By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

AUGUSTA – The House chairman of the committee that oversees hunting and fishing legislation says he will try to yank a controversial Sunday hunting proposal from the governor’s budget and study it for a year.

A Lewiston lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee, which would make the final decision, said she is in favor of the idea.

“Sunday hunting should be discussed outside the budget. It’s a policy issue,” Rep. Thomas Watson, D-Bath, co-chairman of the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee, said Friday.

Watson said when the Sunday hunting proposal first came up, he was told everyone favored Sunday hunting. It’s obvious now “that not all the players were.”

He was referring to budget discussions between Gov. John Baldacci and George Smith of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. Smith said SAM members would accept higher license and registration fees in exchange for Sunday hunting, except during the firearm deer season.

But at a public hearing last week on the issue, a larger number of hunters and landowners, including the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine, spoke strongly in opposition. Many testified that if Sunday hunting is allowed, landowners will post their land off limits to hunters.

Watson said he’ll ask the members of his committee to recommend to Appropriations Committee leaders that the Sunday hunting language be pulled from the budget and that the higher $3 fees stay in for two more years.

Then, he said, a task force of all interested parties could be formed to study the issue and make a recommendation to the Legislature next year.

Saying he’s not taking a position on Sunday hunting, Watson said he wants to achieve two things: give the public more opportunity to weigh in on the issue and avoid a budget battle among legislators.

“My aim is to avoid a floor fight on the budget,” Watson said. “It’s important that the budget have two-thirds support.” But with so many constituents opposed to Sunday hunting, if it stays in the budget that would guarantee a battle in the House and Senate, he said.

Rep. Margaret Craven, a Lewiston Democrat and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said she and other legislators favor taking Sunday hunting out of the budget. “It should never have been in there.”

She said she is still hearing from constituents, including hunters, who oppose Sunday hunting. “One man told me yesterday he hunts birds, but he also has horses,” Craven said. “He likes to ride on Sundays without taking his life in his hands.”

Talk in the halls from lawmakers is that “Sunday hunting wouldn’t fly,” Craven added.

SAM’s Smith said Friday that SAM is opposed to removing Sunday hunting from the budget but keeping the higher fees. “We will fight the higher fees because it’s not right,” Smith said. “The public isn’t paying for services.”

With the hope that the higher fees will be pulled from the budget if Sunday hunting is pulled, Smith said SAM members are talking about other ways to raise the $5.3 million that the higher fees would have brought in. “We’ve got a long ways to go,” Smith said.

The money would go to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

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