Wildlife Commission Can't Stop "Deer Dogging"
Covey Bean Published: September 6, 1998 12:00 AM CDT
If folks down in McCurtain County want to run deer with dogs, they're going to run deer with dogs.
With that fact firmly in mind, the Wildlife Commission Tuesday will come to grips with a harmless-sounding agenda item dealing with regulations on two wildlife management areas, Honobia Creek in Pushmataha County and Three Rivers in McCurtain County.
A problem developed when the new Three Rivers Wildlife Management Area, consisting of 450,000 acres of Weyerhaeuser land in McCurtain County, came under the regulations that govern Wildlife Department's public hunting areas.
The regulation in question says that quail, squirrel, rabbit and raccoon seasons will be suspended on those two areas during the nine-day gun season, which this year is Nov. 21-29. Without saying so specifically, the regulation would effectively prohibit people from using dogs on those game management areas during that period. That sounds like a sensible rule to keep bird dogs, beagles, coon hounds and squirrel dogs from busting the stands of deer hunters.
Since dogs are not supposed to be engaged in the pursuit of deer, nobody gave much thought to the illegal sport of "deer dogging" until the department obtained rights to manage the timber company land in McCurtain County that became Three Rivers.
The addition of Three Rivers, however, stirred up a little hornet's nest in the Idabel and Broken Bow areas where it is said that dogs just naturally take after deer when the occasion arises. Under this new regulation, sportsmen who have that type of dog would no longer have an excuse for being on that big chunk of land with a pack of hounds during the deer gun season. One dedicated sportsman stood at a recent public hearing to observe, "If running deer with dogs is wrong, why don't you make it illegal?"
Until the state took over Three Rivers, anyone could turn loose their dogs on Weyerhaeuser land at any time of year. If a dog happened to chase a deer, it was just traditional. During a recent public hearing in Idabel to discuss hunting regulations, those in attendance voted 62-10 to eliminate any restrictions against other hunting seasons during the deer gun season.
To accommodate his fellow houndmen, Commissioner Ed Abel of Yukon apparently wants a to do away with the new regulation, leaving things as they were before it was adopted - the same as the state as a whole.
"Dogs were never mentioned," said Richard Hatcher, the department's game chief, who said he was asked by a commissioner, whom he chose not to name, to put the item on the agenda for Tuesday's 9 a.m. meeting in Oklahoma City.
Hatcher said he expects the suddenly-controversial regulation suspending the four seasons to be dropped.
"I don't have much to justify arguing against dropping it, either biologically or socially, if that's what the people down there want," he said. "Even if it was a deer dog issue, this regulation doesn't have enough teeth in it to stop them. Besides, these areas have been open just like the rest of the state for decades."
It was Hatcher's idea to include Honobia Creek with Three Rivers in the proposal although Honobia Creek has already operated under the restriction for a full season without complaints.
"I'd like to keep the rules the same on both those areas," he said, "because the people down there don't know which area they're in half the time anyway."
Since it is pretty well established that some people run deer with dogs all year long, the regulation now on the books would deprive them of nine days of sport, which would delight the law-abiding individuals who hunt the southeast during gun season. Conflicts between the two factions are frequent and bitter.
The Wildlife Department engineered a management agreement with the owners of the two big southeastern tracts, agreeing to ride herd on the areas in exchange for public hunting rights. Individuals pay $16 a year to use the 725,000 acres with the money going back into the management effort.
Prior to the agreements, the public had free use of most southeastern timberland. However, the owners were considering leasing the land to private parties for hunting, an option the department sought to avoid with its management arrangement.
- Covey Bean can be reached via e-mail at
cbean@oklahoman.com.
Archive ID: 735038
