| Updated: 8/25/2009 8:39 am |
Published: 8/24/2009 8:27 pm |
This weather may have you thinking fall. Deer hunting season is right around the corner. Monday night, about 50 hunters learned about this year's new rules at the Game and Fish headquarters.
Bow hunting starts October first. Check stations are eliminated this year. Now, all you have to do is tag it, bag it, haul it, and call it.
"Maybe some management tips, you know, what to plan, when to plan or should we even be doing that, and maybe if they give a best place to go hunting I can slip off somewhere else," says Paul Tipton.
Tipton has gone to the deer woods for the past 20 years, but he says there's always some new skill or rule he can pick up before he picks up his gun.
You used to have to leave camp after you tagged your deer to bring it to a check station. Now, you can do it all by phone.
"We get our data much faster, the data's cleaner, and we will know by the hour just about how many deer are taken throughout the season," says deer biologist Brad Miller.
You can also check your deer online.
Tipton thinks it'll do more than just streamline the process. "We did have a book at our deer camp, so it was pretty easy for us, but yes, not going to a check in station, I think it’s going to be a lot easier. And probably more people are going to try to be legal that way instead of trying to skirt the rules," he says.
Other changes include zone shifts and divisions and specific doe days during modern gun season so everyone can bag a doe.
Tipton's biggest kill? A ten point near Clinton. With that under his belt, he has this advice for new hunters. "Go to deer camp and listen to some of the old timers talk and just pick up what they say."
Tipton usually hunts just north of Fordyce.
So where are the best spots across the state? Go to south Arkansas if you want better chances of bringing home a deer. There are more deer there than anywhere else. If you want higher quality deer, with bigger antlers, go to east Arkansas.
