Flatlander

She yielded 125 lbs of boned out meat. So that would probably put her somewhere around 350 lbs. She was a tank. It was tough to move her even a few feet for pics.

No, they didn’t go after me for restitution or my privileges. I appeared in court in Prescott where the judge told me hunting stories from when he was a kid and then fined me the court minimum $100. I was only 18 and since I self reported I think he felt bad for me.

There was a time I agreed with you, unfortunately AZ has fallen WAY down the antelope quality ladder. Other than 5B and maybe 10 (too many tags for too many years) the rest of AZ more or less = Idaho.

Same. I know for a fact it was in place in 2001 because I was cited for it and my citation read “Harvesting buck antelope horn shorter than the ear”. My arrow clipped the edge of the window on my ground blind and went over the back of the buck I was shooting at and center punched a fawn buck. I self reported and even asked if I could tag the animal because it was a buck, but no dice.

Nash helped dad get in on the action today. Pics to come.

Nice buck congrats on getting her into the game!

It used to be longer than the ear. Now they just say buck.

2016 is the year AZGFD started paying Newberg. I was able to have a discussion about this with Jim on his IG account. He doesn't seem to believe there is any connection between otc archery reductions and AZGFD promoting it via social media. He wants to blame it on COVID, but the trend started before COVID so I am not sure we can play that card.

Jim is a top notch biologist and I think we are lucky to have him here. But I guess he will just have to go share a camp with Randy Newberg or those Hush guys or some other YouTube celebrity that AZGFD has pandered to.

Should be a good time. Good luck to both kiddos!

The reasoning that harvest reporting will discourage hunter participation doesn’t make sense. Dove hunting probably has more participation than any other species and harvest reporting is required federally. Heck for my migratory stamp they ask me about all kinds of species that I am pretty sure no one has ever hunted in the history of man. Still doesn’t stop anyone from going dove hunting.

Based on today’s commission meeting it seems that mandatory reporting is gaining some traction.

Ok, I should be clear, that was under Agenda Item 7) Legislative Agenda. I think there is still another enhancement to the program that will be discussed during Agenda Item #13. Hopefully I will still be sitting here when that comes up. But I do have a day job that I have to pay some attention to.

I dont know. I am watching hoping to find out.

They are running behind. Not even to the license revocations yet which are supposed to be time certain.

Here is the link to the commission meeting happening right now. It looks like this should happen sometime this afternoon. https://www.azgfd.com/agency/commission/commission-cam/

Well… let’s hear it

So are you accusing the charities of taking money for the tags? If so, do you have any examples or proof of this? Are there specific people receiving numerous highly desired tags?

I don't think 5 or 6k is all that unusual for rifles today. Have you seen the Axisworks muzzleloaders? Same thing. He always has 3-5 in the shop in various stages of build. This is quickly becoming the norm.

If you can shoot smokeless powder and use modern projectiles, there isn't much difference between this and any other rifle other than reload time.

Can we just get over the it’s legal so it’s above reproach mantra? It’s technically legal to wound a dozen animals and continue hunting but I don’t think anyone is going to argue that’s acceptable.

This hasn’t been my experience. Do you have examples you can share? We are derailing the thread a little bit but I am interested to hear about this.

You’ll never get that info from a FOIA request. Someone would have to audit the draw process and confirm if there were any irregularities, probably the auditor general. I don’t believe there has been a state audit of the Dept since 2014. At that time they didn’t audit the draw process but noted that the lack of transparency was one of the biggest risks for issues.