Corona Virus and Public Hunting

Is anyone beginning to get a little concerned that this might affect next hunting season? I think it should all settle by then but man, you hear different stuff every day about the timeline.

I've got a vacation to Maui in August that I'm starting to get real concerned about and then public hunting.

I mostly duck hunt on Federal Wildlife Refuge lands and I have a feeling they will be the worst hit...

But I'm also concerned about the Drawn hunt system...

I know there are higher priorities than hunting but still, that would suck!

Hopefully I'm just wrong! Food for thought though!

I've also been thinking about how this will affect public hunting areas. I personally haven't hunted any public land but I had been considering trying it out. The thing that made me start thinking about the affects on public hunting was when I took a fishing trip to canton city lake the other day and between three of us only caught two keeper crappie and a bluegill. We usually catch at least 6 crappie every time that we go there, and just a week before that we had caught twenty one. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and how our natural resources are affected.

I’m not even gonna worry about it or consider it until August or so.

I could understand if they wanted to postpone standby's until the following season. Who knows what will happen between now and then.

I don't really understand doing away with the draw hunts considering how the majority of the hunts would be far away from anyone else.

Same with campsites. Stay in your campsite and I will stay in mine, we should both be okay...

When they do the orientation at the draw hunts they'll probably make the hunters sit several feet apart,even though those hunts are still 5-6 months from now. Hopefully that's the only way this virus mess will affect hunting this fall.

Gonna be tough getting strangers together if the "6' Foot Rule" is still in effect in the TPW truck ride out to the blinds in those locations that use that system, always been seated full up even last year at Mineral Wells SP's GDE Hunt, even in the back end of the Garner distro truck, but at least out in the open, even if we were rubbing shoulders,...but that was a loooong time ago too so we'll not try to buy trouble, speculating just yet
Ron

I guess I will take those mule deer hunts off everyone's hands since no one is going.

Just got drawn for New Mexico. Even if following current social distancing guidelines, why it would be a problem to go hunt public land. I'm sure they could come up with a reason though.

Have a feeling things will not be the same. TPWD will have to change some things. If they are willing they can still host the drawn hunts. The orientation can be done over the Internet or by phone. Separate vehicles to be driven to compartments etc. This is a time for organizations to get creative so business can resume.

Last week the head of the TPWD Public Draw was interviewed, he couldn't answer everything but it's worth the listen. The stuff about the laguna NWR is also interesting.

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