LITTLE ROCK — Starting today, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will take steps to end the daily “boat races” at the state’s wildlife management areas.
Until the end of the season, the AGFC will concentrate enforcement efforts at popular access areas primarily at Bayou Meto WMA to curtail unsafe boating practices that occur every morning as hunters race to popular duck hunting holes.
Wildlife officers from southeast Arkansas, along with WMA manager Mark Hooks, addressed the commission about the boat races.Wildlife officer Tracey Blake showed the commission several videos taken at Hurricane Lake WMA and Bayou Meto WMA. The races have been glorified on social media, online magazines and YouTube, but officer Randy Rhodes said it’s going to get worse because Lee and Tiffany Lahosky recently filmed a Bayou Meto boat race for The Crush, a popular television program that airs on The Outdoor Channel.
“It’s turned into a situation where it’s kind of like a wild West show,” Hooks said.
Commissioner Ford Overton said: “Somebody is going to get killed down there. It’s not a matter of if, but when.”
“I’m telling you, God comes down every morningat four in the morning and takes care of these guys,” Rhodes said.
Director Mike Knoedl showed the commission a photo of a 17-year-old boy who was thrown from his boat against a tree during a recent boat race at Bayou Meto. His face was badly bruised and cut.
The commission discussed crafting regulations to this effect for the 2013-2014 hunting season. Rhodes said the Arkansas Wildlife Code already has the tools in place to address the situation now without going through the customary public notice and comment period. If signs are posted that prohibit unsafe boating activity, the AGFC could assess points to a boating violation written in thatsituation. The AGFC may suspend hunting privileges if a hunter accumulates 18 points within a three-year period.
The AGFC also discussed creating in the future “nowake” zones covering entiresections of water where boaters run at high speeds. Hooks said that for them to have a positive effect, they must be true no-wake zones and not just slow-speed zones.
“It’s not just a safety issue, but a infrastructure and maintenance issue,” Hooks said. “We’re getting a lot of wave action causing erosion on our levees. A true no-wake zone produces no appreciable wake. At full throttle, a boat with three hunters, guns, decoys and a Labrador retriever is at a 25-degree angle. It’s throwing up a big wake. It can wreck a guy pretty easy.”
Hooks said his staff has the materials in hand to create and post no-wake signs along key boat roads, so the cost of erecting new signs would be low.
“Once we start combining all these things, we can make an effort to let people know that Dodge City is over,” Hooks said.
Hooks warned commissioners that they would probably take more heat over this campaign than anything they’ll ever tackle. Knoedl, who was formerly the chief of the AGFC’s law enforcement division, asked the commission to firmly support the effort.
Commissioner Rick Watkins said that with the General Assembly going into session,this is a poor time politically to launch such an ambitious and potentially controversial campaign. Commissioner Ron Duncan agreed.
Commissioner Fred Brown replied: “So you’re telling me we don’t write tickets when the legislature is in session?”
Hooks said the campaign goes far deeper than boat safety. The boat races, he explained, are symptoms of a much deeper problem that ultimately affects the AGFC’s ability to manage Bayou Meto and other areas.
“There is a belligerent effort to interfere with us and our work,” Hooks said. “It’s a lack of respect for other hunters, and other people in general. It’s a lack of etiquette.They block gates, then ask us why we need to go in there and do our work. I don’t need a lot of delay, for obvious reasons.”
The commission seemed comfortable with a compromise to write warning tickets for the remainder of the season. Col. Jeff Crow, chief of law enforcement, said that will be a good first step in letting hunters know what to expect next season.
“We’re not focusing on writing a bunch of tickets,” Crow said. “We just want compliance. We want people to have a safe and enjoyable time on our wildlife management areas.”
Sports, Pages 22 on 01/17/2013