billrquimby

One is fungi, the other is a Pommy hush puppy. Thought sure you would know. --- Bill Quimby

I send certified checks when I apply, and I'd to know if we should start making room an elk in our freezer. Bill Quimby

Twigsnapper: If you apply with a debit card, you might want to check your card company's policy on identity theft and fraud if you use your Social Security number instead of a G&F-assigned number. ---- Bill Quimby

Teo: Ask Lark about that quaint little place I mentioned earlier. I hear it's serving a haunch of the king's deer in a fine red sauce with truffles next Thanksgiving. You're welcome to stop by our place anytime, but it will have to be long before the first snowflake falls. My wife broke her ankle when she slipped on ice on our deck a few years back. Ever since then, we close up the cabin, load up our cat and head off the mountain at the end of September. ---- Bill Quimby

A word to the wise: I asked the same thing on this forum last week and answers to my question went off in six directions. I was insulted and attacked, and the dust still hasn't settled. Bill Quimby

I think Molly Butler's rental business is called "Greer Cabin Keepers" in the phone book. The Peaks and what used to be the Red Setter Inn may or may not be open this year, but they are nice places to stay although I don't think they have kitchens. Hey, Lark. You might tell folks about that great place on Upper Eagle Road. British-style tea and crumpets. True refinement with lots of "couth." Bill Quimby

"But that is an entirely different topic from what is being discussed in this thread, which is distrust with the online application process." ...... Actually, I started the thread by asking how long will we wait before the elk and antelope drawing results are posted. I have no problem with applying online nor do I distrust the process. It one day will be the only way hunters can apply for tags. However, since my question has expanded in other directions, my position in this debate is that it online applicants should have to come up with a lot more than $13 to get their names in the pot. ------ Bill Quimby

Mr. Willie: You apparently have a problem with my use of the word "negligible" when talking about $4,200 our wildlife agency might earn from by holding $250,000 in application fees for two months. Perhaps I should have used "trifling," "insignificant" "unimportant," "minor," "inconsequential," "minimal," "small," "slight," "inappreciable," "infinitesimal," "nugatory," "petty," "paltry," "inadequate," "insufficient," "meager," "pitiful," "minuscule," "piddling," or even "measly." The AZGFD's total income from all sources in 2013 was just under $100 million, so that $4,200 represents just .000042% of total budget. Put in terms you might understand, it would be like someone making $20 an hour getting a $0.00084 an hour raise. As for the $13 application fee, I fully support the agency that is responsible for the welfare of our precious wildlife. I hope you don't believe someone handed me a fortune. I left home at age 17, worked my way through the UA, held down two full-time jobs simultaneously for more than three decades and retired at age 62 with little reduction in our standard of living after going around the world several times and hunting in a dozen countries with no help from anyone. And, since retiring in 1999, I have written or edited 23 books and am working on two more as we speak. My wife and I earned what we have the hard way -- we earned every penny of it! ------ Bill Quimby

As hunters, we owe it to our animals to not prolong their pain, no matter whether we use a rifle, bow, muzzleloader or pistol. Bill Quimby

I don't know, and doubt that anyone knows for certain. It may depend upon the weather and how much snow is on the ground in any particular year as to how high you might find antlers shed by elk. I've seen bulls still carrying the previous year's antlers as late as May, and I've found sheds on 9,500-foot elevation knolls above Greer, as well as way out on treeless antelope flats 3,000 feet lower west of Springerville. I even found a spike's antler in my cabin's backyard at 8,500 feet several years ago. ---- Bill Quimby

wdenike: The credit card companies have no dog in the fight. The interest they would charge their cardholders for two-month "loans" would be negligible in their grand scheme of things. It would be an online applicant's free choice whether or not to charge his account. And what is wrong with our state's wildlife agency collecting interest on the money it holds for two months? Two months' interest on $250,000 works out to less than $4,200 at 10% per annum, which probably doesn't even pay the cost of refunding a good portion of that $250,000. ----- Bill Quimby

I have been using computers for more than thirty years, and Safari Magazine and Safari Times were among the world's very first publications to go entirely digital during my tenure as director of Safari Club International's publications division, so it is not applying online for hunting permits that I oppose. Nor do I in any way want to discourage or limit hunting by youngsters. What I don't like is that Arizona's system does not hit credit cards until the applicant's name is drawn. This allows someone to submit an entire family's applications for every available animal and gamble that someone will be drawn for just $13 per person. This increases the number of applications in the pot, and is unfair to individuals who are serious enough about wanting to hunt just one or two species to submit the full price of the tags up front. To be fair, cards should be charged the instant inline applications are submitted, and refunds made after the drawing if applicants are unsuccessful. Consider this: to apply for permits to hunt all seven species in the fall drawings, an individual resident applicant must cough up $1,586 when submitting cash and just $91 online. To get in the pot for the spring drawings for both elk and antelope costs just $26. I believe there would be many fewer applicants if everyone had to decide how big a credit card hit they wanted to take. I also was an identity theft victim and found that American Express handled my complaints much better than Visa and Mastercharge. However, AZGFD does not accept AmEx. ---- Bill Quimby

I've been applying for Arizona's hunting tags for more than a half century. I don't like the online process because it increases the number of applications in the pot, which reduces my personal odds of getting to hunt something, and allows others to apply for everything in the book without investing much money up front. I'd apply online if all cards were charged as soon as possible after applications are received. ---- Bill Quimby

TJ: I think I discussed this in my "Sixty Years A Hunter." The club was started in about 1965 by some of the best known southern Arizona whitetail hunters of the time: Wes Bramhall, brothers Jim and Seymore Levy, John Doyle, Les Stewart, Jim Wilson and others. Membership required shooting a B&C record buck, which at the time was 95 inches net (I seem to remember). Members who shot a mule deer (this was when we were allowed to take either species in the same area on over-the-counter tags valid statewide), but were expelled automatically if they shot a mule deer. To rejoin, they had to shoot another record whitetail. This resulted in Les Stewart never qualifying for club membership again after killing a B&C mule deer in the Galliuros. When B&C raised its minimum entry score, the club voted to not to increase its minimum. Later, the no mule-deer rule was dropped. Officers are not elected. The presidency goes to the member who kills the largest buck of the previous season. As Johnnie Blaze says, it's a fun event, with good food, and well attended by some great people. What he didn't say is that the venue, a patio behind a bar on Tucson's Miracle Mile, is small and always crowded. If you want to attend, call Warren Adams and see if there is room. ==== Bill Quimby

That remains to be seen. Bucks are more are more active and visible during the rut, of course, but midwinter hunts at that elevation bring decreased availability because of road closures and bad weather. I propose an experimental hunt: Eliminate 100 tags from the regular seasons, issue 50 rifle tags for those units, and determine what happens to total harvest. Bowhunters have plenty of places to hunt deer in January. Why shouldn't rifle hunters have that option also? Bill Quimby

I'm all for more December/January deer hunts (and here's where I need to duck), but only if they are for rifle hunting. It's a no-brainer. Simply move 100 rifle tags from earlier rifle hunts in those units and issue them for December/January. Bill Quimby

Lark: I like your "livers with wings." It says it all. I feel the same about wild ducks and geese (I could eat my weight in fatty domestic ducks and geese, though). You and I cook our elk the same way, thin with a crisp batter. I like mashed potatoes with white gravy and green beans on the side .......... Nature Girl: I've eaten meat from the lions (African and American), bobcats and caracal I killed. All had a similar distinctive taste, and all had lean and white meat. However, I only rank cat meat okay to good, and far from the best of meat....... Bill Quimby

Oops! I forgot caribou (which I rank somewhere near pronghorn and elk/red deer) and doves (which I rank among the very worst) with black bear. Bill Quimby

Game meat ranked from best to worst: 1. African antelope, especially eland, kudu, springbok, impala, gemsbok/oryx (in that order). 2. Moose. 3. White-tailed deer from the Texas Hill Country. 4 Bison/Cape buffalo. 5. Pronghorn, especially from Wyoming's farming areas. 6. Elk/red deer. 6. Arizona mule deer/whitetail deer. 7. Wild turkey. 8. Cottontail 9. Quail 10. Himalayan tahr 11. Chamois 12. Mountain lion/African lion/bobcat/caracal. 13. Javelina 14. Wild duck 15. Canada goose. 16. Feral goat 17. Desert bighorn. 18. Black bear.

Read my original post about washing your hands with a carbonated soft drink after gutting an animal. I said 7-Up is better than Coke or Pepsi because it does not leave your hands "sticky." Bill Quimby

" was waiting for you say beer as well Bill..Then the fight would be on...No way I would waste a cold beer on a stinky pig. lark" .......Welcome back, Lark. We've missed your posts. I grew up with an alcoholic father, and I rarely drink anything stronger than a diet Coca-Cola. I've never tried using a beer to wash my hands, but I doubt that it would work as well as a carbonated soft drink does. The carbonation instantly "boils" blood off my hands, even out from under my fingernails. It even works on dried and crusted blood. Try it sometime.........Bill Quimby

"Both the Fort Rock and ORO contain some STATE TRUST LANDS but the owners have closed them to the general public for hunting, Poppenberger said. He estimated the Fort Rock covers about 200,000 acres, and it's owned by Rex Maughn." ........ This is what really angers me (if true). --- Bill Quimby

Jerks who steal outdoor equipment are not new. In the mid-1960s, we regularly hunted the Eagle and Chitty creek country below the rim and west of the Stray Horse campgrounds. We seldom saw anyone there in those days. At any rate, my friends and I left our entire camp -- tent, Coleman stoves, sleeping bags, tables, chairs, cooking utinsels, water, even food -- when we had to return to Tucson to work for a few days., We left on a Sunday afternoon and returned after dark the very next Friday to find everything gone! We slept in our truck that night and hunted the next day before going home. I knew George Proctor, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest supervisor then, and when I called him he said his people would not have removed anything during a deer hunt, so our things had to have been taken by another hunter. A similar thing happened at San Carlos Lake a couple of years after that. I along with several other outdoor writers were camped at the lake when someone from another camp down the lake stole all the fishing tackle out of one of our boats during the night. There have always been crooked people. It's a shame we no longer are allowed to chop off their hands when they are caught. Bill Quimby

Instead of water for "clean up," next time try using a carbonated soft drink. You'll be surprised how quickly it works. It instantly foams blood off your hands and from under your fingernails. 7-Up is best. Coca-Cola and Pepsi also work, but need to be rinsed with water to remove the stickiness. BillQuimby

"Javelina come out of the field whole for most of us." ........ I, and everyone I have ever hunted with, gut all of our javelinas and other big game animals at the kill site. To each his own, I guess. Bill Quimby