Change is finally on the its way

Published 12:17 pm Thursday, February 4, 2016

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is proposing some changes to doe days in East Texas for the 2016-17.

It is the first of a two-step process that should make hunters wanting meat for the freezer happy.

This year’s change is to align the number of days to reduce confusion. With the change much of the Pineywoods and other parts of East Texas will be 16 days. Most of the remainder of the country east of I-35 will have four days.

If all goes well, including this being approved by TPW commissioners, another change will pop up in four years giving all of eastern Texas 16 days during the regular season to take does.

Up to this point it has been a struggle getting to kill a doe unless you had enough land to get under the Managed Lands Deer program or maybe qualify for a doe permit or two under LAMPS.

Those on the outside of those programs looking in have had only a few days around Thanksgiving to kill a doe, and if the weather was bad or you couldn’t hunt then you were left out.

With these changes it will be much easier for hunters, or their kids, to get a shot.

Unfortunately the department is playing catch-up when it comes to the harvest of antlerless deer in East Texas. It is something should have been done in the 1980s when the department was liberalizing regulations in other parts of the state.

The opportunity was there working with major timber companies of the time like Temple-Inland, International Paper and others who had active wildlife programs and controlled huge chunks of land in Pineywoods region.

Unfortunately, department leadership in East Texas was not willing to stick its neck out and take the chance.

Thirty years later, finally it looks like some changes are coming. It won’t be complete this year, but at least it is moving in the right direction for a change.

Hunters will soon get a chance to support the expansion of doe days at public meetings and online on the department’s website. This is not a time to be quiet.