The number of hunting accidents has steadily dropped with the addition of the orange requirement and education classes.
When veteran Mississippi hunters talk about the differences between deer hunting now and 40 years ago, the conversation is usually a combination of the improvement in quality and quantity of deer.
We certainly do have bigger bucks and more of them, thanks to changes in attitude. Hunters, with guidance from wildlife officials, realized that deer management and selective harvest could produce better results.
But, that’s not the biggest change, nor is it the most significant.
Not even close.
Think about this stat: 80 hunters were shot during the 1972-73 hunting season in Mississippi, and 34 of them died.
Let me repeat that: 80 hunters were shot during the 1972-73 hunting season in Mississippi, and 34 of them died.
That’s 80 and 34.It was the deadliest year on record, but not far from the ordinary in that era. The previous year, the numbers were 56 shot and 23 dead.
Reacting to those tragic seasons, the 1973 legislature passed a bill requiring all deer hunters to wear at least an orange hat while hunting.
George Lee of Hattiesburg remembers those times, vividly, and he has a few scars that will remind him forever.
He was shot early during that 1972-73 season, underwent extensive surgery to repair the 00 buckshot damage and recovered in time to hunt again that season.
Lee was shot on Nov. 19 by a really good friend and taken to Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg. It was a Sunday and the second day of the gun season in Mississippi and was a busy one at the emergency room.
Laying on a gurney and feeling the effects of his first round of anesthesia, Lee heard the voice of a nurse.
“‘Here’s No. 3,’ that’s what she said,” said Lee, who was struck once in the arm and once in the stomach. “Heck, I was doped up on that pre-surgery shot and I thought I was supposed to be counting backward so I remember saying ‘two.’
“Turns out, she was talking about me being the third deer hunter brought in the emergency room that day. I was the only one of the three to live.”
Think about that for a second — one day, one hospital, three hunters with gunshot wounds and two of them dead. The horror.
It was the bloodiest scene on the bloodiest day of the bloodiest season in Mississippi deer hunting history, and lawmakers had had enough.
“I guess you could say I was one of the fathers of the hunter orange law,” said Lee, of Oak Grove, now 63 and still an avid deer hunter. “It’s not like I chose that role, but I guess it’s a good thing.
“The orange law is good. If I had been wearing it, I wouldn’t have been shot. My close friend who shot me, he’d have seen me.”
The 22 days spent in a hospital gave Lee a lot of time to think, but not once did he consider giving up hunting.
“I figured, if I broke my leg in a car wreck, I wouldn’t quit driving,” he said. “So I didn’t quit hunting just because I got shot. That was my philosophy. But, I have never set foot in the woods again without orange, and a lot of it. “It works. I don’t care if I’m in a shooting house or up a tree, I’m in orange.”
Turns out, the blaze orange hat requirement was not an immediate cure, but just the first step in a long process that would take 15 years to complete.
In the 1973-74 season, the first season with the orange hat requirement, 75 hunters were shot and 15 killed. Hunters didn’t immediately accept that deer are mostly colorblind and that orange to them is just another shade of gray. But, accident rates did begin falling and hunters realized the orange worked.
The late 70s and early 80s were a boom time in Mississippi deer hunting. Participation was rising, and accident rates followed suit. In the early 80s, the state was still averaging 30 gunshot accidents and 15 hunters died in 1981 and 14 in 1984, the highest numbers that decade.
The legislature and state wildlife officials reacted quickly.
In 1984, the hunter education class was increased from six to 10.
In 1986, the orange requirement was increased to 500 square inches of unbroken blaze orange, about the size of a vest.
In 1987, a law was passed that required all hunters born after Jan. 1 1972 to pass a hunter education class before purchasing their first hunting license.
In the 25 years since, accidents involving gunshots have steadily dropped to a level where firearms are no longer the leading cause of injury and death in deer hunting. According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, tree stand falls now dominate the annual accident report.
That’s not to say that deer hunters have quit shooting other deer hunters. Mississippi still suffers a few incidents a year, and usually a death or two. According to Steve Adcock, the MDWFP’s chief of enforcement, whose division includes hunter safety and education, the leading cause of those accidents is unsafe handling of a firearm.
That includes not fully identifying the target before taking the safety off and putting a finger on the trigger. Unfortunately, we still have a few hunters so intent on shooting a deer that they shoot somebody dressed in orange.
That’s just stupid.
Mississippi’s gun season on deep opens on Saturday (Nov. 17) and will continue through Jan. 31 in most of Mississippi and Feb. 15 in the southeast corner.
Be safe. Be sure. Beware.
And, by all means, wear orange.
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To share your hunting reports, stories and recipes with our readers, email Bobby Cleveland at bobbyc7754@yahoo.com.
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