FLIP THE COIN – EITHER WAY, YOU’RE STILL PAYING

WELL, it’s still bubbling, and we’re not talking about a thin and watery soup here. We’re talking about a thick, frothy and stinking mess of bull stew! And congratulations, you get to pay up, sit down, eat and swallow it whole.

It seems the menu has been finalized, and waterfowl hunters on the Brazos River Authority impoundments will be paying dearly for their duck blinds this year. That is, if they choose to swallow the stew (which I’m betting that the BRA and local homeowners are banking that they won’t).

As hunting seems to go in Texas, what once was free now costs an arm and a leg. You can tell your grandchildren – make that pre-adolescent children – “I remember when all you had to do was get a free permit to duck hunt ______ (insert Possum Kingdom, Granbury, Alan Henry, Limestone).” Because last season, that was all a hunter had to do: let the local BRA wardens know where he wanted to place his blind. They okayed it and issued him a permit. A free permit.

Now that permit is going to cost. Not $40 for an APH permit, not $200 as was the rumored price. Now that permit is going to cost in the neighborhood of $400 to $500 for one yearly, fixed-blind permit (tough luck if the water falls out or ducks move down the lake). Previously, no blinds were allowed within 1,500 feet of a lakeside home. It seems one warden, on one lake, let one hunter set up a blind at 1,300 feet. The already screaming homeowners now had fuel to feed the fire that is boiling this mess.

“We got caught on being too lax on that, and that’s the reason for this,” says Jack Farrar (254-796-2222) Chairman of the BRA Board of Directors. “We very much want hunting. These homeowners don’t want any hunting. Based on (that) idea . . . in order to maintain the image of safety, the manager of the lake has to hire additional lake rangers to patrol and police that activity.”

So congratulations! Lakeside homeowners don’t want you hunting near their weekend homes, so you get to pay to be policed.

My question is, why does the waterfowler have to pay? The homeowners want the policing action, why can’t they pay for it? Tack an additional $500 per year onto their property taxes, and let’s see how much of a problem it really is.

Flip the coin. A number of these weekend homeowners undoubtedly possess boats and personal watercraft.

Fishermen have been screaming for years about the unsafe operation of such devices. Are the homeowners going to pay to increase policing of these actions?

If they get to tell us where, when and how much it costs to hunt, do we get to tell them where, when and how much it will cost to water ski? $400 seems fair to me. How about a $25 license fee on stupid lawn ornaments that distract me while I’m fishing?

“I want to find a way to legally and responsibly keep hunting,” says Farrar. “I don’t think it’s an exorbitant amount, there’s more than one person sharing the blind, you have four to five people sharing that cost.” There’s something else to tell your children. “No son, you can’t go hunting this year. Four other people already paid their $100.”