Michael A. Sawyers
Never count your Sunday bowhunting days until they are in print in the Maryland hunting guide.
I thought it was a done deal. I thought for sure that here in Allegany and Garrett counties we would get four more Sundays on which to use bows and arrows to hunt deer. I thought for sure that either the house bill or the senate bill making it so would get to Governor Martin O’Malley, be signed and become law for this coming hunting season.
I wasn’t alone. Paul Peditto, director of Maryland’s Wildlife Service, told me he thought it was a done deal.
Bill Wilhelm, president of the Allegany-Garrett Sportsmen’s Association told me he thought it was money in the bank.
After all, the house bill passed 129-10. The senate bill passed 45-1. Similar and separate bills asking for the same thing in Frederick and Charles county sailed through, were signed, and are now law.
Cecil County messed up. Legislators there jumped in with our bill for Garrett and Allegany and now have the same thing we do, no additional Sundays.
This was indeed a slam dunk, a dunk that would have brought our two counties to the same level as many others in Maryland where a total of five Sundays are available for bowhunting on private lands. It looks as if, though, somebody didn’t take the ball all the way to the hoop.
I was stunned 10 days ago or so when I called up the Web site for the General Assembly and discovered that both bills had failed.
What happened? That’s what I asked Sen. George Edwards who introduced the senate version.
“I’m as stunned as you,” Edwards said, adding that when he heard of the death of the senate bill he asked his staff to investigate.
“They contacted the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee and were told that after we added Cecil County to make it the same as the house bill that it never came back for concurrence, that it must have gotten lost in the woodwork,” Edwards said.
“When something like this happens, you start to ask yourself ‘Is there someone the committee that I irritated along the way,’ but I can’t think of anyone.”
Edwards said that he can’t remember getting any negative comments about the additional Sunday hunting bill from any of his constituents.
What happened? That’s what I asked Delegate Wendell Beitzel about the house bill, introduced by the entire delegation for the two counties.
After all, only one of the bills had to make it through for the proposal to become law.
Beitzel said he too believed the bills were destined to become law. “I didn’t find out about it until I got home,” he said. The delegate said it is his understanding that the fact that Cecil County was being amended into the bill originially written to have impact on Allegany and Garrett counties that it had to be returned for another committee review and that the legislative session ended before that could happen.
“We will pre-file the bill early so that it will be introduced again next session,” Beitzel said.
Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com. The Outdoors page and his column will return to the Cumberland Times-News on Sunday, May 17.
