Changing Seasons

[GHOSTLUVR]

re: DEER questionnaires:

Mandatory reporting is required for archery deer hunters if they harvest a deer. We know that compliance is increasing over time, but it is not consistent among years and indications are that not everyone has gotten the word that they need to report. Even if it were 100%, we are asking for data in a different way than we do when we send out the voluntary questionnaire to all hunters. We wanted to collect the data and analyze it in a way that minimized any potential biases. By using the voluntary questionnaire for both archers and general season hunters, we have a consistent data set with consistent biases. Using this approach, we can get the most realistic comparison of harvest, hunt success, and participation. It seemed the best way to make this comparison.

 

JIM

 

Am I missing something? Are not archery hunters mandated by Game and Fish law (with the possibility of being cited for non-compliance) to report their harvest within 10 days???? And rifle hunters are not. We are facing upcoming changes for archery hunts due to the percentage of harvest in comparison to rifle hunters. How is it possible that this is not biased? Reading this, it seems that AZGFD is going to either all mandatory reporting or all voluntary reporting. Which one is it?

 

However, Thanks for the post Jim. It does have many good points and sheds some light on AZGFD's method or madness!

[Red Rabbit]

Ghostluvr,

 

Only OTC archery deer hunters are mandated to report their harvest. Those archery deer hunters who drew a permit in draw units like 1, 7, 12, 13 are not required to report their harvest, but instead they will receive the survey card in the mail that general firearm hunters receive.

 

RR

[GHOSTLUVR]

Ghostluvr,

 

Only OTC archery deer hunters are mandated to report their harvest. Those archery deer hunters who drew a permit in draw units like 1, 7, 12, 13 are not required to report their harvest, but instead they will receive the survey card in the mail that general firearm hunters receive.

 

RR

 

I had a typo in there. I know that rifle hunters are voluntary and archery hunters mandatory. Just woundering how this is accurate information. As far as I know, AZGFD will implement changes to archery seasons when archery hunters reach 20% of the rifle harvest. How is this not biased. If 50% of rifle hunters return there voluntary surveys, then we should be able to reduce our mandatory 20% number by 50%. This would place us at 10% harvest in respect to rifle hunters. And why are we as archery hunters not able to harvest 50% of the harvest objective. One deer per hunter per calandar year regardless of the method of harvest. I know my statistics are not correct. Just frustration talking!

[DesertBull]

And why are we as archery hunters not able to harvest 50% of the harvest objective. One deer per hunter per calandar year regardless of the method of harvest. I know my statistics are not correct. Just frustration talking!

 

General and ML'er tags cost more plus they get a app fee for all of the people that apply but don't get drawn.

Gov Nappy takes millions from G&F every friggen year and never gives it back. They have to make up the shortfall somehow.

 

Follow the money.

 

[GHOSTLUVR]

Red Rabbit,

 

I posted again without fully understanding your statement about archery permits received through the draw. Now I know what Jim meant in the article.

 

Jim, you've taking a beating in this well intended thread. Thanks for the post. Just a lot of frusterated hunters out there (Archery, rifle, slingshot, .270's.........whatever)..

[GHOSTLUVR]

And why are we as archery hunters not able to harvest 50% of the harvest objective. One deer per hunter per calandar year regardless of the method of harvest. I know my statistics are not correct. Just frustration talking!

 

General and ML'er tags cost more plus they get a app fee for all of the people that apply but don't get drawn.

Gov Nappy takes millions from G&F every friggen year and never gives it back. They have to make up the shortfall somehow.

 

Follow the money.

 

Man i'm gonna make a fool out of myself on this thread. However, I know many archery hunters that already hold a rifle tag for the year, or apply for a rifle tag after being unsuccessful on the January archery hunt. Are not archery hunters as a whole pumping more revenue into the AZGFD than the rifle only hunters???

[billrquimby]

Jim:

 

I support the changes outlined in the article. If we are to protect our tradition, hunters need to welcome changes that bring more people into our fold. One day (I hope it's long after I'm gone) whether or not to allow us to hunt will be on the ballot. Without numbers, we will lose.

 

Bill Quimby

[motoxno53]

Jim - first of all let me say thank you for providing the info on the mule deer triplet fawns. I saw them again last Sunday afternoon.

 

I somewhat disagree with this statement in your article:

 

"In the 2007 fall draw, 72,651 people applied for a deer tag and only 42,585 people received one. So 30,066 (41 percent) of people who wanted to hunt deer had to stay home and find something else to do with their families."

 

Some of those 30K people could have done a little research on draw stats and applied for units with 100% odds. more than likely, they had a specific unit they wanted to hunt and that is the only unit they applied for. their thinking was I only want to hunt the unit I have hunted before and am familiar with. they made a conscious choice before they applied to put in for a hunt they might not draw vs put in for a 100% draw hunt and go hunting for the sake of going hunting. additionally, many of those 30K applicants were probably non-residents who only applied for the strip. they made the choice to apply for a hunt with only 2% draw odds. more than likely they apply in other states and are not "staying at home to find something else to do with their families."

 

I do believe the G&F is tasked with a difficult situation.

 

I do not believe a dec hunt that is now - one) the 4th, 5th or even 6th hunt within a particular unit or - two) has a nov hunt that ends 7 days before the dec opener can be considered a 'quality hunt'. I did not apply for Dec 33 this year because it was going to be the 6th rifle hunt in this unit (2 jr hunts and 3 general hunts). this does not count the archery hunt or the javelina hunts. previously the nov hunt would end the weekend before turkey day and allow 3 weeks before the dec opener. now the 2nd nov hunt ends on dec 5 which is only 7 days before the dec opener. this does not equate to quality for me. there were WT tags leftover in 36C this year. if this is an alternative unit with quality being key, why add another 4th hunt when original demand is not greater than the original 3 hunts and allow for 3 weeks before the dec opener instead of just 1.

 

clearly the dept is managing to quantity with quality being thrown under the bus. yes there are the token 'alternative units' but again, I would question a 4th WT hunt with the dec opener being 7 days after the previous hunt closing as a serious consideration being taken for quality. additionally, why add more tags and hunts to units that historically have tags leftover? this goes back to my first point. if going hunting is someone's priority than they should put in for Oct 30B as their 5th choice. they are guaranteed a tag. if not, than they are not that serious about going hunting in the first place. opportunity previously existed for this hunter and he choose not to take advantage of it. if there are historically tags leftover for so many units (30A, 30B, 36A, 36B, etc) this indicates to me plenty of opportunity in these units and an additional hunt and additional tags are not warranted. adding an additional hunt and additional tags to these units just further makes my point of managing to quantity, quantity and more quantity at the additional cost of quality.

 

 

^^^^^ X2 Jim please respond to the above...

 

I feel the same way the stats they are using are biased.....I have hunted the 36s all of my life and I spend a lot of time out in the field. it is obvious that the deer herds are greatly reduced than what they were just a few short years ago and yet more tags and more hunts....."lets get more people in the field? well heck pretty soon there will not be any bucks left to shoot. Come on when are we going to reduce tags. I would gladly not hunt for a couple of years if I know that the quality of out herds were going to get better.... I know then why dont I turn in my tag. Well that is because with the amount of deer we have left and the GFD increasing tags numbers I will take me years of hunting to find a deer that is old enough to shoot not to mention we may not have any deer left the way the GFD is increasing tags. I do not shoot a deer just to shoot. I will go out but will not shoot a deer unless it is a buck that has lived and now is ready to go on to the land of lush grass and lots of water and some dang shade..... Hunting to me is getting depressing as the GFD will not give them a brake....

 

Chris

 

[DesertBull]

And why are we as archery hunters not able to harvest 50% of the harvest objective. One deer per hunter per calandar year regardless of the method of harvest. I know my statistics are not correct. Just frustration talking!

 

General and ML'er tags cost more plus they get a app fee for all of the people that apply but don't get drawn.

Gov Nappy takes millions from G&F every friggen year and never gives it back. They have to make up the shortfall somehow.

 

Follow the money.

 

Man i'm gonna make a fool out of myself on this thread. However, I know many archery hunters that already hold a rifle tag for the year, or apply for a rifle tag after being unsuccessful on the January archery hunt. Are not archery hunters as a whole pumping more revenue into the AZGFD than the rifle only hunters???

 

The less deer archers kill, the more rifle tags they can sell. Why do you think they took the Dec archery hunt away from unit 22, yet issued 650 rifle tags?

 

[gamespec]

Jim - first of all let me say thank you for providing the info on the mule deer triplet fawns. I saw them again last Sunday afternoon.

 

I somewhat disagree with this statement in your article:

 

"In the 2007 fall draw, 72,651 people applied for a deer tag and only 42,585 people received one. So 30,066 (41 percent) of people who wanted to hunt deer had to stay home and find something else to do with their families."

 

Some of those 30K people could have done a little research on draw stats and applied for units with 100% odds. more than likely, they had a specific unit they wanted to hunt and that is the only unit they applied for. their thinking was I only want to hunt the unit I have hunted before and am familiar with. they made a conscious choice before they applied to put in for a hunt they might not draw vs put in for a 100% draw hunt and go hunting for the sake of going hunting. additionally, many of those 30K applicants were probably non-residents who only applied for the strip. they made the choice to apply for a hunt with only 2% draw odds. more than likely they apply in other states and are not "staying at home to find something else to do with their families."

 

I do believe the G&F is tasked with a difficult situation.

 

I do not believe a dec hunt that is now - one) the 4th, 5th or even 6th hunt within a particular unit or - two) has a nov hunt that ends 7 days before the dec opener can be considered a 'quality hunt'. I did not apply for Dec 33 this year because it was going to be the 6th rifle hunt in this unit (2 jr hunts and 3 general hunts). this does not count the archery hunt or the javelina hunts. previously the nov hunt would end the weekend before turkey day and allow 3 weeks before the dec opener. now the 2nd nov hunt ends on dec 5 which is only 7 days before the dec opener. this does not equate to quality for me. there were WT tags leftover in 36C this year. if this is an alternative unit with quality being key, why add another 4th hunt when original demand is not greater than the original 3 hunts and allow for 3 weeks before the dec opener instead of just 1.

 

clearly the dept is managing to quantity with quality being thrown under the bus. yes there are the token 'alternative units' but again, I would question a 4th WT hunt with the dec opener being 7 days after the previous hunt closing as a serious consideration being taken for quality. additionally, why add more tags and hunts to units that historically have tags leftover? this goes back to my first point. if going hunting is someone's priority than they should put in for Oct 30B as their 5th choice. they are guaranteed a tag. if not, than they are not that serious about going hunting in the first place. opportunity previously existed for this hunter and he choose not to take advantage of it. if there are historically tags leftover for so many units (30A, 30B, 36A, 36B, etc) this indicates to me plenty of opportunity in these units and an additional hunt and additional tags are not warranted. adding an additional hunt and additional tags to these units just further makes my point of managing to quantity, quantity and more quantity at the additional cost of quality.

 

Sorry for being gone from here a day, I had an MRI done on my neck (probably from stooping over this computer!).

 

As we said in our article, there are 30K more applicants than there are tags. Some (couple hundred?) could have drawn a tag if they played the odds, but there is no getting away from the fact that about 30K people want to go deer hunting and can't. That's what drives the current direction, not us schemeing on how we can get some more nonresident money flowing into the state.

 

I think you will be dissappointed in not putting in for the 33 Dec hunt when you see the bucks that come out and see the hunt success again. I wish I could figure out how to post an assemblage of pictures of the whitetail bucks coming out of 36C these days and coming through my Three Points check station in the early hunts. We are harvesting some great deer out of there and it will continue this year. Last year (2007) I checked 18 WT bucks out of 36C and 11 of the 18 (61%) were 3.5 years old or older. The idea that we are ruining our buck age structure in the quest to allow more people to hunt is just not true when you look at the data. In the last 5 years (2003-07) at my check station, I have aged 490 WT bucks out of GMUs 36ABC and in each of those years 40-56% of the bucks were 3.5 years old or older. I'm pretty proud of that.

 

JIM

 

 

 

[gamespec]

I have to scoot to a school function and my son has an MRI on his dislocated shoulder tomorrow so I'll return but it may be a day. Everyone take a deep breath. I don't mind trying to answer questions - you all deserve answers, but it is sometimes hard to spend so much time here with all the other things I have deadlines for.

 

JIM

[dobbs07]

***Warning, lengthy read***

 

Last year (2007) I checked 18 WT bucks out of 36C and 11 of the 18 (61%) were 3.5 years old or older. The idea that we are ruining our buck age structure in the quest to allow more people to hunt is just not true when you look at the data. In the last 5 years (2003-07) at my check station, I have aged 490 WT bucks out of GMUs 36ABC and in each of those years 40-56% of the bucks were 3.5 years old or older. I'm pretty proud of that.

 

JIM

 

Ok let me make this clear up front, I am NOT a wildlife biologist by any means. I do however have some questions/thoughts/opinions on this issue.

 

It's my general understanding that a one year old buck is a spike, two year old a two point, 3 year old a 2 maybe small 3 point. And a 4 plus year old deer a mature 3 point. So according to the above numbers half, maybe more of the 490 deer that were harvested in the previously mentioned units are spikes, two points, or small 3 points? Now this is where I need some additional clarification. The way I understand it, it is the responsibility of sportsmen and ultimately the Game and Fish department to manage our wildlife to have healthy herds. What I understand my job as a sportsman to be is to remove older/mature animals, and unhealthy animals from a heard as to have a healthy breeding population of animals. However what I see from the above information is that we are failing at that responsibility. We are from what I can see, harvesting close a majority of deer that may not even have reached the peak of maturity. Now I can understand that there are people that just hunt for the experience or hunt for the meat, and thats fine you are entitled to your interpretation of wildlife management. But to me, it feels like maybe we are not doing as good of a job as we could at managing effectively.

 

I guess what Im getting at is since when did it become about getting as many people as possible into the "woods" hunting. I thought our goal was to manage and conserve wildlife? It seems to me that if we are not harvesting a majority of mature animals then maybe we need to reduce the number of tags til we reach that point? Why do we need to have everyone that wants to have a tag get one? Just like the saying goes "you can't always get what you want." I would gladly sit a few years out in order to ensure that we are doing right by or management principles. And yes there are always going to be people that whine and complain about not getting the "opportunity" to go hunting often enough. Who wouldn't? I want to go hunt bugling bulls every year, but the fact of the matter is, there just aren't enough animals, and concequently there aren't enough tags to go around for everyone. But you know what? I'm proud that most out of state, and in-state hunters regard our state to be one of the finest elk hunting states in the country. And you know what else? I wouldn't trade the opportunity to go elk hunting every year for that fact EVER. I would hate to see our state get to the point where it is a common thing to go elk hunting every year, and a rarity for trophy bulls to be harvested. And yet, I already see this happening with Over the Counter elk permits, and November archery bull tags, I see those as poor excuses to get more revenue and more people in the field.

 

So where does it stop? Premium rut permits slowly get stripped away and more tags get added to lower success winter hunts, until there comes a point where there are only a handful of rut tags available, and it becomes increasingly difficult to harvest mature animals with the exception of one or two trophy units? This is quickly becoming the reality for deer hunts. premium permits that allows hunters to harvest mature animals have been taken away, and added to hunts where people are happy to simply harvest a buck, any buck, and often times end up settling for an animal that is immature. So are we just going to have one or two "trophy units" for coues deer now as well, or worse are we ok with harvesting a majority of immature animals from the herd? I say we take a look at our wildlife management philosophies and follow those as best as possible, and stop worrying that there are not enough permits available for everyone. We need to ensure that we have "quality" healthy herds, and stop worrying that we as hunters are not getting enough "opportunity."

 

I dont think it's fair to criticize something without offering a solution, so here's mine: I think we need to take a look at other avenue of increasing our herds and improving the health of the animals. This can be anything from doing more to reducing the number of predators, to improving available water sources for animals. Make available more volunteer opportunities so we can get out there and do the things it take to help our wildlife, and also do more to publicize these events, because we cant go if we dont know about it. And finally, to make sure everyone gets an equal opportunity at these scarce permits, maybe we need to take a look at the way the draw works to ensure these tags are being allocated fairly. Im just throwing out ideas guys, I just feel like there are other options other than what AZGFD has currently put on the table.

 

Sorry for the large wall of text, but this is something I'm very passionate about, and haven't really gotten much opportunity to express it.

 

Thanks, if you took the time to read this.

-Matt

[DesertBull]

No disrespect, but I've seen some whopper 3 year old bucks and many 3 point 2 year old bucks.

 

IMO, point total is not about age. Tine length, mass, etc come with age, genes, and health of the animal.

 

There are some that think...once a spike, always a spike. Not sure about that one though.

[dobbs07]

Ok, and as i said Im not a biologist, that was just my general understanding of a deer's growth cycle. Maybe someone can clarify for me what age bucks live to? 8 years? more? Less? I guess as i said before my main concern is that we are harvesting a majority of deer that havent reached the peak of maturity yet, which I would imagine would be closer to 4-5 years.

[SunDevil]

well Jim - 3,392 (to be exact) could have gone hunting if they had played the odds. I am sure there are probably thousands more (several thousand non-residents and several thousand residents) who only put in for the Kiabab and are not interested in any other 'opportunity'.

 

I would have thought that the G&F would have looked at which units had leftover tags last year and would have realized that there is already enough 'opportunity' in these units. I am talking about 30A, 30B, 35A, 36A, 36B. These units had a lot of left over tags last year and no surprise - lots of left over tags again this year.

 

trust me - I love unit 33. a lot of discussion was had regarding which hunts to put in for. we decided that drawing a 33 dec tag with now only 40 tags would be almost like drawing a sheep tag. additionally, the chances of taking a really big deer would be more challenging than in previous years because 2 more hunts were added and the dec hunt would now be the 6th rifle hunt of the year in this unit.

 

I am very pleased to have kept my bonus points, got another one and obtained a unit 36C left over tag.

 

We would have preferred to put 33 Oct in as our second choice (behind a Dec hunt) but knew that the way the draw works and the bonus points we have, we would have obtained the 33 Oct tag through the 20% bonus point allocation without the draw even getting to our 1st choice Dec hunt application (something wrong with the draw in these situations in my opinion).

 

Anyway, I am sure the Dept sold all their left over tags and were pleased to get the $169K (minimum - just considering resident tag rates). I guess on a positive note, it will probably allow 1.5 FTEs the 'opportunity' to stay employed.