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Beware: if you obtain ownership of the land under a discontinued or abandoned road, as the abutting landowner, you may gain a whole lot of heartache and expense.

State laws governing abandoned and discontinued roads are complex and confusing. Every decade or so the legislature tries to clean this up, without much success. They’ll try again this session, using a set of recommendations from a task force. Senator Tom Saviello is sponsoring a bill that includes all of those recommendations.

When I was a Mount Vernon Selectman in the mid-1980s, we researched all of the town’s abandoned and discontinued roads to determine the legal status and whether or not the public retained rights of access. At that time, my principle interest was in establishing and protecting public rights of access, especially when those old roads led to public lands or recreational property.

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We’ll be talking turkeys with members of the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee on Tuesday, February 12. The committee hosts public hearings on 6 bills that day, starting at 1 pm in Room 206 of the Cross Building.

LD 84, An Act to Expand Turkey Hunting, sponsored by Senator Tom Saviello, is my proposal. This bill:

1)      Focuses on reversing the decline in turkey hunters and serving farmers and private landowners by increasing the turkey harvest.

2)      Eliminates the turkey permit and fees so that turkey hunting may be included in DIF&W’s hunting licenses without additional payment.

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Room 206 was standing-room-only this afternoon, filled with a crowd of anglers opposed to LD 42, An Act to Prohibit the Use of Rubber Lures for Fishing.

Apparently word spread nationwide about this bill. Standing in the Capitol Rotunda between the House and Senate this morning, Rep. Steve Wood, an IFW Committee member, told me he’d received 758 emailed messages on the bill, only one of which was in favor - and only 122 of which came from Maine residents. Steve said it was the most messages he’d ever received on any legislative issue.

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This is a continuation of columns about legislative bills. Today we move on to coyotes, crossbows, Sunday hunting, watercraft, and more.

Crossbows are getting more attention every session. This year four bills will unleash a major debate about how and when these weapons can be used.

Senator John Tuttle and Representative Steve Wood are sponsoring two bills each. Senator Tuttle has a bill “to allow a person to hunt with a crossbow” and Representative Wood has one “to expand hunting with a crossbow.”

Sen. Tuttle is also sponsoring a bill “to allow a person who is 60 years of age or older to use a crossbow during the open seasons on wild birds and animals.” And Rep. Wood is sponsored a bill “to allow hunting for deer with a crossbow during the expanded archery season.”

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All of Maine’s big game animals will get attention during this legislative session. Although only bill titles have been published so far, in addition to the first 200 bills that are now available, we can tell you what the major and minor issues are going to be.

A battle over bears is brewing. Senator Ed Mazurek of Knox County has sponsored the bill proposed by the Humane Society of the United States to prohibit bear trapping and hounding, ban the sale of bear galls, make a second bear hunting offense a felony, and ban spring bear hunts. I have heard rumors that HSUS may have removed from their bill their proposal to prohibit spring bear hunts, reluctant to battle Maine’s Indian Tribes on that issue.

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Among the more than 1700 legislative proposals, there are plenty of bills to keep sportsmen busy and entertained. From coyotes to crossbows and brook trout to bears, there are 107 bills governing hunting and fishing, by my count. Eight of those bills are mine, sponsored at my request.

Bill titles were posted today on the legislature’s website. If you want to check them all out, go to www.maine.gov/legis/ and click on Publications, followed by Legislative Information Publications. You can select a list of bill titles by sponsor or subject. But be forewarned! The list of bills by subject takes up 145 pages!

In this column, we’ll take a look at issues governing fish, fishing, and fishermen.

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A state Hatchery Commission, after meeting 15 times and spending $500,000 on engineering studies and plans, recommended in 2002 that Maine quadruple the pounds of fish grown in the hatcheries of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and stocked throughout the state.

The Commission, chaired by then-Senator Chandler Woodcock (I was also a member), found that “there is increasing evidence that the state’s recreational salmonid fisheries no longer meet the expectations of many anglers. In addition, other New England states and Canada are heavily competing for the attention of these anglers and may be drawing anglers away from the state.”