Pre-Season Preparations: Read And Understand The Hunting Regulations

© By Othmar Vohringer

An important part of preparing for the hunting season is to read and understand the hunting regulations in the area you hunt. Yet, I am baffled each year how many hunters, even so called celebrity hunters, are caught in violation of game hunting laws. The usual excuse is; “I didn’t know.”

There is simply no excuse for not keeping up and be familiar with the laws and regulations pertaining to hunting. Wildlife conservation needs can, and often do, change from one year to the next and if you do not know and shoot the wrong deer or at the wrong time you could get in to serious and expensive trouble. Take my hunting region for example. Due to declining moose populations the Wildlife Services stipulated that the moose hunting season start in November and for two weeks only, whereas in the previous year moose season was held in late September to October. The season has not started yet and hunters already “look forward” to the September moose hunting season. If theses hunters go out and shoot a moose they are poachers and will be treated as such when caught, and quite rightly so!

It is our duty to keep abreast of changing laws and regulations and with every region making hunting regulations available on the Internet nobody has an excuse not to be informed.

The most important part of pre-season hunting preparations is to know and understand the rules and regulations, even if you hunt with an outfitter in another US State or Canadian Province. Not knowing the rules will not prevent you from getting your butt kicked, the excuse that you didn’t know or that the outfitter hasn’t told you will fall on deaf ears in the court room.