Most hunting accidents are preventable with precaution
The biggest dangers most hunters will face in the woods are from themselves and other people.
“The overall majority [of accidents are] straight-up hunter error,” Gilmer Game Warden Kalem Burns said.
With bow hunting season for deer and bears beginning Saturday, Sept. 13, hunters should make sure to be safe, he said.
“Georgia averages around 30 to 50 hunting incidents a year,” Burns said. “And believe it or not, most of those incidents involve a tree stand.”
When using a stand, hunters should double-check the condition of their equipment. When getting into the stand, they should use a fall arrest system. Lastly, they should use a haul line to lift their weapon up to them after getting onto the stand.
If anything goes wrong, hunters should have a reachable device they can use to call for help. If they get stuck in a tree for an extended period of time, they should find ways to exercise their legs.
The next most common hunting accident is accidentally shooting someone else or accidentally being shot.
In archery-only hunting season from Sept. 13 to Oct. 11, visible colors aren’t required by state law. But after primitive weapons season starts on Oct. 11, hunters must wear 500 inches of either hunter orange or hunter pink, wherever they are hunting, Burns said.
In his experience, most accidental shootings happen to either someone a hunter is hunting with, or somebody they know, he said.
It’s also important to tell others where you plan to hunt and how long you plan to be out, Burns said. If someone knows where you went, it will be easier for others to find you in an emergency.
Every year, some people go hunting in national forests without telling anyone their location and without taking a GPS, Burns said.
“We spend a lot of man-hours trying to search [for them],” Burns said.
Hunters should take some kind of GPS system that doesn’t need cell service to avoid getting lost.
If you have an emergency while hunting, the best number to call is 911, Burns said. Even if reception is spotty, it’s sometimes possible for emergency services to triangulate a brief phone signal from a cell phone call and send help.
“As long as it makes some kind of connection, we can usually triangulate where it’s at,” he said.
More information on hunting regulations can be found at https://georgiawildlife.com.
All hunters need a Georgia license to hunt.
With these safety tips in mind, Burns recommended that hunters in archery season go to the Rich Mountain Cartecay Track, an archery only wildlife hunting area.
The Cohutta Wildlife Management Area and the Rich Mountain Wildlife Management Area provide firearm-specific hunts on particular dates.
Rich Mountain Wildlife Management Area has a firearms hunt from Nov. 25 to Nov. 30.
Cohutta Wildlife Management Area has two firearm hunting opportunities. One is from Oct. 2 to Oct. 5, and the second is Dec. 3 to Dec. 7.
“If someone wants to go bear hunting, I highly recommend Cohutta Wildlife Management Area. There are bears all over that place,” Burns said.