daverp

I think what some who are throwing out the technology debate (i.e. gps, rangefinders, binos, etc.) fail to see is these things are available to most people. A gps can be picked up for under $100 now. Rangefinders aren't that expensive, and really don't offer that much of an edge anyway. Thousand dollar binos? My $200 Nikon Monarch ATB's serve me just fine, thanks, and trust me when I tell you that some guy's Swarovskis really aren't giving them that big of an edge over my cheapie Nikons. ATV's? I can't for the life of me see how anyone could consider an ATV an asset or advantage to any hunt, except after the animal is down and for recovery purposes. Some slob road hunting from road, trail, or cross country on an ATV will never see the number or quality of animals that someone who ventures a mere 1/2 mile off the road on foot will. Sure, these things are great technological advances and extreme advantages over what was being used 100 years ago. However, 100 years ago they didn't have to deal with the hunting pressures and limited available lands we do now. The animals are simply harder to hunt now than they were then. But all these things are no great advantage over not using them, and still require one to put in the hard work if they want to be consistently successful. This chute plane thing though stinks to high heaven. What's next? Super rich dudes paying to have sattelites re-tasked to find and track animals? Is that sporting? What's the difference between that and this? My personal belief is that any "eye in the sky" technique short of your own leg power to drag your butt up to the top of a hill or mountain to glass is unethical. To be able to cover that much PRIME ground, that quickly, with no expenditure of real effort is flat out not sporting. I think I heard it best on another forum. This guy consistently takes HUGE animals, record book animals, that many great hunters spend a lifetime trying to take, and wants everyone to believe it's because he's some kind of "super hunter". Great, fine, I'll buy it. But, when he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, using highly questionable and controversial means, even if it was "just this once" at the VERY LEAST that puts him under a great amount of suspicion, that he brought on himself. If he was looking for a shortcut on just this one hunt and got nabbed, he darn well ought to be intelligent enough to at least know how it looks. He made his bed. He's a big boy, and now he can lay in it. He might be a great guy, but he's gotta know how this looks.

Flying ATV's. I like that. Personally, this whole thing really takes the shine off of Mr. Ulmer's image as far as I'm concerned. Legal, sure, but ethical, I personally don't think so. Short of extended time off to scout endlessley, anything that gives someone such a distinct advantage over the average hunter as something like this does, just does not seem right to me. Trust me, I can certainly see the attraction of buzzing around at slow speed just over the tree tops and busting out monster bucks and bulls, but I personally would have a hard time looking myself in the mirror if I were to take a buck or bull with information acquired from this type of "scouting", no matter how difficult the stalk. Like it has been said, it's a lot easier to stay focused and dedicated when you know your monster buck is in the area you're hunting, and know where all of his bedding areas are. I'd be pretty upset myself if I climbed to the top of a small mountain to glass and had some lazy SOB buzzed over the area scaring out all the animals. Now we all know Mr. Ulmer is not lazy, and is about as fit as one man can be and hunts hard as heck, but he's still using the tactic not available to most hunters to greatly increase his odds of success over traditional, hard earned methods. More importantly he's using a method that most hunters would find unethical. At the least, it is very controversial. If it wasn't, he'd be writing articles about it. Bluntly, don't preach to me about the purity of your archery hunting and about getting "back to basics" when you're buzzing your hunting area in an ultralight aircraft!

Man, you guys are bumming me out with some of these responses. I'm a AZ native, currently displaced in Kalifornia, having left at 18 to go into the Army. Now I'm stuck here taking care of an elderly parent, and will not leave at this time. Hoping and praying to get back in the next 3 years maximum. What am I coming back to? No place I'd rather live, I'm AZ through and through, but the Kalifornia exodus into AZ is REALLY scaring me about what's going to happen to this great state. What will it be like 10 years from now? As much as I generally dislike much of the population here, I really HATE them moving to "my state". For now I'll have to settle for trips back every 6 weeks or so, oh, and my son's bull elk hunt in 7W in November! That and being there about twice a month scouting over the next 3 months....

I don't know why they did away with the way it used to be when I was a kid back in the 80's, where if you drew an elk tag, that was it for 5 years I thought (someone here said 3?). Put a 3 year res and 5 year non-res restriction on it, and keep the bonus point system. You would not accumulate points for the years you could not apply after drawing a tag. That would have to even things out a little better I think. I'm not complaining, because I just drew a non-res bull tag, but it's hard to hear of guys going 10, 15, or even more years without drawing a bull tag when others claim to have drawn "three years in a row". "Lottery drawing" or not, where's the fairness in that? it might be cyclic, but tell that to the guy that hasn't drawn in 13 years! They're going to have to make adjustments. With the drought we're getting fewer hunting opportunities, and more residents to compete for the decreased opportunities. I don't like the idea of having to pay for all your tags up front like they did last year (res or non-res). That puts a lot of the hunts, especially for non-residents, into reach of the rich only, and that doesn't sit well with me. Come up with a system where the poor guy has every chance the rich guy has, and I'll buy into it.

Try mytopo.com You can order your maps in whatever scale you want, in several different sizes, centered how you want, even over different USGS quads. You can also get them waterproof which is nice. I order all my maps through them and have been very happy with what I get.

I'd think becuase there were still tags remaining in the unit, but the 10% non resident quota had already been filled, and the 2 non-residents on the app would have put them over the 10% non-resident cap? I thought that all parties on a party application were accepted or rejected as a whole though. Maybe it's a new rule to make sure the non-res 10% cap is not exceeded, and their not finished on hammering the non-residents yet in response to USO's stupid stunt?

Click on Draw, then click on Spring Draw. It will bring up the correct page. Can't believe it, my son did not get drawn for 7W Cow 2nd choice as I first thought when my CC got hit, I got drawn for 7W bull, my favorite elk unit!!! This will be a hard tag to transfer over to the boy, but I'll do it anyway. Kid does not know how lucky he is! Good Luck All!

Cant believe it, I got drawn for BULL ELK!!!!!!!!! In my favorite unit 7W !!!!!!!!!!!! I thought for sure that when my CC got the $400 hit, that my son got drawn for Cow Elk unit 7w on his second choice. That I drew a bull tag in my favorite unit is unbelievable and a dream come true for me, especially with only 1 bonus point. Next week I transfer my tag over to the lucky boy, and take him BULL ELK hunting in November!!!!!!!!!!! Good Luck all!! See you in the woods!

I can sympathize with her, it's got to be a mad house manning the phones right now, but they should keep in mind it's not the hunters who have turned this into a real goat screw....that was the joint effort of the outfit in Tennesse and the AZ G&F department. You tell everyone that the results will be out "August 1st" every year on your web site, but everyone knows they typically come out two weeks before that. That's compounded by employees giving every date from "results are already out" to "the results will be out opening morning" for christ sake. Also compounded by people's cards being hit almost a week in advance of the draw. Instead of trying to save face, how hard would it be to post daily updates on the main page at the web site? Everyone knows it was screwed up this year, now just admit it instead of trying to act like everything is fine ("It's not August 1st yet, we're still ahead of schedule" ) and let's move on! At least this shouldn't happen next year with the early draw for Elk and Antelope. What would be nice is if the results could post as they happen. That would let everyone know as soon as possible, without all the speculation. Probably not possible to do it that way though... At this rate, this whole debacle has really diminished the excitement of (hopefully) drawing a tag. I'm headed out Thursday for 10 days in AZ. The results of the draw will dictate what I do and where I'm going. With any luck, there will be out sometime before then, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've got that on both my son's and my application pages, and I've only received one CC hit, so I don't know if it means much. I do know this much, I'm beyond frustrated at the lack of any kind of follow up to the temp authorization on my CC that's been sitting there for 4 days now with no actual charge. Making me nervous, and the rumors of accidental CC hits sits there just below the surface festering now. Already told my boy we were probably going elk hunting. Hope this isn't a cruel lesson in "don't count your chickens before they hatch". Some confirmation would be most welcome at this point. I'm guessing by 3 p.m. tomorrow results will be posted though and we'll know soon enough. They couldn't continue to torture us beyond tomorrow, could they????

All I know is I am getting rather nervous now. My reduced "available credit" hit of $400 has been showing up since Thursday morning now, but there is still no confirmed charge or balance on the account. I figured for sure there would have been a confirmed charge by now that I could see. Don't think I'll be sleeping too well until the charge actually shows or G&F post the results.....

Disregard. Tried setting up a poll, and it didn't quite work out, but won't let me delete.

I'm sending you my Emergency Room bill! Funny, I've got my 13 year old next to me here playing video games. I've got him out for the summer from Kansas. He's been playing all these racing and star wars games non stop on his play station since he's been here. Tonight I informed him he got an elk tag, probably a cow tag. Now he's got "Cableas Big Game Hunter" on and is chasing poor cow elk all over the place. Don't know who's more excited, him or me. What's nice is we had already planned and are leaving in one week for 10 days of camping and shooting out of the same camp we'll be hunting elk out of this fall. Scouting time!

What, and us non-residents can go pound sand? Seriously though, I hope there's no animosity towards non-residents in the woods this year, now that things are back the way they should be with a 10% non-res cap. Almost none of us I knew of supported a no cap for non-residents, or the crap USO was pulling. Too bad, it could be a while before the damage that outfit did is repaired. All I know is I spent the first 18 years of my life in Northern AZ until I joined the military, and am now stuck in the People's Republic of Kalifornia caring for an elderly parent. It makes me cringe to drive through the Arizona outdoors with Kalifornia plates. You have no idea. But, come Oct or Nov, I'll be there nonetheless, taking my son hunting elk out of the same elk camp where my father took me hunting for elk almost 25 years ago. Actually got all misty eyed this morning during my commute after I found out we got drawn thinking about it. Wish my old man was still here to see it.

I got hit for $400 (non-res elk) and someone else said they got an antelope price hit. From the sounds of things, they aren't close to being done charging everyone's cards yet, so there's still hope!

I've been dying to tell my son all day, and haven't yet, hoping for more of a firm confirmation, but heck, I can't hold it that long! I'm going to have to tell him tonight that he's going elk hunting, so that temp authrization better pull through as a real elk tag soon! If nothing else, it's been one heck of an exciting day! Applying as a non-res the past two years, I feel blessed to have gotten any tag, let alone an elk tag for the kid. I told him a couple months ago that there was basically zero chance of us getting drawn for anything this year. He should be pleasantly suprised.

Where are you at in Parks? I grew up there. Don't see too many people from Parks! I lived just about a mile up from the school on Spring Valley rd, on Lance drive. Went to the school there from about 76 to 80. I'll be hunting just a few miles north west of there it looks like come elk season. Know the area like the back of my hand! Elk steaks come Novemeber!

The suspense is killing me, on if it's a cow or a bull tag. This is almost worse than not knowing. I could just about guarantee it's a cow tag, but the optimist in me is hoping for a bull!

We are gonna be some mighty unhappy people if these are phantom charges and temporary authorizations! I'm trying to not get excited about an unknown $400 apparent temp authorization, but I can't seem to help it at the moment! This card is used for the annual draw only, so no possibility of other charges being on it. BTW, mine is a Citi Credit Card. Showing nothing but a Available Credit decreased by $400 from Credit Limit amount. Nothing confirmed yet.

My CC is showing a "Available Credit" of $400 less than my "Credit Limit" this morning! It was not like this last night. There must be a temporary authorization for an elk tag on there? I put my boy in 2nd choice unit 7w cow elk, so I'm guessing that's it. I'd be happy with that for him. If I get drawn and he doesn't, any tag I get will get transfered to him though. Gotta get the boy a good hunt. It's time. As much as I hate to say it, I accidentally put in for unit 8 bull 2nd choice for me (don't ask me how). Hope that's not it! I don't know unit 8 for crap even though I grew up there. Come on unit 7w Bull tag!!!!!! *Fingers still crossed*

All I know is as a long time resident but current non-resident, I start out the application process in May just sure I won't be drawn for anything and keep my expectations realistic, but by the time the 2nd and 3rd week of July rolls around, I get caught up in all the excitement and start believing I may actually get drawn for something darnit! Hate getting my hopes up only to have them crushed when reality hits! But, at least I've got the next few days to be hopeful! Then it's back to reality and predator calling to get my hunting fix.

Ahh yes, feels like Xmas eve. Since I'm now a non-res, I don't expect much, but the heightened anticipation is still there. It's like the lottery I guess, it's nice to dream about what will happen if they pick your number, but I'm not counting on it. Put in for cow elk for the first time ever in hopes of getting that maybe. If nothing else, I really want a Dec. Couse tag or a bull or cow elk tag for my boy. If that would happen, I'd be immensely satisfied. If I get drawn, I'm transfering the tag over to him anyway, so all I need is one out of 6 applications to draw!