One up, one down in S.C. legislature

The state legislature, as is noted elsewhere in the magazine, has passed one piece of legislation important to sportsmen, but it has failed to do anything about another issue that appears no closer to being resolved than it was when it came to a head several years ago.

The ‘Right to Hunt” bill came through for a second time this past spring, and it got through unscathed — unlike 2008, when differences of opinion between stakeholders sidelined it for further discussion.

But the legislature passing it and sending it across the street for Gov. Mark Sanford’s signature is only the first step. The bill, in its most basic form, is a proposal to amend the state constitution to guarantee citizens of South Carolina the right to hunt and fish. Sanford’s signature will put the proposal on the ballot this fall, where voters will say yes or no.

The last figures I saw indicated that more than 280,000 freshwater fishing, 90,000 saltwater fishing and 200,000 hunting licenses are being sold annually in the Palmetto State. That’s a pretty good base of voters checking the “yes” box.

The other “issue,” the one that didn’t get taken care of, is that of hunting deer with dogs, which the legislature and S.C. Department of Natural Resources has struggled with for a handful of years. Legislation has failed to adequately address the issue the past three years, with bills tabled on each occasion.

Hunting deer with dogs is a tradition in many areas of South Carolina and the entire Southeast, dating to the first colonial settlers. It is generally practiced only in coastal areas in South Carolina, although it is permitted in counties that are nowhere close to the water.

As it was originally practiced, dog-hunting for deer was done on large, contiguous tracts of land that belonged to wealthy individuals who owned not only the land but packs of dogs — which could run all day and not come within a half-mile of any property boundary. Nowadays, dog-hunting is mostly limited to clubs that lease tracts of land. The tracts being smaller these days, it’s more difficult to keep dogs inside the right barbed-wire fences or on the same side of the right roads.

So, there are more conflicts with landowners who don’t treasure the sound of the hounds in full cry on the trail of a buck. Some of those landowners don’t hunt and don’t want hunters or dogs on their property. A lot of the landowners are hunters, or they lease their land to clubs or individuals that don’t hunt with dogs — and their ideas about how best to manage the deer don’t include having a black-and-tan come trotting into the shooting lane about the time they’re clicking off the safety and lining the crosshairs up on a buck’s vitals.

Stakeholder meetings didn’t solve anything, although they came to some agreement on points that would preserve the tradition of dog-hunting, while protecting the property rights of landowners. There were disagreements on different issues, and considering that the legislature took no action, it appears the dog hunters won at least a temporary victory.

At some point, the legislature will have to do something. A pot that stays on the stove will eventually boil over, and then, somebody will get burned. Ending the tradition of hunting deer over dogs would be a third-degree burn in which no one really has any interest. Legislation that preserves dog-hunting, while seriously addressing the concerns of property owners and others, is a fireproof suit everyone can happily wear.