrictions are mostly to reduce the number of either-sex hunting dates (when hunters are allowed to take bucks and does) in areas between the Basin’s East and West Guide levees and south of the Interstate 10 bridge.

“As a staff, we’re still concerned about the deer populations in that area,” Myers said. “We had concerns before the Floodway was opened and the floodwaters only heightened those concerns.”

Other changes will include a restructuring of the number of weapons allowed in the LDWF-approved Primitive Weapons list; the carrying forth of a plan to merger State Deer Area 4 into State Deer Area 1; and, a revision of state regulations to allow the use of silencers and night hunting when it comes to taking feral hogs.

Another far-reaching proposal is to allow hunters to use air rifles to take squirrels, rabbits and outlaw quadrupeds, including nutria.

Among the other more notable 33 proposed changes for the next hunting season are a woman-only lottery deer hunt on the Atchafalaya Delta Wildlife Management Area (it will be restricted to women enrolled in the Louisiana Women in the Wild Program); the establishment of camping areas on the Reserve Canal and the Amite River Diversion Canal in the Maurepas Swamp WMA; to allow hunters to leave their stands on WMAs to hunt hogs (current rules mandate removal after the WMA deer-hunting season); and, the elimination of mandatory checks in favor of self-clearing permits to take deer and hogs on the Pass a Loutre WMA.

Other LWFC action included:

• Approving a report on striped mullet to be sent to the State Legislature. The report indicated no significant changes to the species numbers in Louisiana waters;
• Approving a notice of intent to open a netting season for the taking of commercial “roughfish” species on False River;
• Hearing a report and update from Coastal Conservation Association-Louisiana executive director David Cresson on the use of state Artificial Reef Program monies with matching CCA grants for the construction of eight inshore artificial reefs during the past eight years;
• Hearing a report that LDWF Enforcement Division agents issued 1,149 citations and 344 written warnings during January;
• Set the June meeting for Thursday, June 7 in Baton Rouge.