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By Louie Stout

The Indiana Natural Resources Commission gave preliminary approval to several hunting and wildlife regulations recently.

Final decisions will be made following a public comment period. You can submit comments to the NRC online at www.in.gov/nrc/2377.htm or by writing the NRC at Indiana Government Center North, 100 N. Senate Ave, Room N103, Indianapolis, Ind. 46204.

Listed below are some of the proposals that impact northern Indiana:

Fall Wild turkey season: Adds Elkhart, Kosciusko, and Noble counties to the fall wild turkey firearms season. Also, the hunting of turkeys on DNR properties would be allowed between 4:30 a.m. and 1p.m. during the spring wild turkey season.

Hunting from a boat: Allows the hunting of fox and gray squirrels from a motorized boat providing the boat is not under power when shooting the animal. Landowner consent is still required.

Taking animals on state parks and historic sites: Allows the taking of the following species of wild animals on state parks and historic sites that are causing damage or posing a health or safety threat: raccoons, skunks, opossums, coyotes, foxes, beavers, muskrats, mink, and squirrels. Only authorized DNR employees or a person given written permission that has a nuisance wild animal control permit or trapping license (for furbearers taken during the season) could take the animal.

Release of captive-bred native and exotic species: Prohibits the release of captive-bred native and exotic species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans, and mussels except as authorized by permit. This would prohibit the release of exotic species into the wild, such as San Juan rabbits, boa constrictors, alligators, and other animals that did not come from the wild in Indiana.

Furbearer hunting and trapping times: Removes starting and ending times for the hunting and trapping seasons for furbearers (foxes, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, striped skunks, beavers, mink, muskrats, long-tailed weasel). The seasons still start and end on the same dates.

Possession of furbearer hides and carcasses: Allows the hides and carcasses of legally harvested furbearers taken during the season to be kept year-round by hunters and trappers without a special authorization or permit.

Bobcat Hunting & Trapping Season: Authorizes bobcat hunting & trapping seasons. There would be a bag limit of one bobcat per person and a statewide quota, and the season would be open only in a restricted number of counties in Southern Indiana.

River Otters: Removes the starting and ending time for the otter trapping season, allows the hide to be possessed at any time of year, and clarifies requirements for otters taken outside the season or in a county where the season is not open.

Deer Control permit: Established a separate rule for the deer control permit to specify requirements for obtaining a permit, including the time frame in which the deer could be taken, methods that could be used, and disposition of the deer, including the antlers.

Fish Changes

The Natural Resources Commission also gave final approval for several fish regulation changes to go into effect next year.

The ones that impact northern Indiana are:

  • Changed the northern pike size limit from 20 to 24 inches. It also modified the statewide bag limit of three to include no more than one over 30 inches. Hamilton Lake in Steuben County is the exception, where the bag limit is six pike with no minimum size limit but only one kept fish can be over 30 inches.
  • Increased the lake trout bag limit from two to three.
  • Allowed year-round fishing on the confluence of the west branch and east branch of the Little Calumet River where it enters the Portage Burns Waterway in Porter County up to the east branch to U.S. 20, and in Trail Creek in LaPorte County from the Franklin Street Bridge in Michigan City upstream to U.S. 35.
  • Limited the aggregate bag limit of panfish (bluegill, redear, crappie) to 15 on Fidlers Pond (Elkhart County), Failing Lake (Steuben County and Flat Fork Creek Park Ponds A and B (Hamilton County). In addition, the channel catfish bag limit on those waters would be limited to five.