The Mississippi Legislature failed to pass a single bill related to hunting and fishing during the 2018 session that ended April 1, and that includes anything related to a harvest reporting system for turkey or deer.
“Sooner, or later, that’s something you’d think they’d do,” said Billy Reynolds, an avid hunter from Vicksburg who has hunted for six decades in the south Delta. “I’m an old goat, 74, and I can work a computer and a cell phone enough to do it, so don’t tell me it can’t be done.
“But I’m starting to think those guys (legislators) are never going to get it. This year, with the news that (Chronic Wasting Disease) has reached Mississippi, you’d have thought the time was perfect to put a reporting system in place, and they couldn’t work it out. Probably never going to happen.”
Wildlife committees in both the House and Senate passed versions of a mandatory reporting bill, and the full House passed the committee version. The Senate, expecting the House bill, let its version die on the calendar.
The Senate committee then rewrote the House version, keeping reporting mandatory, and passed it out to the full Senate for consideration. When it came up for a floor vote, it was argued and amended to change “mandatory” to “voluntary” and it passed. When the amended — and worthless — version went to conference committee to further work, it died on the calendar.
Be the first to comment