BILL: Some time ago, you reported that the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is going after nine pieces of legislation in the 2010 General Assembly, but you didn’t say what they area. How about the rest of the story?

D.C. For the moment, that information is in the Governor’s office and is considered to be confidential, according to Charlie Sledd, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ Legislative Coordinator. It should be available starting later this month when the requests of the DGIF will gain patrons and be assigned numbers.

As for what these issues might be, often requests from the DGIF involve money or are minor housekeeping matters.

There is one piece of legislation desired by the DGIF that is not hidden. The agency plans to ask the General Assembly for authority to establish an elk hunting license. It voted openly to do so during its October meeting. This request may or may not be part of the package of nine.

A controversial Hunting with Hounds study conducted earlier this year had several recommendations that would require action by the General Assembly, but it is uncertain if any of these will be part of the DGIF’s legislative requests. My thinking: probably not.

It would be a mistake to think the agency is going after anything really big, like Sunday hunting or an end to the right-to-retrieve law.