# Minnesota Senate File 1798 Bow fishing regulations establishment



## mjoe79 (Jul 3, 2007)

As of today we had a bowfishing bill introduced in the Senate, SF1798, and we are working on a bill for the House that would open up the state to night bowfishing from May 1st until the last Sunday in February. Also in this bill is to allow bowfishing on the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in the metro area (exempting local firearm discharge ordinances). Here is a link to the bill introduced, https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=S1798.0.html&session=ls86 

Now with that said in order to get to this point we needed to put provisions in this bill that would help protect property owners from lights and generators. I will be the first to say that I fully agree with these restrictions! We as a group must be considerate of those who could possibly be affected and in order to have any chance at getting these bills passed and signed into law.......This was a must! 

A lot of effort has been put into getting to this point over the past year! Now it is up to you, members and non-members, to contact your local legislatures by email and phone to seek support for these bills. I have been able to make that even easier by working with Gary Leaf from Sportsman’s for Change. They will have a system set up for us to send a form letter to your legislatures very soon and once it is up and running I will provide a link to them. It is as easy as filling in some info and BAM it does the rest for you. I have personally used this system for other petitions and I can tell you it works very well! I would also encourage you to contact as many friends and family to do the same. Even if they don’t bowfish they can support these bills to help increase the harvesting of carp. The only way this will have a chance is we get the support through contacting legislatures and people attending hearings at the capital! The MN DNR most likely will not support these bills and will testify against us even though we all know this makes sense for MN. We have done as promised in the past and now it is up to MN bowfishermen/women. Take and make the time to do this! Remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Are you willing to step up for what you believe in? Please copy and post this on any other forums that you can to reach out to as many as we can. We can make this a reality for Minnesota sportsmen/women and those who would like to see additional carp harvested from MN’s waters! 

The next step is these bills will need to have hearings in the senate and the house next week. They must be approved by the committees before next Friday to be able to continue through the process. I know this is short notice but we will need as many as we can get to testify in support for this bill. THIS IS A MUST FOR US TO HAVE A CHANCE!

I cannot thank enough Senator Chaudhary, the Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Alliance (Especially Don McMillian), and Sportsman’s for Change for their efforts to help us with trying to get equal privileges that our fellow friends have across the US! Back in 1998 MN’s asked to have their right to legally hunt and fish put into our state constitution and we deserve the same opportunities as others across the country here in MN. 

Thanks,

Brian Petschl
LLBA President


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