ForkHorn

Well said. I agree. I think the quota system is a compromise for everyone. We'll see how it works out.

Gonna hurt outfitters? You must have misspoken and meant outfitters are hurting your average Joe. A lot of tag reductions which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it just got a lot tougher to draw tags. The format of having January at the very end of the archery timeframe and not the beginning means that for a lot of units there will be no more chasing mule deer in the rut with a bow.

They quite literally are making decisions based off of harvest without having any real idea of what the harvest is. Especially archery.

I think if you shot the larue and the geissele back to back you'd have a tough time saying one was better than the other. I doubt you'd be disappointed in a larue MBT 2 stage. It's the nicest trigger at the price point and absolutely has a premium feel.

Larue MBT

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My wife has a peloton purchased brand new less than a year ago that's been used less than 15 times if you're looking for a greatly discounted like new one. 😂

AZGFD has hundreds if not thousands of pieces of communication like the one above every year, and expect you to read the one blurb that's important that's not even its own headline and if you didn't, it's your fault and you should try harder.

I understand the need to make comments to show support but this just shows that this isn't about "conservation". For a department that is so money hungry, why they don't have a better plan to scientifically prove the need of these hunts, etc is wild. If there is misinformation out there maybe the authority on the wildlife in the state should be correcting that. Stating facts with knowledge that literally nobody else has on AZ - and presenting an argument for why they manage the way they do. Give the facts and let hunters support those facts. Instead we just have a shouting contest between hunters and antis. The whole premise is ridiculous. Comments were meant to give AZGFD direction on what the public wants - not direct policy. If every hunter in the state wrote in that they wanted a deer tag they wouldn't do it because of obvious conservation concerns. But because a known anti group is targeting AZ they lose their mind. Maybe a cattle group should threaten to sue the AZGFD if they consider this? Or the next camper - post no predator hunting - that gets attacked by a bear or lion should sue AZGFD for negligence. I'm tired of hunters getting walked on and AZGFD taking such a passive and timid stance on everything. Complain about money, ask for more tags - but do nothing to fight for what you have. All that department knows is bureaucracy.

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It's government BS of trying to control without actually doing it. I'm fine with them wanting to close roads - but actually close them. In AZ if private property isn't adequately marked, then you can technically cross it because there is no expectation placed on you of knowing that it's private or not. Meanwhile they expect your average idiot Joe to know where he is and what roads he can go down. Maybe 10% of the population is capable of handling that well - and those 10% get screwed over. Closed roads look like open roads. Until the USFS actually closes these roads, nothing will change. 90% of the population isn't savvy enough or just don't care.

Of all people he should be toting that his advertising worked and increased sales - otherwise money was wasted on him and he should never be hired again. Sounds like he is running from taking any sort of accountability into what actually happened. There is some blame there. But in reality it's AZGFD's own fault. What did they think would happen when you send more people into OTC hunts? It was simple math. But they are getting license sales regardless from the extra people putting in for draw hunts so maybe they are making a little more money while reducing opportunity. Congrats?

The only way to fix skewed buck to doe ratios in a state with a low deer population is to shoot less bucks. The AZGFD policy purposely manages that ratio on the low end in most units so they can issue more tags for "opportunity". Or they'll tell you that the buck to doe ratio for the unit is higher than what most people see because they flew a survey and saw a single spike where 90% of hunters are and then in the roadless areas they counted a bunch of bucks chasing does. The whole issue is very complex and I'm not sure there is a great answer that fixes all the problems. What I do know is that without mandatory reporting the AZGFD makes decisions with an incomplete picture. In reality they have no clue how many animals are being shot in each unit every year.

1. Example... Assuming each applicant had a hunter Ed point and loyalty point.. that's two each. Applying separately that's 8 chances at drawing a tag with a low draw number. IE someone in his household gets a tag. Applying together cut those chances to just two chances. The group average would have had to be 8 for him not to blow up his draw odds. (And if the group average was 8 they still blew up their draw odds) Not likely given his story. If you want to hunt with a family member don't do what he did. Bottom line - any scenario that involves a group application gives an overall lower chance that at least one person in the group draws a tag. 2. He went on a long rant about opportunity. Don't complain if you don't utilize everything at your disposal. 3. You're right there. But if you're pushing the limits of what a deer herd can sustain, you're often not managing a healthy deer herd all the time. You've taken away the buffer. 4. I'm not asking anyone to do anything. I dislike when people play the victim card. Everyone involved should be accountable.

Just playing devil's advocate... 1. Don't apply with 3 other people. He blew up his odds of drawing a tag by doing that. 1 or two people draw and everyone can go. 2. Plenty of "opportunity" to glass from a hill and share in the camaraderie with an OTC tag. Better yet go volunteer to help on a JR deer hunt. 3. Sure sounds like he's been making recommendations for managing wildlife based off of a personal agenda of "opportunity" and not science. Trying to guess the minimum number of bucks that a deer herd needs to breed all the does is wild. 4. Pushing his agenda makes him no different than anyone else (including guides) pushing their agenda - And I strongly dislike guides. Should have stopped the AZGFD from advertising to nonresidents. That's where a lot of the leftover tags went.

I have a lightly used 50mm opticron mm3 ED that the birders love that you're welcome to check out if you're in the east valley. It compares favorably to the vortex razor 50mm and I'd let it go for $200. 12-36X if I remember right.

Sell everything and get the best you can get in either 12 or 15X depending on your hunting style. I only carry 15X SLC HD's and have never regretted it on a Coues Deer hunt with my hunting style of hiking to the best glassing point I can and sitting there all morning/day etc.

The south is much easier to glass. It really depends on your style. Good bucks killed on both ends of the unit. I would not classify any part of the unit as "better" for mature bucks.

One of the keys here is that he can't be a resident of two states. Whatever state he moved to - he better not have a resident license or he is in violation in one of the two states. Likely if that state has a 6 month rule like AZ though he can't yet be considered a resident, therefore he must still be a resident of AZ. Hope that makes sense. Any documentation showing the transition is solid proof and easily explainable. A non resident license in the state he is now living in would shut that conversation down quickly.

The numbers DO tell a tale. All numbers are up but since 2016/17 non resident OTC sales have disproportionately outgrown resident OTC sales. This is another crappy argument being put forth by the department and people arguing (654321) that this has not been a negative for Arizona hunters because they refuse to admit there is a problem or take ownership for said problem. Why do we have a 10% cap for nonresidents on draw tags but not OTC tags? (It can be a moving number). If you looked at the numbers - Nonresident tags would have sold out. Thousands of hunters potentially not been allowed to hunt. And maybe the unit stays open for OTC. Meanwhile nonresident hunters have doubled and outpacing new resident hunters. Yes all OTC tag sales have grown. But the narrative being put forth is the one of someone not trying to own up to the fact that paying out of state hunters on YouTube have without a doubt have caused a DISPROPORTIONATE increase of nonresident hunters into our state. Many of which are of higher skill level than an average hunter and have the time and resources to be more successful. Joe blow from State X with a 10 days off to hunt the state and years of bowhunting experience is going to be more successful than the resident that just picked up a bow and goes out for a weekend. In summation, AZGFD has likely unintentionally caused OTC closures because of their policy of paying YouTube people. This in turn has now reduced opportunity for new hunters and resident hunters. They made a mistake. Now what are they going to do to fix it? Of course this is all assuming that their harvest data that they are using to close OTC units is accurate. (It's not). They can't tell you how many deer were killed on any hunt. They sit from an armchair and claim they can but they've never actually field checked it. They guess. But that's a whole different thread.

1. You don't understand the difference between obeying the law of a mandatory report and people lying on an optional survey? Why make it mandatory to buy a license. We'll send out a survey. 2. You don't understand the difference between paying Randy Newberg to advertise to out of state hunters, and a billboard in AZ encouraging residents to get outside and fish, etc? Great dialogue but I'm not sure you understand your own side.

It's a fairly simple process. If you kill a deer and you don't report it, it's a violation. The blueprint is out there already. I have no problem defending AZGFD when it's appropriate but the YouTube issue, the draw, and mandatory harvest are all problems.

Many states have mandatory harvest reporting and AZ does not. I would say they are not using the best wildlife science tools available. Not using mandatory harvest data is just guessing. How can you close or keep a unit open based on your own guidelines of how many/percentage of deer were killed during OTC? THEY GUESS - based off of hunter survey data that there is no incentive to respond to. I'm sure they'll tell you that they armchair biology some sort of algorithm that takes that into account. No surprise our department can't do something else other states have figured out out

The irony of it all is that if the intention was hunter recruitment - by making it harder for a resident to draw a tag (or bowhunt in December) you're actually limiting new hunters and making it a $$$ past time to get into if you expect them to travel out of state to go hunting. It's discouraging for a new hunter to have less opportunity or to have to explain to them you may have to travel out of state to get the same opportunity that was once afforded here. So instead of creating new hunters we are only pulling from the same nationwide base of older hunters than can afford to travel around the country.

If we got the response that "Hey yes we get paid but this is what the money does and how it's helped AZ wildlife, etc by boosting license sales". It would be easy to have the discussion if the benefits are worth the unintended consequences of reducing resident hunt opportunities. That's not what happened though - we got the diversion salesman pitch to justify how it happened - which frankly is not true for the state of AZ