2006 Hunt Guidelines

[Red Rabbit]

The proposed hunt guidelines/recommendations for 2006 are posted on the G&F website , in the big game memo. These are to be voted on Sat April 22 in Phx at the commish meeting.

 

Some changes I noticed are:

* 570 more whitetail tags, mostly due to the implementation of early seasons in the central units where tags are to be shifted from Dec to October or Oct&Nov hunts.

* Archery deer will end 1 week early in Jan for the junior Javelina hunt.

* October whitetail seasons will be 10 days.

* Most archery deer seasons begin Sept 1 instead of Aug 26.

* 500 less early season rifle deer tags in 12AW and 350 fewer junior doe tags in 12AW.

[AZP&Y]

Bummer if the Archery changes go through...

 

Late August is a fun time to be in the woods and pushin it towards SEPT 1 &

the Labor day weekend warriors is a not welcomed idea....

 

So much for the late August deer hunt, I believe Az G&F will have their way and win this for sure...

 

--------------------------------->

AzP&Y

[TREESTANDMAN]

RR, you forgot that archery deer starts one week later in december as well:(

[KGAINES]

I am planning on being at the meeting, I don't know if it will matter, but I want to be there and hopefully there are a lot more people there. I think the survey should have some influence, but then again they are politicians.

[Red Rabbit]

Treestandman, I think they reversed themselves as it's listed from Dec 15 to Jan 25. I believe they originally wanted to begin Dec rifle and archery deer on Dec 22.

 

While the dates are one week later for the archery deer start, the units above the rim were also extended one week.

 

I do not know the stated reasoning behind the later start. Anyone?

 

RR

[bcoover]

I only like one part of the new ideas. The September archery. It doen't make much difference to be a week later. If anything the archery hunt will be a few degrees cooler.

[25-06]

 

 

I do not know the stated reasoning behind the later start. Anyone?

 

RR

 

Cuz they have there heads so far up there butt they can no longer think right

[DesertBull]

A LARGE LARGE percentage of the people surveyed have indicated that they did not want hunt success lowered or more "opportunity", yet the Dept recommends that the hunts be approved as proposed. What a waste of time and money to even put the survey out. They didn't get their money from the increase in archery elk tags, so they have to get somewhere else. I am seriously considering not even applying for AZ deer hunts anymore. Screw it, I'll go to Colorado, California, NM, UT, or Nevada.

 

You want to know the brain power of some of the people they have running the show at G&F? I asked them about the possibility of taking a handful of the 600 rifle deer tags they issue in unit 37B and opening up a 4-6 day day early season ML'er hunt there. Their reply, "We don't feel the population of deer in unit 37B can withstand a ML'er hunt and we don't like to mix archery seasons with firearms seasons". HELLO!, there is no early archery season in unit 37B and you are issuing 600 rifle tags in a unit that probably has 200 bucks in it total!"

[Redman]

Am I reading this right, the December WT tags in the southern units are increasing, some by 100 to 125 tags?

 

I am also glad there are going to be more junior hunts in the southern units this year, since my son will be going on his first hunt this year.

 

The Nov archery elk tag fiasco is no longer on the books.

 

Be interesting to see what will happen with the Sept jav hunts.

 

I got a kick out of the QA of " Consider increasing the number of mountain lions that can be harvested from the southwestern units from 1 to 2." "There has not been a lion harvested in this area since 1981". Where are all the lion hunter at?

 

We all should pay attention, under every species somebody wrote "All ______ hunting should be banned".

 

Redman

[dave]

As I think it has been pointed out, all of these recommendations are just that, recommendations. The Department is going forward with the recommendations that so far this Commission has not struck down. The Commission has heard them all and all of your comments so far. I believe the one change made so far moving the late firearms whitetail and the December archery deer up to December 15th was done because our Department explained to the Commission that when they changed to a certain number week in 2004 for this hunt, this was an oversight and not intended to happen. Therefore, I believe they were able to change this before the April meeting. Thank you Mr. Ordway for seeing this and being able to make this change.

 

I can understand that it would be a good thing if we could have more December whitetail tags and more junior tags in southern Arizona. I am sorry to say we are really hurting down here. I have never seen this desert so dry with no vegetation. There is nothing for any animals to eat. I guess we might as well kill them, they will die anyway (that was sarcasm).

 

I have been personally hurt and disheartened by what has transpired this year. I have lashed out and ripped everyone in site. I have become cynical. I doubt any Commissioner or anyone from the Department will listen to me anymore or want to be seen within a mile of me.

 

I hope some of you with more sense, brains and a spirit to cooperation will attend the Commission meeting and be able to express your opinions to the Department and Commission 4/22/06.

 

It is hard to group all of the thoughts we all have since many of you are from the north with your issues and many are from the south with our issues. Would I want to hunt deer or javalina in 36b in August? I don't think so. Being from the south, I think the idea the Department has about making a stratified hunt for whitetail in the rim country makes sense. I will stay out of the argument since that is not my dog. North or South, it is important that we have a voice and that the constituency of hunters are heard. We all know that the recommendations are contrary to the voice of the constituency and the Commission needs to hear all your voices expressing that. I think it is very important that they also hear from all the bowhunters that we need to hunt deer until January 31. I would gladly share that time with our juniors.

 

There is also the strong idea out there of asking the Commission to scrap all of the recommendations this year. I would favor this idea and hope that if they chose this, we as hunters would reciprocate by being involved and showing our support for them and the Department. It sure would be nice if we all worked together in the spirit of cooperation for the good of the resource.

 

Dave out

[Red Rabbit]

In the recommendations, I notice a page of fall javelina hunts in units 28-37, which would overlap the archery deer season and the Nov rifle muley and whitetail hunts. So much for quality hunt experiences and juvenile peccary development.

 

RR

[audsley]

I agree with everything my friend Dave said, and I share some of his discouragement. But like he said in the beginning, it's possible the commission might trim a couple of the changes.

 

Major flaws in the recommendations stem from two things:

 

The commission's failure to understand that hunting in hot weather is neither productive nor fun, and

 

Archery has such a small impact on deer populations that there is no reason to shorten seasons. This hardly encourages participation which is what AG&F says they're trying to do.

 

Like Dave, I believe the rim country hunters should be more open-minded about November hunts. But I share his reluctance to say how others should hunt as I'm a southern Az. hunter.

 

I hope Arizona's sportsmen ignore the hot weather javelina hunts, as I will. Nothing sends a message better than a pile of unsold merchandise, in this case tags.

 

September and October are not great hunting times in southern Arizona. Deer and javelina are less active in the daylight, and rattlers are in their peak activity and movement phase. Sometimes it's humid and buggy. But the commission ignored local experts with decades of southern Arizona hunting experience and shifted some of our hunting opportunities to these undesirable months. Again, I hope the market speaks to them in a language they can understand.

[Red Rabbit]

Dave,

My gut feeling says by this time, the department has had time to evalute the results from the survey and public meetings, listen to we the hunters, get recs from the GM's, and interact with the commission members, such that the changes they deem necessary to meet the commission's directive and expected approval have been made to the hunt guidelines dated April 4. As such, I see this commissioners' meeting as a rubber stamping meeting. I hope I am wrong, though.

 

I do not recall why there is the need to put the junior javelina hunt the last week of Jan, rather than pushing the spring javelina schedule back one week, as there is room. Junior Javelina is scheduled Jan 26- Feb 4. HAM javelina is Feb 9-18. Rifle Javelina is Feb 23-March1. The next hunt I noticed is the Spring bear from March 23-May 1.

 

Doug~RR

[coues7]

Doug,

 

UNFORTUNATELY, I think you are correct. They take our results and kind of twist them to meet what they had in mind in the 1st place. Its SAD. I can tell anyone from first hand experience that these early hunts with HUGE numbers of hunters (in southern units) SUCKS. You can't find a place to be where everyone else isn't. It's dangerous and frustrating.

 

The best anyone can do is to keep making a presence at ALL meetings and voicing our opinions as HUNTERS and OUTDOORSMEN!!!

 

Coues7

[dave]

Doug you are right. They have all had plenty of time to study everything.

 

The way things are designed, the Commission is suppose to receive public input in three ways. One is at Commission meetings, the second is at public meetings held state wide, and the third is by written comments sent to them.

 

I have requested the written comments that they all received back in March. I have received all 300+/- of the written comments. After reading the public comments, there is no way this Commission can go forward and approve the recommendations given to them this year and say that they are in any way responsive to the hunting constituents in this state. For them to approve the recommendations would be a total disregard of the hunting constituents based on the written public comments.

 

The same holds true for all of the public meetings held across the state. The response and explanation given by the department explaining away consideration for the public comments given is lame. Many times it is contradictory. It?s like it is on a railroad and get out of the way.

 

The same holds true for all of the public comments given a Commission meetings. Read the minutes of the December Commission meeting.

 

Now at least one of the Commissioners wants to have comments made in another way that is not in the rules so far. One likes surveys. All the elk survey did was say the same thing that was said at the December Commission meeting that they did not listen to. Now we have a deer survey that may contradict most of the deer recommendations made this year.

 

The icing on the cake is this Commission that directed the department to make recommendations to offer more opportunity will be asked to cut 6 days off of the January archery deer hunt that does not impact the resource. The reason the days must be cut is that if we push back the javalina hunt a week, it will stress out the pigs. Since we will hunt them from September through November and then again from January through March. They may get stressed out. Therefore we must shorten the archery deer season 6 days to accommodate 6 months of javalina hunting.

 

I was born here in Arizona and have hunted every year since I was big enough to walk. I completed hunter safety when I was ten and have purchased a license and several tags every year since then. I belong to 6 different sportsmen conservation groups and have been to many of the Commission meetings in the last three years. I still do not have the voice or consideration needed to hold on to and retain 6 days of archery deer hunting in this state. The animal defense league, defenders of wildlife and earth first can show up and stop lion hunting for three months. Why would any sportsman want to waste his time supporting this circus?

 

The Departments arguements and explanations many times do not make sense and are contradictory.

 

On a positive note, I am glad to see they have realized the error made in picking the week they did to start the late whitetail and December archery hunt. Thank you Mr. Ordway and the Department for recognizing the error and correcting it.

 

One other thing I must say is that I am proud of the way the Department has delegated the elk tags this year. The rifle hunters will have a net loss of 5 tags from last year and their bull tags will increase by 300 over last year. The archers will loose about 215 tags but their bull tags will remain the same as last year. This is sound game management protecting the resource and I applaud them for these recommendations.