CouesWhitetail

some of you that have been on the forum for several years will remember some of these photos from my dec hunt a couple years ago. We backpacked in the day before opening day and camped out. A rain and snowstorm moved in during the night and it wasn't the most comfortable camp, but I stayed dry in my bivy sack and my husband stayed mostly dry wrapped up in a tube tent. I think my hunting partner on that hunt had a tent with him so he stayed dry. Since that hunt I have bought a nice backpacking tent. I still enjoyed sleeping out in the storm though! The biggest problem was the lack of waterproof boots for the morning hunt. Good thing my hunting partner was good at making a fire out of soggy grass to dry my boots out when it was too foggy to glass anymore! The orange tube tent and my red bivy sack: My husband emerging from his snowy coccoon: My hunting partner, Mark and I enjoying some tea/coffee in the morning. Amanda

Mike, Allen and Chris, I agree that one of the real problems is apathy. How to get more sportsmen motivated to go to meetings and respond to proposals is a problem that needs to be solved. I don't know the answer, but I know more sportsmen need to get actively involved in the political end of this. If you are like me, you would rather be out glassing for Coues deer or spending time with your family, but it's extremely important that everyone get involved. Amanda

Bill, The reason we asked for names and birthdates was so we could crosscheck the names against AGFD databases. It's something the dept wanted as well as the ADA. That way we could make sure the people who responded weren't stuffing the ballot box so to speak. Now, I will say that we didn't go through with that step of crosschecking since it didn't seem necessary. There would have to be about 5,000 respondents disqualified to make a difference in the results. I really doubt there was that much lying going on. It would be interesting to find out though. Also, saying the survey is useless because it wasn't randomly designed is like bashing a pick-up truck for not being a cadillac. The survey wasn't designed to be scientific. It was designed to try and present specifics of the proposal accurately and to reach as many hunters as possible to give their opinions. The wording of the questions comes primarily from AGFD so that it would accurately reflect the proposal. And probably at least half of the respondents come directly from AGFD promoting the survey through their mass emails and website. Seems to me the proponents of the proposal did a good job reaching lots of hunters. The survey was designed to reflect the opinions of respondents with regard to how they felt about the proposal. I think it did a good job of that. 6500 hunters spoke up and gave input on the dept's hunt guidelines. No, it wasn't scientific, but the commission takes non-scientfic input all the time. Just look at how they directed the dept to stop the 3 month ban on lion hunting at the commission meeting. A handful of lion hunters stood up to say "please don't stop lion hunting in the summer as is listed in the depts proposal" and the commission directed the dept not to implement that ban. Those few lion hunters that spoke up certainly weren't randomly selected to represent the views of all lion hunters in the state. Amanda

Congrats Katie!! Amanda

Thanks for sharing your adventures. How many and which sections of the AZ Trail have you done? Amanda

CHD, Yes, I can see the pics. I don't see any red X's. Also, I hope you are getting permission from the people in the photos before you post their pics here. Lots of people are sensitive to getting their pictures posted without permission. Amanda

Just so you know Bill, we actually did get a random list of archery deer and rifle WT hunter applicants (including Oct, Nov, and Dec hunters) from AGFD and we (the ADA) spent thousands of dollars mailing them postcards about the survey. And out of about 15,000 people mailed a postcard we got about 1000 responses back. So maybe we should just pull those 1000 out and use them for the results. And to help make sure we were reaching as many hunters as possible, we also ran announcements of the survey for several weeks in the major PHX papers in their outdoor sections to help grab any and all deer hunters. And in addition we handed out about 1000 postcards at the Intl Sportsmen's Show in Phx to help reach more hunters. Our biggest response to the survey came with AGFD's emailing 44,000 big game hunters (not just deer hunters). Probably a third to half of the respondents came from that email list; which, from what I understand, is some of the same email database used to get people to take the AGFD's online hunter retention survey that was the data used to justify this whole "increase hunter opportunity" proposal. That survey, which AGFD said is what was driving the current proposal, was not scientific or randomized and had about the same number of respondents as did the ADA survey and the archery elk survey. I found it interesting at the meeting that the commission would say the ADA deer hunter survey was of high quality and respresented what a large number of sportsmen wanted, but yet they wanted to discount it because a large number of other hunters didn't take it. But they had no other data to respresent what that large number of unsurveyed hunters wanted. Where is their scientific evidence that the hunters who didn't take the survey disagree with the majority of hunters who took the survey? And another thing worth noting is that 56% of the survey respondents said they were primarily mule deer hunters, so I think we reached a large number of hunters who are interested in more than just Dec WT hunts. AGFD worked hard with the ADA to develop the questions in such a way as to make the answers useful to their management decisions. That was a big part of the process that went into making the survey. The Dept supported the survey knowing full well it wouldn't be a randomized sampling of hunters. Amanda

Yes, I did an upgrade to help with security. I will be working on fixing the look of it. Unfortunately I have spent the entire last week battling spyware and adware and viruses on my computer and had to finally erase the hard drive and start over. And that was all unrelated to the fiasco here on the forum. Ugh...frustrating week.... Hopefully the new upgrade of the forum with help with security of the site. Amanda

For anyone else still having trouble, here are the instructions I emailed Coosefan. Delete the email you received from CouesWhitetail.com that referred to "a card has come to you" or whatever it said. If you still have trouble, try deleting the files in your temporary internet files, including offline content. Look under Tools, Internet Options, Temporary Internet files if you have Internet explorer. I believe the worm can live in the temporary internet files. Amanda

Glad we got it fixed, at least for now. Sorry to hear about your troubles. I sure hope we don't hear too many horror stories like that..... Amanda

I was able to fix the main page by deleting it and reloading it. Tech support for the forum software fixed the forum. So things seem ok now. Tech support says they have an upgrade for the software that might help with security. but we risk losing a lot of data in the upgrade. Amanda

Yes, bowsniper. someone hacked into the forum and emailed everyone a virus/trojan. And somehow attached it to my site so that everyone who visits gets attacked. Amanda

thanks for the info dotshot. I will go try and hunt that down. Amanda

The forum seems to be fixed, the main site is still having trouble. Still working on it..... Sorry for the headaches. Obviously I need to find a solution so this doesn't happen again... Amanda

Hi All, Yes, the forum was hijacked again. Looks like tech support fixed the problem on the forum, but anyone visiting the main CouesWhitetail.com site is still getting attacked. I am still working with them to fix it. Sorry for all the headaches folks. Someone got an admin password and then mass emailed everyone on the site a virus. If I find out what the virus is or what the cure is, I will let everyone know. Amanda

FYI -- HB2127 was signed by the governor To All: Great News from the Legislature and Governor's office. Governor Napolitano signed HB 2127, giving resident hunters additional protection under law. Hats off to the Governor for signing the bill over the objection of three of her Commissioners (Hernbrode, McLean, and Golightly). Please take the time to let the Governor know you appreciate her support of resident hunters. www.governor.state.az.us or 602-542-4331. If your in the thanking mood, please let your Senator and Representatives know you appreciate their support as well. Legislature's Roster is attached! One particular Legislator needs to be thanked by everyone. Representative Jerry Weiers made this his crusade and would not yield to tremendous pressure from the "Three Commissioners". He said as long as sportsmen supported him he would push forward and he did. We now have a champion at the Legislature, who shares in our issues, and is willing to fight for us. Call his office and say thanks: 602-926-5894 Thanks to all of YOU, the sportsmen and women who stepped up and contacted the Governor's office. I know these email notices are a pain; but this is the way we will succeed. If you continue to take a few minutes to make a call or send an email when we need you to, we will be successful. You generated overwhelming support for this issue. Working for Wildlife and Sportsmen Pete Cimellaro, AZSFW

If this issue is important to you, please make time to attend the commission meeting this Sat. If enough sportsmen come and give their opinions the commission may decide to scrap some or all of the dept's proposal. Please attend the meeting. Saturday April 22nd Hilton Garden Inn 4000 N. Central Ave in Phoenix 8:00 a.m. start

The ADA is releasing results of the Deer survey. If you want to check them out, visit the ADA website.. It is very important that anyone who opposes this hunt proposal show up at the commission meeting on the 22nd (this saturday). The Dept is continuing to recommend the changes and the commission will likely approve them without significant numbers of hunters coming to the meeting and voicing their opinions. Don't rely on the survey results to represent you. Despite the fact that 6500 hunters took the survey, if the commission decides that for some reason the survey isn't representative of the average hunter, they will discount it. But it's a lot harder to discount hundreds of people showing up at the meeting. Please make time to attend. If this is important to you, please MAKE the time to attend the Commission meeting this Saturday, April 22. It is being held at the Hilton Garden Inn at 4000 N Central, in Phoenix, starting around 8:00 a.m. If we don't have a large number of people show up the Department's recommendations are likely to get Commission support and you will see your hunts changing. If it's important to you, don't count on others being able to fight this without you being present. Amanda

great idea Ron about copying the discs to the harddrive. I should have thought of that earlier! Thanks! That will sure help. Amanda

My husband wears old army issue camo and says it really is great for catclaw. It doesn't make you invincible, but it doesn't snag on them according to him. He says his regular shirts and pants get caught all the time, but the camo pants that are military issue don't. He got them from his dad who was in the military, but you can probably find them at an army/navy surplus store. They are the dark green with brown and tan mixed in. They aren't real heavy, but they just don't seem to catch when he goes through catclaw like all his other clothes do. Amanda

Wow, that was impressive. I love Pachebel's Canon (the song the kid plays). In fact it's the ringtone on my cell phone. Of course, I have never heard it done on electric guitar before. Pretty neat rendition. Amanda

Casey, Send me an email or pm with your address and I will get you one. Amanda

Nice photos. Glad you enjoyed your trip. Amanda

I use NG TOPO! and love it. Haven't used the Delorme one, but I have used several others and NG has been the best I have used. Changing discs isn't a big issue, although sometimes if you are looking at an area that is on the edge of the regions it can be annoying. Usually you only need one disc and it's not a problem. Amanda

Wow, looks great Jim! I was a bit worried since you changed vehicles but I am glad it fits ok! Thanks for the pic and your support! If anyone needs custom size stickers or colors, it can be done relatively easily. FYI - We currently have 97 stickers out there in the world. I have been hoping to reach 100. Almost there.....anyone else need a free sticker? Amanda