Lynn Burkhead — TPWD set for Grayson County public meeting next week

“Get your popcorn ready.”

Terrell Owens said it years ago, talking about a Dallas Cowboys football game and the chances of Jerry Jones’ team coming out with a win. And most recently, Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin brought the statement up again last fall, stirring up support for his team’s upset bid against Nick Saban’s powerful football team at Alabama.

And now, Grayson County and its various deer hunters and residents get their own chance to get some popcorn ready as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department brings a public meeting to the county once again as it tries to push through a gun deer season proposal for the first time in a decade.

Locals who have lived in Grayson County throughout the 1990s and early 2000s might remember that the agency has brought forth similar proposals in the past, but each time, the idea was eventually rejected after public opposition, local political support, and heat generated all the way to the governor’s office caused it to unwind.

As has been the case before, the ultimate decision on this potential regulations change will once again be rendered by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. That will be the case a few weeks from now as the commissioners gather on Thursday, March 24, 2022 to decide on matters pertaining to hunting and fishing regulations for the 2022-23 license year.

While the regulatory process might seem boring many years, that hasn’t always been the case in the past when Grayson County and potential hunting regulations for white-tailed deer are discussed. When your county has produced a Pope and Young state record non-typical, a No. 4 P&Y typical (only weeks ago), and a state crossbow record non-typical — all despite being able to drive for miles through the county in November and rarely seeing a deer from the roadway — that’s easy enough to understand.

Put simply, despite its low quantity density of deer and fragmented and greatly limited whitetail habitat, a world-class high quality still exists here in Grayson County because of the nature of the county’s archery-only deer hunting regulations that allow for bucks to reach old age. The state might not recognize that, but many locals do.

Such high quality whitetail supply has certainly generated interest in the past, including the last public meeting on the subject a decade ago.

At that meeting, then Grayson County Judge Drue Bynum gave some introductory remarks, TPWD Executive Director Carter Smith ran the remainder of the meeting as the Austin-based agency presented its side, and then the public got a chance to speak. While some certainly voiced their support for the rifle season proposal at the 2009 meeting, the vast majority made it clear that they were not in favor of the proposal.

In fact, if memory serves correct, a question was eventually asked on the order of “We see how this is clearly going, and in the interest of time, how many of you are against this proposal?” Again, if memory is correct, the show of hands was quick and decisive from most people in attendance.

After that proposal failed back in 2009, the agency eventually appeared to embrace the idea of Grayson County’s “Archery Only” model and pushed it forth and found approval for an archery-only general season in nearby Collin, Dallas, and Rockwall Counties in 2012.

With Collin, Dallas, and Rockwall counties resembling Grayson County with similar fragmented habitat, low deer densities, and surging population growth, that idea passed and since then, all four counties have seen early archery hunting in October and general season, archery only hunting for deer in November, December, and early January.

But after a petition was filed last spring, the rifle hunting proposal returns and takes aim at not just Grayson County, but also the other three neighboring counties to the south.

After getting the proposal into the regulatory process for this year, TPWD is now trying to get the word out on how it feels about all of this in 2022. For example, Alan Cain, the TPWD white-tailed-deer program leader, explained his thoughts and the agency’s current position recently on Cable Smith’s popular Lone Star Outdoors Show podcast. The agency also took its position online last night, hosting a Zoom Webinar that had TPWD staff discussing the proposed hunting regulations and taking questions.

By the way, if you missed the podcast, you can hear Cain’s remarks on the show wherever you listen to and/or download your podcasts. And if you missed last night’s Zoom presentation, then please visit TPWD’s YouTube channel and/or Facebook page.

Better yet, make plans to join dozens of others this next week on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at the Grayson College Center for Workplace Learning. That’s where the latest chapter in this whole affair will take place in the public scoping meeting, which will run from 7-9 p.m. according to a TPWD news release.

Incidentally, the Grayson College Center for Workplace Learning and the CWL Auditorium where the meeting will be held, is located at 6101 Grayson Drive (Hwy 691) in Denison.

Also note that if you plan to attend, the discussion will specifically center around TPWD’s proposal for the “…harvest of white-tailed deer by firearm during youth, general, and the Managed Lands Deer Program (MLDP) season in Collin, Dallas, Grayson, and Rockwall counties.

“The proposal would also remove the prohibition of crossbow use during the archery season, restrict antlerless harvest to archery season, youth season, and 4 doe days during general season, and require mandatory harvest reporting of white-tailed deer tagged with a hunting license tag in these four counties.”

Please note that according to TPWD and its news release, next Wednesday night’s public meeting will deal with only the local gun season proposal and nothing else.

Why? Because there is likely to be a good crowd on hand. And as has been pointed out before, the battle lines seem similarly drawn once again since TPWD is obviously for this proposal and, historically, at least, numerous local hunters, plenty of residents, and a number of local and statewide politicians have not been.

If recent rumors, social media comments, and hunting forum trends are any indications, little has changed in the past decade.

If you are interested in making your voice heard before or after next week’s public meeting, you can do so through Wednesday, March 23 by going online to the agency’s website at https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/feedback/public_comment .

You can also comment on the Grayson County rifle season proposal and/or any other whitetail proposals throughout the state by contacting TPWD whitetail program leader Alan Cain at alan.cain@tpwd.texas.gov or TPWD regulations coordinator Robert McDonald at Robert.macdonald@tpwd.texas.gov .

And believe it or not, there’s also one final way you can comment and make your voice heard on this matter, regardless of which side you find yourself on. And that’s in the Capitol City later this month at the TPW Commission meeting on Thursday, March 24.

If you’d like to head for Austin in a few weeks, TPWD notes that those wishing to provide public testimony at the Commission meeting are required to pre-register to speak while realizing that public testimony is normally limited to three minutes per person.

If that option interests you, you can pre-register for the meeting by going to the agency’s website at https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/feedback/public_comment .

The next several weeks — starting with next week’s Wednesday public meeting at Grayson College and concluding at the TPW Commission meeting in Austin — promise to be interesting ones, at least where the topic of Grayson County and its deer herd are concerned.

And as a former Dallas Cowboys football player and a current SEC football coach have already noted, please get your popcorn ready.

This article originally appeared on Herald Democrat: Lynn Burkhead TPWD readies for Grayson County public meeting next week