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billrquimby

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Posts posted by billrquimby

  2. Posted · Report reply

    Folks here are confusing "education" with a public relations campaign to influence citizens to vote a certain way on controversial political issues, something that cannot be funded by a government agency.

     

    If the cost of that campaign is $5 million, we simply cannot raise enough money through tag raffles (just imagine trying to sell 50,000 raffle tickets at $100 each). With tag auctions, like it or not, we only need 25 hunters who can afford to pay $200,000 for a tag, and those people are out there.

     

    There's something that's been overlooked so far, however. Under Arizona laws enabling tag raffles and auctions, the majority of the funds must go straight to Game and Fish. Unless new laws are passed to allow it, money raised by selling and raffling tags cannot be used for a PR effort directed by a group outside of government.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 4

  4. Posted · Report reply

    Guys:

     

    Someone want to explain what is meant by "education?"

     

    Not sure what it's called with today's political correctness, but Game and Fish used to have a division it called "Information and Education," with a staff of people who distributed press releases to news media, provided speakers for meetings of clubs and businesses, "worked" booths at outdoor shows, provided interviews and public service announcements for radio and TV programs, produced its own TV show, hosted things like that annual outdoor show in central Arizona, published books and informational material, worked with groups that taught kids how to hunt and fish, conducted hunter-safety and boating-safety programs, and on and on.

     

    I'm confident that division still exists. If anything, its programs and the funds it spends annually probably have expanded since my work required I "cover" the agency. I have no idea what it has spent on "education" since the late 1960s when I first became aware of the good work it was doing, but it easily should be in multiple millions of dollars.

     

    A problem arises when it comes to political issues, such as the recent HSUS mountain lion initiative. As a public agency, managing wildlife for all Arizonans, Game and Fish must avoid the appearance of endorsing one side or the other, especially if it launched a public relations campaign to educate the public and try to thwart a movement to manage wildlife by emotion instead of science.

     

    Building a war chest to fight the next attack from PETA and HSUS, which surely will come, makes sense. Whether those funds come from raffling and/or auctioning tags, donations, bake sales, or whatever, we need it be ready. Game and Fish can't do it. It must come from outside government.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 2

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Shot my first mule deer at age12 in 1948 on the hillside above where they eventually built Lynx Canyon Lake, but did not hunt a whitetail until November 1954 when I moved to Tucson from Yuma to attend the UA.

     

    I like to eat venison and trophy hunting was never my thing, so I tagged a lot of bucks over the years-- including several "good" ones that came my way.

     

    Pretty sure I've killed whitetails in every decade in our state until about 2010 or so when age and health problems took over. I shot mule deer for a couple of years after that, and brought home a limit of five Texas Hill Country whitetails five years ago, but my deer hunting days ended when COPD made walking more than 30-40 yards without sitting and resting very difficult.

     

    I drew a cow elk tag for an area around our cabin this year and plan to fill it on my 81st birthday using a CHAMP permit by sitting over a little spring I know about. That's the plan, anyway.

     

    I've always said I hunted because I must, and that I would hunt until I couldn't. Well, "couldn't" has come sooner than I would have liked.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 3

  7. Posted · Report reply

    Seriously? You think bird watchers are hiking a mile or so in to put up cameras? I will bet you that 90% of all cams on waterholes are hunters.

    Yes. You obviously don't know really serious birdwatchers who drive and hike hundreds/thousands of miles just to put a checkmark next to a species name. They're just as obsessed with what they do as a Weatherby Award candidate is about collecting species they've not yet hunted.

     

    If a certain bird on someone's "life list" has been reported in the area, birdwatchers will walk as far as needed to hang a camera and get the photo.

     

    Same with serious amateur wildlife photographers. They're not interested much in big elk or deer, but let someone tell them wolves and bears are using a certain waterhole and they're going there.

     

    Of my neighbors in Greer, only two hunt, but just guessing I would say more than half are using trail cameras. Don't underestimate retirees when they find a new hobby.

     

    You are correct about the 90%, though ... for now. (It may even be higher than that, but that is going to change.)

     

    The point is, percentages should have nothing to do with this rule. Why would others be allowed to hang as many cameras as they want year around, anywhere they want, when we hunters cannot?

     

    That's called discrimination.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 1

  9. Posted · Report reply

    I was around when bowhunting groups had to convince the game commission that "modern technology" (laminated recurve bows) would "not adversely affect the resource" (meaning wipe out our deer herds.).

     

    When compound bows came along soon after that, the world came unglued. Same fears. Advocates said these still were primitive weapons and that success rates would remain 10% to 20%, as with any other bow. These advocates were wrong, of course.

     

    I say, let's dump everything and start all over again with long wooden bows, cedar arrows, and stamped broadheads.

     

    Bill Quimby

  10. Posted · Report reply

    Huntermichael:

     

    I've also seen them go UNDER 3-meter fences. The problems with many kudu hunts in South Africa, especially bowhunts, is

     

    1. they may take place on 200,000-acre farms, but bowhunting is virtually all from treestands or pit blinds within a few feet of the few water sources on the property. (In southern Africa, shooting over water is considered unethical by virtually all local hunters. Exceptions are made for American bowhunters to guarantee their success so they can book their friends.)

     

    2. Because of the lure of water, many bowhunted animals are actually hunted on 5,000 acre or much smaller properties. Every first-timer in South Africa wants a kudu with 50-inch or longer horns, and a number of game farmers will have 50 or more clients. Selling 50 mature kudu bulls grown on the property per year to 50 newbies is not sustainable or possible.

     

    3. As a result, South Africa has developed an industry of raising "gold star" antelope -- kudu bulls, nyala, sable, waterbuck, etc., -- auctioning the critters like livestock, drugging and hauling them to farms in horse trailers and releasing them a week or less before the clients arrive.

    '

    Not every game farmer does this, of course, but unless I personally knew him or his reputation, I'd hunt Zimbabwe, Zambia or elsewhere if I wanted another "trophy" kudu.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 2

  12. Posted · Report reply

    I'm as avid a hunter as anyone (and more so than many), but I also like to see deer and elk hanging around my cabin. (Last year we had nine mule deer bedding on our place every day including three fawns born within 50 feet of our back door.) A few years ago two bowhunters drove up, jumped out and shot two little forked-horns in our front yard from that little herd. I was was not happy. There are thousands of acres of forest service land with deer so there is no need to hunt close to houses. 440 yards may be a safe arrow distance, but this entails more than safety. We are under attack from anti-hunters and it presents serious public image problems for our side.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 2

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Don't get me wrong. We are not destitute, and a $4,800 annual tax increase is troubling but it will not bankrupt us. It's just that we and many other seniors got the short end of the stick when the new tax law was written and the effect of "entitlement reduction" on us was ignored.

     

    As for the money to replace the lower taxes others will pay. I was taught in Economics 101 at the UA College of Business and Public Administration a hundred years ago that reducing tax rates stimulates job growth, which ultimately increases government tax revenues. It worked in the Reagan years, and it will work now.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 6

  16. Posted · Report reply

    "What is costing you more? I mean what will you be paying $400 a month more for?"

     

    "Less deductions equals more taxes for Bill."

     

    Yep. The new standard deduction will be $24,000 for married couples, but the current $8,100 personal deduction will go away, which means the "standard" actually will be $15,900. This is less than our allowable deductions were for 2017 because the new tax law no longer allows us to deduct state and local taxes, or exorbitant medical expenses that only go up as we grow older. Meanwhile we still will be taxed on up to 85% on our Social Security benefits and 100% of our pensions and mandatory withdrawals from tax-deferred savings accounts. The framers of the new tax law ignored that, unlike taxpayers still working in the marketplace, the only cost of living increase for most fixed income retirees is from the Social Security Administration and is too little and too late. For many seniors, resources assembled over a lifetime as well as our purchasing power and standard of living shrink from inflation each year.

     

    Bill Quimby

     

     

     

     

     

     

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Won't know for sure until I see all the new rules for deductions, but it appears the Trump tax plan will hurt me and other retirees on fixed incomes with high medical expenses, which no longer will be deductible. Those of you with earned income from jobs should get a tax reduction, but best I can figure we'll be paying about $400 month more, even with a new lower tax rate. .

     

    Bill Quimby

  21. Posted · Report reply

     

    "geeze guys you need to lighten up"

     

     

    This is no laughing matter.

     

    You clearly have not received death threats or had your child treated unfairly and insulted in front of her classmates by teachers simply because you kill animals.

     

    It also is obvious you are unaware we are losing the war being waged against hunters and hunting by animal-rights groups looking for the slimmest excuse to shut us down.

     

    I have spent a lifetime trying to protect the hunting legacy. Thoughtless, sophomoric humor, especially in tasteless photos, only confirms what I came to learn in more than six decades as someone known to the public to be a hunter: We can be our own worst enemy.

     

    Bill Quimby

    Susan

    we can only be our own worst enemy because we let little things bother us and cower down when someone says something different..

    I raise your death threats with being shot at by earth 1st in the early 80's while archery hunting in the north kaibab.

    Actually most people have had threats including my self and my kid. why do you even give them the time of the day. but who cares about threats its just that a threat. and people are just talking out there butt.

     

    My kid has my same attitude, she tells them to f-off both teachers and kids she hasnt be bothered about it since. 1st year high school was the worst, but she didnt back down like others do.

     

    --------------

     

    No one ever shot at me, but as someone who wrote two columns a week for nearly 30 years for Tucson's afternoon newspaper I received more than my share of death threats, and some were serious enough to report to the Pima County Sheriff's Office. The one that really got my attention had very little white on the sheet of paper still showing. Every conceivable spot (including large portions of the envelope) was covered with drawings of knives dripping blood, handguns blowing brains and gore out of heads, and people hanging, etc. (The anonymous sender had gone ballistic after reading the eulogy I wrote for taxidermist John Doyle.) The letter had been crumpled and stabbed countless times. The guy obviously was a lunatic, and he had included a snapshot of my wife and daughter getting into her car at our home. Their faces were scratched off the photo and scribbled all over the back of the print was "I know where you live." This was after years of our avoiding giving out our address and phone numbers.

     

    We obviously disagree on how hunters and hunting should be portrayed to the public. An in-your-face, F-U attitude only helps nudge the non-committed over to the side of the animal-rights freaks.

     

    Bill Quimby

     

     

    • Like 2

  23. Posted · Report reply

    "geeze guys you need to lighten up"

     

     

    This is no laughing matter.

     

    You clearly have not received death threats or had your child treated unfairly and insulted in front of her classmates by teachers simply because you kill animals.

     

    It also is obvious you are unaware we are losing the war being waged against hunters and hunting by animal-rights groups looking for the slimmest excuse to shut us down.

     

    I have spent a lifetime trying to protect the hunting legacy. Thoughtless, sophomoric humor, especially in tasteless photos, only confirms what I came to learn in more than six decades as someone known to the public to be a hunter: We can be our own worst enemy.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 4

  25. Posted · Report reply

    I usually abhor political correctness, but I find absolutely nothing amusing about that photo. It not only is disrespectful to the baboon, but it also tells the world hunters are the dumbest of primates and have child-like senses of humor.

     

    It -- along with the staged photos of moose driving trucks with hunters tied on tops of cabs, hunters with dead cattle or horses in their pickup boxes arguing with wardens at check stations, guys smoking cigars and holding big bottles of booze as they pose with a foot on an elk or deer -- does a great disservice to our sport at time when we are under attack by a well-financed, highly organized enemy that wants to end all hunting.

     

    Sorry about the rant, but that photo is truly awful! Whomever staged and distributed it needs to grow up.

     

    Bill Quimby

    • Like 2
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