Boat safety part of hunting

• By JOE MACALUSO
• Advocate Outdoors writer
• Published: Nov 8, 2009

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Editor’s note: This is the final story in a series about surviving the hunting season

While hunters across south Louisiana are getting ready for deer and duck seasons, Lt. Col. Jeff Mayne said state Enforcement Division agents are ready, too. That’s because experience has sounded the alarm in wildlife enforcement offices around the state.

“We know we will have lost hunters and will be engaged in search and rescue during the hunting seasons,” Mayne said.

“Hunters are going out in boats that have not been used in months, and that often leads to equipment failure at a time of year you don’t want to be out in the middle of nowhere.”

If there’s a glaring hunting-season statistic, it’s there are far more fatalities from hypothermia and drowning than from firearms accidents.

And in most years, Louisiana’s numbers exceed the national averages.

“That’s because so many more hunters here access their hunting grounds by boat,” Mayne said.

Mayne said hunters put themselves in a precarious position because so many use small boats, carry so much more equipment and are wearing more clothes for protection from weather.

“That’s why it’s important for them to wear PFDs (personal flotation devices, life jacket). With all the clothing they’re wearing, and colder air and water temperatures, a life jacket could be the only life saving device they have,” Mayne said.

“And stay near the shoreline and don’t attempt to cross big bodies of water in small boats especially in rough conditions,” he added.

Mayne’s cohort, Lt. Col. Keith LaCaze, said the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ push to warn hunters will mimic Kentucky’s efforts to warn hunters, notably waterfowl hunters, about dangers on the water.

“The main push will be to wear life jackets because they save lives, especially during the late fall and winter,” LaCaze said.

The LDWF’s push includes: