Published: July 12, 2008 07:47 pm         

Jimmy’s gift

Most of you know that the writing of my hunting and fishing column and the construction of the Outdoors page is not all that I do here at the Cumberland Times-News.

In January I will have been in this job for 30 years and during that time I have covered just about every beat there is. Currently, coverage of Frostburg city government is one my waterfronts.

On occasion, I find myself in a courtroom, fortunately on the audience side of the rail. I have written about any number of cases, both in Maryland and West Virginia. Most have had nothing to do with hunting and fishing.

Recently, though, once in April and again in June, I covered trials at which people pleaded guilty to negligent hunting.

The first trial took place in Allegany County. It came about because back in December one man shot another man during the firearms deer season, killing him.

The second trial was in Garrett County. It too was on the docket because of a shooting of one hunter by another, this time during the late Maryland muzzleloader season for deer. That victim survived.

Obviously, you already know that there are no winners in these situations.

Families have a person who is either dead or injured. Other families have a person who must deal with the consequence of his action.

The common denominator in each of these recent incidents is that they took place outside of legal shooting hours. The one near Rawlings took place before legal shooting time. The one near Grantsville took place after legal shooting time had expired.

No deer is worth this kind of a tragedy. Please, let us all use these unfortunate situations to refocus, to make sure we not only follow the game laws, but that we actually become our own individual ethics police agencies and demand of ourselves adherence to the highest standards of behavior when we are afield with the ability to launch a bullet or roundball or broadhead off into space.

Let us also protect ourselves as much as possible. Absolutely use a light or even two when walking into the woods or out of the woods in the dark or especially in low-light conditions.

... which takes me back to New Year’s Eve of 1986.

James H. Morris Jr., Westernport, was shot and killed that day as he was rabbit hunting on Backbone Mountain. It was buckshot, an illegal load for rabbits, that caused the fatality. Jimmy, as his dad, James still calls him, was 20.

It was Jimmy’s death that eventually led to the legislative machinations in Annapolis that put into place the negligent hunting law that is now used. The penalties for a first-time offender (let’s hope there could never be a second-time offender) are a maximum fine of $1,500 and loss of hunting privilege for five years. The law does not allow for incarceration.

Jimmy Morris was a student at Frostburg State University. He was a New York Yankees fan. He was, his dad said then and again this past week, a wonderful son.

Recently, perhaps motivated by the two local negligent hunting cases, James Morris contacted me, making me aware of a poem that Jimmy had written.

“Jimmy wrote it when he was a senior in high school and gave it to some friends. They gave it to me two years after he was shot,” James said.

I spoke with Mr. Morris about the poem. We think that when Jimmy refers to “stops” and “beaters” that he is talking about standers and drivers, when one group of hunters walks through the woods attempting to move deer or birds to those who are waiting.

You could call the poem prophetic or you could call it coincidental or you could call it a premonition. It has been called all of those things by the few people with whom Mr. Morris has shared it.

I call it outstanding advice. I call it Jimmy Morris’ belated gift to all of us who cherish the hunt. Please read it a couple times.

Perhaps memorizing it would be even better.

Thanks, Jimmy.



Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.