By now, most of the big-game hunting season is over and it’s time for rabbit and squirrel hunters to have their time in fields, forests and, for rabbit hunters, the marshes and swamps.
Judging from early returns, it appears Louisiana’s waterfowlers had successful duck and goose seasons. Cold weather came early, and those two Arctic blasts in January helped restock our watered fields and marshes with enough ducks and geese to carry through to the end of another 60-day and, for geese, a longer string of days.
The reason for this rush-to-judgment report on waterfowl is the noticeable lack of complaints from duck hunters. There was little crying this year about the lack of birds.
One exception came from goose hunters, the guys and gals who like to take specklebellies. Seems the “specks” have been arriving later and later here and the call for setting the 2026-2027 goose season was a plea for later-in-the-season days inside the season allowed by federal rule.
Now, let’s stay a little longer in this hunting-seasons wrap-up.
Baiting
Louisiana’s Wildlife and Fisheries’ Enforcement Division sends out updates every week (sometimes up to three times a week) covering major “alleged” violations of our wildlife and fish laws, rules and regulations.
Most of them come during the hunting seasons, and sometime begin before some hunting seasons even open. Yes, before opening days, usually involving deer seasons in our state’s 10 deer hunting areas.
The first violations come in September’s dove season. While there are a few involving taking over the limit, most are for baiting.
Despite warnings from news sources, there continues to be an element among some shotgun-toting folks who believe they can bait an area and avoid detection.
Not these days, not when there are more eyes and more cell phones for landowners and their hunting friends. Apparently what’s happened is a landowner ventures out in late August and finds doves moving into his/her field. Good. Have doves. Let’s invite friends.
Then, two or three days before that Saturday opener he/she notices the doves have left their fields and are flocking into a nearby field, thereby prompting a question about why these birds have abandoned his/her place.
Suspicion replaces optimism, and the landowner finds the answer in discarded seed bags and scattered grain over the nearby field, and the call is made to enforcement agents, who will check out the nearby field and set up an opening-day stake-out.
This happened in 2025 and netted citations. Because this action breaks federal law, these cases, like those involving ducks and geese, show up in federal court and are heard by federal judges, who, in the past, have demonstrated little clemency for migratory-bird violators.
Night violations
Let’s move to deer cases: most citations, even arrests, happened at night.
Over the years, we’ve made it a point not to call this “night hunting,” because “hunting” practiced by the vast majority of “hunters’ involves something called “fair chase.”
Killing deer at night falls far short of that hunting ethic.
Still, it seems there is a prevailing sentiment in our population of gun owners who believe they can take a deer anytime and anyplace they want.
Usually, the deterrent is a possible fine, the possibility of jail time and something called “civil restitution,” a payment affixed to a prescribed dollar amount for the replacement value of the animal slaughtered in that particular case.
Maybe the fines and most often a suspended sentence and the civil penalty isn’t enough, not judging from the number of these violations reported every hunting season.
Take, for instance, a case in LaSalle Parish where a guy, at night and on the Dewey W. Wills Wildlife Management Area, “allegedly” killed a doe from a public road.
On-patrol enforcement agents heard the shot, went to the area and found the “freshly harvested” deer in the back of the man’s truck. (Over the years “harvested” has replaced “killing” in reports, but “harvesting” is too nice a word for what’s happened.)
Now the guy faces a fine up to $950 for taking a deer at night, another $350 fine for killing the deer from a public roadway, maybe 120 days in jail and $400 for the replacement of the deer.
Don’t know about you, but that’s not a serious enough deterrent.
Stronger penalties
For years, most folks seemingly have brushed this illegal activity aside as being not that serious of a crime, when, in fact, killing deer at night is stealing and more worthy of a felony than a misdemeanor.
Fines are set in state statute and are ranked by classes — Class 1, Class 2, etc. The State Legislature might want to take another look at upping fines and setting mandatory jail time for these heinous acts.
Making it a felony would help, because a felon in possession of a firearm faces years of jail time if caught “harvesting” a deer again with a firearm, no matter the time of day or if during or not during a season.
Furthermore, we need follow-ups on what happens in these cases by local district attorneys and from state district courts.
What were the fines? Jail time, if any, or suspended sentences? Loss of hunting privileges?
Maybe moving in this direction won’t help, but it’s sure worth a try.
