SunDevil

what - you couldn't get any closer?

but he is just contributing to everyone's ongoing education.

HERE IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE FOR YA http://forums.coueswhitetail.com/forums/in...?showtopic=8687

Just consider it a free contribution to your ongoing education. -TONY Talk about the pot calling the kettle black Which he needs all the help he can get coming from ASU. get a degree, then come talk to me. everyone on this site knows who the person is that thinks they 1) own and shoot the best and most accurate guns, 2) owns and drives the best truck, 3) owns and uses the best optics, etc, etc, etc. additionally, it is obvious this person is not shy about telling people that their things are inferior to his and hijacking their threads for his own selfish, egotistical purposes.

it must be nice to know everything about everything and then not be shy about letting everyone know about it. but hey, I'm "not pointing a finger at anyone in particular".

we are going to just have to agree to disagree on this one tony because it is apparent you will defend the G&F to the death. despite what you may think, I most certainly do not think the "sky is falling". nor do I think mandatory reporting vs voluntary survey's to be a major concern. what bothers me is in general how big the government has become and how, in general, they operate. in regards to the G&F specifically, it does not appear that they truely listen to their customer - the public. additionally, like all gov, they are slow, slow, slow to change, even for the sake of improvement. finally, it is fairly apparent that the dept has agendas that are not publicized. if you go back to "the opportunity survey", I remember when I took the survey that it was apparent the questions were worded in certain ways to promote desired responses. guess what the outcome was - what they wanted it to be (which was based on how they wrote the questions). then, in order to execute "more opportunity", at least for WT deer, they knew they had to reduce the % of total tags available for dec hunts. so what did they do, several year ago they changed the management guidelines from 10% of total dec tags down to 5% to start in 2008. by the time they came out with the 2008 hunt guidelines there was no turning back, the pieces had already been put in place and the "public meetings" that are held for john doe to lobby his opinion were really just dog and pony shows as no changes were ever going to be made. regarding the two items mostly discussed in this thread: first - the day after they had their fiasco several years ago with their online vendor's bond problem, they should have immediately taken actions to ensure the online application process would be back up in place for the next application period. guess what - didn't happen and still has not happened. second - I would much rather say "I am 99% confident that the hunter success for the unit 32, October WT hunt was 31%, +/- 1% (30% - 32%)" than "I am 90% confident that the hunter success rate for the unit 32, October WT hunt was 31%, +/- 4% (27% - 35%). IMO - online applications are far superior to paper apps. to me, and based on the technology that is currently available, it is inexcusable that we have to complete paper applications. why are we still doing paper apps? why? I would like to know. IMO - mandatory reporting is not that big of a deal. I have been doing it for years in other states. it only takes a couple of minutes. plain and simple, the numbers that are compiled from mandatory reports are superior to voluntary surveys. why are we still doing voluntary surveys? why? I would like to know. if the AZ G&F Dept was operating in the private sector they would have been out of business years and years ago.

The only thing it might do is soothe the minority of bruised selfish egos out there. FYI - I have nothing at stake in this, and as such, my unselfish ego has not been bruised. I would just like to see some of the things the dept does move out of the 70's and into this century.

well Doug we will see if I draw a Dec tag or not. if I don't it will probably be due to not having enough bogus points and there being to much other opportunity. on another note, if EVERYONE stopped buying gas than as a result of demand going away the price would come down. same situation here. if EVERYONE tore up their survey cards then the G&F would be forced to implement mandatory reporting. I think almost everyone on this site would agree that lobbying the G&F is a futile effort. history has repeatedly shown that they do what they want regardless of public input. Tony, since you are in the know with the G&F, can you provide some input on what kind of lame excuses they are using for 1) not having applications online and 2) not having mandatory reporting? if you do not know, would you be willing to find out for us? IMO - these are two things that can be done and would be improvements over how they are currently being done. their refusal to listen to their customers, change and make improvements where possible is ridiculous. like I said before, if this organization was operating in the private sector, they would have been out of business years ago.

I am not 100% positive but I am pretty sure we are in a recession.

Because bowhunter4life had a better idea, I retract my suggestion to tear up your cards. The better idea is to not answer the questions, but write on the card something like "When G&F make harvest reporting mandatory for all hunts, I'll be happy to share the information." Mark sounds good to me

I swear - you must have A D D - you can not talk about the same subject for more than one sentence. now this thread is about BBQ?

oh and by the way - the G&F is still guessing. why do you think they use 90% when 95% is the gold standard for research sake - so they can make their numbers look better. if they used 95% that +/-5.8% on the dec stats would shoot up to a lot more than that.

come on guys - lets continue to support a system that could be improved upon because the dept is stuck in the 70s and is unwilling to move to a better system. sorry not buying in. the only successful lobby effort I saw in regards to the G&f was the archery elk hunters. good for them. what about all the guys that lobbied for quality deer hunting over quantity. oh that lobby was a waste of time because look what we got stuck with - opportunity, more and more opportunity. oh the tree huggers were successful in their lobby efforts to get 3 months wacked off from the mtn lion hunting season.

come on Tony - we are talking about something that can realistically be done vs something that can not be realistically done. having mandatory reporting is something that can very realistically and very easily be done (NM and UT have been doing it for years). having a game warden accompany every hunter or doing an exact head count of every deer are things that are unrealistic. statistically speaking, a 45% return rate on 42.5K survey cards is more than enough from a macro level but at a micro level it falls short. the G&F are making decisions at the unit and hunt level in which they may have only sent a couple hundred survey cards. so lets look at this a little closer. we will assume the 45% return rate is constant (pretty big assumption as some hunts may have had 35% and others 55% which would make the results of the 35% return rates even worse) and we will look at unit 32 white tail only (no carp and no juniors). we will use a confidence level of 95% (generally accepted amoung researchers) and a confidence interval of +/- 4%. last year there were 1,475 WT tags in unit 32 (650 in oct, 650 in nov and 175 in dec). at a macro level the G&F only needed to have 427 survey cards returned (29%) in order to achieve the 95% and +/-4% levels used in this example. however, when looking at the micro level in aggregate they needed to have 760 survey cards returned (52%). 650 oct tags at 95% and +/-4% requires 312 cards 650 nov tags at 95% and +/-4% requires 312 cards 175 dec tags at 95% and +/-4% requires 136 cards 312+312+136=760 if 312 survey cards (48% of total) from the nov hunt were returned, than the G&F would be 95% confident that the hunter success for this hunt was somewhere between 22% and 30% (G&F reported hunt success for this hunt was 26%). so which is it? how many bucks were taken on this hunt 143, 169 or 195? dec is even worse, if only 45% of the survey cards are returned, the confidence interval drops to +/-8%. G&F reported a 56% hunter success rate. so at a 45% return rate, the hunter success rate is somewhere between 48% and 64%. so what is it? were 84 bucks taken or 112? the same can be done for oct and then all of them can be added together. so in aggregate, was hunter success in unit 32 for all 3 hunts 28%, 32% or 36%. where 405 bucks harvested, 468 or 535? these numbers are pretty far apart. my point is that a lot of this guess work can be taken out of the equation by simply moving to mandatory reporting. yes, people will be dishonest but people are currently being dishonest in the existing structure. taking dishonesty out of the equation is unrealistic and unfortunately will always be part of the equation. the majority of the guess work involved in this reporting CAN AND SHOULD be removed by moving toward mandatory reporting.

Bill - where are you getting the 85% from? I thought I remember hearing that they only get like 40% back.

yea kind of like that - I guess they were so tired this year they decided to barbeque instead

have fun sitting next to the kitty scats? you mean when the softball team is sitting next to the president getting recognized for being the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS?

I have one for you: Pelea, Los Demonios Al Bajar Del Campo Peleo Con Todas Tus Fuerzas Y Nunca Te Vensas Largo Que Nuestros Colores Sobrebriyen Todos Los Otro Echo De Los Traseros, Darles Demonios Al Diablo! Bravo, Bravo Por A-S-U Peleen Por El Viejo Maron Por Su Alabansa, Alaben, Las Gangas Todos Aqui Y Adelante Su Victoria!

150+ for me

Really? Gosh I did not know that. NOT if you would go back and read this thread you would see I already acknowledged that candrea was off and that had he not been coaching the olympic team the scats would probably have had a better season. Well apparently Casey did not want to take the high road - aside from swimming - au athletics this year could be described as a blind, deaf, mute, amputated, lifeless, kitty scat squirrel. this is also the state that the football program has been in for the last NINE years. sorry but next year is not looking all that rosey for the scats (or their fans) either - in any sport. good luck in Miami - the scats are really going to need it - hope all you scat fans are prepared for a WCWS repeat this weekend (2 N QUE). GO 'CANES

I am sorry but I can not justify continuing to support a system that can and should be improved upon. I am not talking about fines but if you do not report than you can not apply the next year. Put it online or over the phone with a confirmation number for people to keep for their own records. THIS IS NOT THAT COMPLICATED PEOPLE. It is like the online application process. Why is AZ not online? Other states do both of these things. I specifically know and have experience with both of these things in UT and NM. WHY IS AZ NOT DOING THEM? There has to be a reason. What is it? There is a difference between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "there are better ways of doing things so let's look at ways of improving the things that we do for our 1) our dept 2) our state and 3) our customers". The problem is that the department has the only ball and if we want to play, we are FORCED to play by their rules. Well not in this instance. If we collectively boycott the survey cards than it would FORCE the G&F to look at themselves in the mirror. Hopefully they would see that they are not in the 70s anymore, there are better ways of doing things and their customers have spoken. Yes it might cause a blip in survey data for one year and the G&F could say "poor us, we do not know what to do with tags next year because people did not turn in their survey cards" but they could easily keep it status quo for one year and the impact to wildlife would be insignificant. If this entity operated in the private sector they would have been out of business years and years ago. The people that support the survey program would not lose their jobs and they would probably feel better about what they do in knowing their final product is more accurate.

I do not disagree with you Amanda. another option would be for everyone to boycott the survey cards and FORCE G&F to make it mandatory, assuming they even use the information anyway.

I completely agree with Mark - MAKE IT MANDATORY - I also hunt NM and UT. They both have mandatory reporting and guess what - IT IS NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL. Both of these states have it set up online and oh, my bad, AZ G&F isn't set up to do anything online - welcome to 2008. Mandatory reporting will take more guess work out of one of the G&F's job and thus improve results of their work. Their refusal to go down this road only makes me think they have some agenda to keep it the way it is. I personally do not fill mine out. If they want to guess, let 'em guess.

one win away Casey - one win away