New Arkansas Reg: “Alternative weapons”

You have to understand, this isn’t about firearms or classes of firearms. It’s about actuarial statistics. It’s about harvest numbers and birthrates of fauns. I guarantee that AGAF determined more animals need to be harvested for the health of the heard by X amount, and that corresponded to adding a new class of firearms to the MZ season. If it was adding crossbows to archery season it would have been that.

They don’t care about what you care about. They have a charge, and they try to precisely hit the numbers their biology dictates by playing with harvest numbers as carefully as they can. It’s as simple as that.

You can add in the car insurance lobby to the list , too. All this “ alternative “ season business is going to do is get some very mad hunters shooting at each other. The game commissions could care less about the enjoyment of the hunt. They want as many dead deer as possible, and the license revenue. I thought I never would suggest a hunting ed class like they have in Europe, but that would weed out the idiots.

I don’t bother to hunt AR, even though we have property there. Deer season in TN opens in Sept, closes in Jan. Archery, muzzleloader, modern. In our unit, we can hunt all 3 seasons. Bag limit is 3 antlerless per day, plus 2 antlered for the year. Since we are farming, no license required.
I’m sure that in another year or so, TN will follow AR and MO into the “alternative season” nonsense. At which point, I’ll repaint my boundary markers and keep a pot of coffee on for the possum cop that lives down the road.
TWRA says that CWD is far too prominent in the western 1/3 of the state…

with all the options available to lower population.. they Make a season for the college kids from the city.

As I figured.. looked up the cost. $410 non res is that correct lol

They don't care about population. Or CWD

So they basically no longer have a muzzleloading season. why they heck not just extend the regular firearms season? Or let people buy a second tag? Because they're knuckleheads.

I have no issue with extending seasons, but I think they should retain a primitive weapons season. I mean when I was younger bow season was for a bow. Now it’s crossbow for everyone. I don’t care if someone uses one, but give the traditional hunters a week at least of peace in the woods. And I don’t even hunt anymore.

Texas has a muzzleloader season, but it's after gun season, which seems a bit backward to me.

I was polled on the change and vehemently opposed it, arguing that enforcement would be impossible (wardens can’t run down every modern shot they hear) and that if it were approved, sidelock muzzleloaders should be allowed to hunt during bow season OR a dedicated Pennsylvania-style primitive-only season should be added to the seasons.

My gunsmith helped write the muzzleloader regulations back in the 70s and he told them exactly what I did. His parting words to the current game and fish commission: “You are destroying our sport.”

The new regulations can kiss my rear. And the muzzleloader caliber restrictions are still .40 cal and larger. You cannot convince me, AT ALL, that a .32 S&W Long has more stopping power than say a .36 maxi on top of a hunting load of 3F or 4F.


Then there's this....

All a person has to do to skirt this is use a brass hulled 12 gauge round loaded with a ball. It is neither plastic nor a slug.

Dumb, stupid, bureaucratic NONSENSE that was probably crafted by everyone except sportsmen.

I'm done following the regs to a T.

Govt can hug a root. I'll pay for my license and observe the limits, but this is all.

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It's just a game for them to manage the herd. To them dead is dead. They're more actuaries than hunters. Unfortunately the trad ML hunters are probably a very small minority dwarfed by even the archery hunters. They can screw with those methods and seasons and get the least pushback, so that's where they tinker. If they need more dead they can just add a bunch of hunters using a different method, QED. There aren't enough of us to raise a big stink about it.

However, complaining to them individually is a waste of time. I think we all pay dues to the NMLRA. An official complaint from them would make them take notice and not be dismissive. They exist to represent our interests. Otherwise, what are we paying them for?

Dusty_Traveler said:

The woods just got a lot more crowded. New for 2024 deer season:

“Arkansas hunters will now be able to use non-semiautomatic firearms that shoot straight-wall metallic cartridges of .30 caliber or larger during Arkansas's muzzleloader season.”

Womp womp.

Click to expand...

I've seen in the gun mags, new straight-wall ctgs. and guns specifically for this purpose; hunting.

Nav said:

It's just a game for them to manage the herd. To them dead is dead. They're more actuaries than hunters. Unfortunately the trad ML hunters are probably a very small minority dwarfed by even the archery hunters. They can screw with those methods and seasons and get the least pushback, so that's where they tinker. If they need more dead they can just add a bunch of hunters using a different method, QED. There aren't enough of us to raise a big stink about it.

However, complaining to them individually is a waste of time. I think we all pay dues to the NMLRA. An official complaint from them would make them take notice and not be dismissive. They exist to represent our interests. Otherwise, what are we paying them for?

Click to expand...

I like the NMLRA, and became one of the One-Of-Thousand donors, if for no other reason that to have my "name on the wall" for legacy!I enjoy the magazine monthly, learn a lot along with Muzzleloader magazine which has great graphics and color. I don't hunt but like to believe that most game commissions are professional and scientific. I know there will always be guys that groan and moan and think they know better.

That IS my point. They ARE scientific. We agree. They manage the harvest season to season to create the healthiest herd the state can sustain. If more deer need harvested and they need to up the kill they cannot simply add hunters. The people who hunt hunt. All they can do is play with the seasons and methods to create bigger numbers. I guarantee they have a solid estimate on how many more deer will be harvested if they add an additional doe tag to rifle season. They have a solid estimate across the seasons and across all methods. Their calculation was, literally, we need "X" number of more deer harvested, and they went down their estimated list of numbers of tags sold in the past and their rate of success, and it told them exactly how to tinker with the rules to get as close to the result they're looking for as possible. Arkansas needed a bigger harvest for the healthiest population and the estimate of straight walled cartridges during this particular portion of the season gave them the number they were looking for. So, and that's what they went with.

They often make these changes at the fringes where they'll get the least pushback. The seasons with the fewest hunters are a prime target. Hence we get crossbows during archery, and straight walled metallics during primitive.

My point is that they don't care. They would let us trap and net deer if they got the harvest numbers required to maintain a healthy herd. That's their mandate, and after several generations of approaching it in a scientific way they're really good at it. The problem if you hunt with a flintlock only and love how few hunters are out during primitive is...they just don't care. It's simply outside their mandate and their purpose.

The only way they will do something else is if enough people complain, and enough people aren't going to complain unless they all complain together under an organization to which we all pay dues. I'm just saying that if you don't like this and want change you need a bigger voice than your own, and one they'll take notice of. That's all.

I’m not worried about it. The way things are going, in 30 years the only guns you will able to legally own will be flintlocks anyway. Problem solved….

I won’t ever see that.

Lobbied for by the makers and purveyors of lever action repeaters.

Also lobbied for by the car insurance companies….

When Mississippi started allowing scoped single shot rifles (mostly 35 Whelen and 45-70) the pawn shops took in so many muzzleloaders and weren’t able to get rid of them that they won’t even look at one now. I used to pick them up really cheap but now they are not even in the shops anymore. I need to start going across the river and checking out the pawn shops before they wise up to the fact that if they put a muzzleloader in their rack that is where it’s going to stay.
I could count on buying caps at the Walmart there but now that will come to an end.