QDMA Rendezvous on Slate at Owens Station May 18 

Hasn’t this spring been a trip? I simply can’t believe the maple seeds (they are called “samara”) that my trees produced. Before the severe thunderstorm watch last week, the tree looked as if it were covered in pink flowers. I saw the flowering crabapples played no second fiddle to anything either. I simply don’t recall a more beautiful and lush spring as we’ve had this year.

Before I climb on the soapbox again, I want to remind all of you outdoor buffs about the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) Rendezvous scheduled at Owen’s Station on May 18. For $85 (couple, $70 individual), you’ll get a year’s membership to QDMA, a round of sporting clays, a barbecue dinner with all the trimmings, and free hors d’oeuvres, sodas and water throughout the day. Everyone registered will get a door prize and all ladies will get a floral gift. There are tons of displays and seminars for the entire family. BB and archery venues for the kids, cooking and a Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) event for the ladies. The raffles are loaded with quality firearms and outdoor equipment from Benelli and Mathews all the way to the newest climbing tree stands on the market. If you pre-register, you can get two-for-one bonus raffle tickets. If you decide to just come, registration is from 8:30 to noon with shooting starting at 9 a.m. and lunch served between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Raffle drawings and the live auction will begin at 1 p.m.

I suppose it’s a bit late to cover turkey hunting laws since our season has just completed, but since the actual rules of turkey hunting aren’t published and advertised more, I’ll just give you a heads up for next year.

As you all know, I constantly gripe about how the state legislature sets up game laws under the dreaded Title 7. This innocuous document, written by those with few clues and likely less experience than your Labrador retriever, lists specific requirements to be enforced by our game wardens.

How many of you knew that it is illegal to hunt turkeys with a compound bow? How many of you knew it is illegal for you to hunt turkeys without being completely covered with camouflage clothing? Well, that’s what Title 7 dictates.

Another hot button issue with me is the requirement to wear your hunting license exposed on your clothing. Though Title 7 proclaims it is illegal to wear anything “red, white, or blue exposed” on you while turkey hunting, anyone who buys their hunting license at the kiosk in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control building is going to get it printed on white paper.

What truly irks me is those who’ll then advise me to “just stick your license in your pocket.” Excuse me? If Title 7 is enforced properly, I’ve violated the law by doing that.  And don’t tell me the warden will overlook it. Perhaps the warden will have more common sense than the legislators who wrote that requirement, but why should he have to?  Had he made the law, perhaps it would be prudent and reasonable to require a hunter to “present the license when requested by proper authorities” like in most other states. But he didn’t and if he doesn’t “understand,” then the onus becomes your problem.

Delaware, however, hasn’t cornered the market on head-scratching legislation, however. It’s all around us.

In Philadelphia, the city passed an ordinance that includes five gun control measures. The order was challenged by the NRA, who won an injunction to stop the measure as it violated Pennsylvania law that precluded cities from making such restrictions. Charles Ramsey, Philadelphia’s police commissioner doesn’t agree with that and contrary to the district attorney’s advice, told the mayor he should simply ignore that law and enforce the ban. Hmm, here’s the chief law enforcement officer recommending that a law should be ignored and an illegal one be enforced. And they wonder why we vilify politicians.

In Maryland, delegates from Beltsville and Annapolis are upset that young people are being allowed to hunt. They want to prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from acquiring a hunting license or to be able to legally harvest game animals.

Research has shown people are far less likely to take up hunting after age 12. Most states have provisions for youngsters to hunt under adult supervision (Delaware does), and most consider such a law being that restrictive has only one purpose: eliminating hunting.