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It's a wrap

Fishbonker

Life Member
That was 16 weeks of fun. The way I have it is there weren’t any bills that passed that will have a direct effect on deer hunting.

The bill SF548 land acquisition did pass and it may (will) have an indirect negative effect on hunting, fishing trapping and outdoor recreation.

Several bills that would have had direct effects on deer hunting were defeated. Floating LO tags, floating tags for everyone, floating NR LO tags, 26yo youth tags, youth NR tags, shouldered cartridges and who can forget atlatl and crossbows for deer hunting?

There were a few bills that I thought would pass, dog tracking, active armed services personnel stationed on Iowa’s boarders could hunt deer and the hunting coyote with IR didn’t pass.

One bill that is needed but had too much “stuff” attached was the wildlife disease bill.

The stocking/fishing private farm ponds did not pass. It was amended by the House to remove the license section but the Senate did not take the bill up again.

Purple paint went down again for the 3rd time.

IWILL didn’t get any serious discussion. It is my fear that if it does pass the allocations will change and the original intent of the amendment to Iowa’s constitution will be lost.

Perhaps the biggest tempest in a tea pot was the forest reserve bill. Look for it to come back in a different, more workable form next year. The bill’s authors achieved their goal in getting attention on the issue.

Perhaps the biggest success (or failure depending on which side of the bill you were on) was the defeat of the precursor to the high power rifles in the rut bill (HF716). That bill alone is responsible for over 11,000 views with 314 posts spread over 5 threads in this forum alone. I’m sure this bill will be back. But as stated in another thread, I support just about all the other legislation this Representative authors. He is a gun rights champion, but I feel he over reached on this one.

Today the IBA emailed a spread sheet to our members that was created by the Iowa Conservation Alliance that contained a lot of hunting/outdoors/environmental bills of interest and their status at the end of the legislative session.

I’d like to thank and congratulate everyone here who took an active role in the legislative process by contacting your legislators. As seen in the defeat of HF716 and other bills, we can and do make a difference.

I’d also like to thank Senator Cournoyer for posting in this forum. You should all be proud that a Senator took the time to care and post here. I believe it is a first for IW. If you are in her district (even if you aren’t) I encourage you to thank her for her support on HF716 and other bills. Incidentally, one of the bills that I thought would pass, the armed services personnel hunting, was her bill.

What will I do with all my free time now that the legislature is done for the year? I will resume my jihad on all things rodent. Little bastards cost me another $150.00 bucks in tractor repairs this spring. I will try to top my 17 chipmunk total from last summer. Stay tuned, goatman has already agreed to skin all the wire chewing rodents I send him.
 
I agree with the others...thank you Bonker for your efforts to keep us all up to date. Who would have thought back in the day that we essentially would need to track every day in the Iowa legislature every year to keep them from screwing up our hunting heritage?
 
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