Cox wouldn’t support reduction of three-buck limit
TFWC member: ‘No reason to change’
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Internet rumors spread last week that officials from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency planned to recommend a reduction of the state’s three-buck limit during the April meeting of the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Nashville.
TWRA issued a release saying they have no such plans — and in response to the situation, Collierville’s Bill Cox said he doesn’t believe a reduction would pass even if proposed.
“I would absolutely oppose any effort to change our threebuck limit, and I know a lot of other people would, too,” said Cox, a longtime member of the TFWC. “The data shows we are right where we need to be with our deer population and our annual deer harvest. There’s no reason to change.”
TWRA spokesman Lee Wilmot said Thursday that no one is sure where the news of a possible change originated. But once the rumor gained traction, several groups that support stringent buck limits began urging likeminded hunters to voice their support for the move.
In response, Tennessee hunters who are opposed to a reduction took to public message boards like the one at tndeer.com to voice their displeasure. They also began contacting TWRA, and that’s why the organization made the decision to actively shoot down the rumor instead of ignoring it.
Cox said it’s nothing unusual for all possibilities and aspects of deer management to be discussed during the April TFWC meeting that is annually used to set season dates and regulations for the upcoming deer season — and since so much attention has been paid to the topic of a buck-limit reduction this week, he wouldn’t be surprised if the subject comes up during the meeting.
But thanks partly to memories from his childhood, he said he would oppose a buck-limit reduction as vehemently as he has any change during his time with the commission.
“When I was younger, I belonged to a club where we pretty much killed any buck we saw,” Cox said. “We never grew any really big bucks, but we absolutely had a ball hunting that way.”
Then, Cox said, he made a change for the worse.
“Once I moved to a club where they practiced really strict trophy management for bucks, I had a hard time getting my kids out of the bed to go hunting in the mornings,” Cox said. “They said they just weren’t confident they were ever going to see a deer they would be able to shoot — and if we lower our season limit for bucks, it would have the same effect on the kids we’re trying to get interested in hunting.”
Cox said he understands that killing bucks indiscriminately like he did when he was younger is not the right way to manage a deer herd. He said he believes the state needs a happy medium between killing everything with horns and strict trophy management that rarely allows hunters to take a shot — and he believes the state’s three-buck limit is it.
“It protects young bucks and still allows you to cull bucks out of your herd every now and then when you need to,” Cox said. “I see no reason for a change.”