It’s been a long time coming, but the so-called “Sunday Hunting Bill” seems to be in the final stages of being approved by the North Carolina Legislature. As soon as the Joint Legislative Conference Committee clears up a few details, it appears that that the hunters of North Carolina will be able to participate in their favorite sport on Sundays.

It’s been many years since a significant number of hunters began to ask that the ban on Sunday hunting in our state be lifted. Most of the requests being heard seemed to come from those urban hunters who worked a standard Monday-Friday work week with weekends off. Saturdays were acceptable to hunt, but due to the archaic ban on hunting on Sundays, they missed nearly half of the time that they could hunt on their days off.

It’s surprising that there was so much opposition to the ban on Sunday hunting. The reasoning for the opposition ranged from: “It’s a sacrilege to have guns out of the house on our day of worship” to “The animals need a day of rest every week.”

The voices in favor of allowing hunting on Sundays were numerous and ranged from “Why should one’s religion play a part in being unable to hunt on Sunday” to “I only have two days out of seven that I could hunt and the ban on Sunday hunting cuts my permitted hunting days by 50 percent.” One of the more interesting views on the question of hunting on Sundays was, “Okay, lets not allow hunting on Sundays and, by the same token, dis-allow fishing on Sundays.”

I’m sure a lot of old timers remember when, back in the 1940s, a lot of households had an unwritten rule of “Don’t take a gun out of the house on Sunday and don’t go fishing on a Sunday, Sunday’s are God’s Day and we should worship and rest on Sundays.” The times are surely changing!

According to S. Henri McClees of the North Carolina Sporting Dogs Association, on May 28, the Sunday Hunting Bill passed with major provisions as amended by the Senate. The following are the major provisions of the bill as amended by the Senate:

1) Gun hunting on Sunday allowed after noon.

2) “Three Strikes” rule for hunting on posted property and review suspension of hunting privileges for negligent hunters.

3) Counties may opt out of Sunday hunting after Oct. 1, 2017.

4) Minimum weight of adult bears defined as 75 pounds.

5) Exemption from civil liability for landowners giving permission to retrieve hunting dogs (pages 4 and 5).

6) Outdoor Heritage Trust to be funded by voluntary payments by hunters.

7) Outdoor Heritage Advisory Council established with no power.

Because the Senate modified the bill, it will go back to the House for concurrence.

It is interesting that even though gun hunting on Sundays is permitted only after noon that archery hunting will be permitted all day on Sundays.

A simplified text of the rather lengthy HB 640 having to do with hunting on Sundays is as follows:

Part V. — Allow seven-day hunting on private land with permission of the owner.

If any person shall, except in defense of his own property, hunt on Sunday, having with him a shotgun, rifle, or pistol, he, any landowner or member of his or her family, or any person with written permission from the landowner, may hunt with the use of firearms on landowner’s property, except that the following limitations apply: Hunting on Sunday before noon is prohibited, hunting of migratory birds on Sunday is prohibited and the use of a firearm to take deer that are run or chased by dogs on Sunday is prohibited.

Hunting on Sunday within 500 yards of a place of worship or any accessory structure thereof, or within 500 yards of a residence not owned by the landowner, is also prohibited, along with hunting on Sunday in a county having a population greater than 700,000 people is prohibited.

Exemption from civil liability for landholder permitting retrieval of hunting dogs.

It is the intent of the General Assembly to recognize that hunting with dogs is a valuable part of the outdoor heritage of the State of North Carolina, and it is further the intent of the General Assembly to encourage cooperative and neighborly agreements between landowners and hunters to allow legal retrieval of hunting dogs.

“Any person, as an owner, lessee, occupant, or otherwise in control of land, who gives permission to a hunter to enter upon the land for the purpose of retrieving hunting dogs that have strayed onto the land owes that hunter the same duty of care the person owes a trespasser,” the bills states.

Except as otherwise provided, this act becomes effective October 1, 2015.