24A Access through Senica Lake

[willhunt4coues]

Okay here is the deal, I have been passing though SENECA lake access road for 20 years and have never had a problem till this weekend. I had an officer with the san carlos wildlife pull over me and a friend and try and write us a ticket for not having a pass through permit. I told him I have never got one and never been told I had to have one. I know over 30 people that run through there and they never have had to have one. He caught up with us later and gave us the regs that state this:

 

Non-members may purchase a special "PASS THROUGH" permit to travel through the Resevation to hunt on state lands. This permit only allows access through the 20 and 40 roads in unit D.

 

That is NOT unit D that is UNIT 26D. So needless to say we did not get a ticket. The officer did say he will write us one if we pass through again without one. This morning I called the Director Harold Nofchissey and told him about the situation and told him if he is going to inforce this he needs to re write the regulations to state this and needs to post signs. I said, " if the officer writes me a ticket we will fight this since it does not state it in the regs."

 

I can understand it if we were traveling over 10 to 15 miles but it is only 1.5 miles and besides that the road was there before the reservation was even established. There are mines in that area and even the county maintains the road. I contacted the local Rancher in that area and told him and he said BS I will travel throgh there when I want without a permit. That is an ACCESS road to the mines and to public land. What is your intake on this situation. I know some of you have traveled this road and would like to here you opinon.

[willhunt4coues]

Sorry 26A not 26D.

[bonecollector]

I think that is BS I have hunted bear back in there with my uncle and have never had an issue with anybody saying we needed a permit to pass through. It is a very short road to access the public land. I think it is rediculous!

[CouesWhitetail]

Wow, that is an interesting change of policy. Did Harold give you more of a feel for if it was really something they wanted to change or if it was just one officer's interpretation?

 

 

Amanda

 

[willhunt4coues]

Wow, that is an interesting change of policy. Did Harold give you more of a feel for if it was really something they wanted to change or if it was just one officer's interpretation?

 

 

Amanda

 

He said that they do need to change it then.....But will they and if they don't then can you still use the road? The road it self that turns off of the main hwy all the way to public land is maintained by OUR county not the san carlos. So they then need a permit. Oh and it only states HUNTERS so can campers and hikers and picknickers go into the area without a permit but the hunters need one. And I even asked him about our AZGFD officer if he needed one since he is a NON MEMBER and he said "NO we have a special aggrement with them." BS that there is discrimination....Our AZGFD officer is not a member and even if he was they can't allow him and not us......So I am going to continue to drive through there and let them WRITE the 350.00 ticket and we will see what happens next.....I am all for the law if it is POSTED and or IN WRITING but if not...well they can't enforce it.

[Coach]

Dang - I've used that road on several occasions also. I can see requiring a permit for some of those long stretches of dirt roads through the reservation that people use to access some remote FS land, but that's a VERY short, paved road. It's almost like saying we have to have a permit to drive through the Salt River canyon - but only if we're planning on hunting somewhere off the reservation that day...I just don't see how they can enforce it if you don't leave your vehicle while on the res portion, but if they DO update the regs, that will stink.

 

 

[Apache7mm]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck/bad day, spoke with the Sgt. here at SC Rec & Wildlife and he says we do not require non-members to have/need a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A, the Rez only has 2 available "Pass Through" permits and they're for the south of Bylas area, other than that you only need a Recreation Permit to pass through the non-closed areas of the rez say like through Eagle Creek onto state land, what yourself and everyone else has been saying is exactly what the Sgt. told me, "since its just a mile or so we do not require non-members to have a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A", so the bottom line is NO you or anyone else does not need to have a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A, i have a feeling you got the ROOKIE ranger and he takes his job a little bit too serious for whatever reasons, because the couple other rangers i asked said the same thing "we don't ticket anyone going through Seneca to get to state land", so please don't let it get you too fired up, it's just too bad something like this happened but i'm sure we all have our bad luck days from time to time so hopefully this brings a little bit of closure to your situation, i know the taste is bad but hopefully it will eventually go away.

 

DAN

[bonecollector]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck/bad day, spoke with the Sgt. here at SC Rec & Wildlife and he says we do not require non-members to have/need a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A, the Rez only has 2 available "Pass Through" permits and they're for the south of Bylas area, other than that you only need a Recreation Permit to pass through the non-closed areas of the rez say like through Eagle Creek onto state land, what yourself and everyone else has been saying is exactly what the Sgt. told me, "since its just a mile or so we do not require non-members to have a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A", so the bottom line is NO you or anyone else does not need to have a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A, i have a feeling you got the ROOKIE ranger and he takes his job a little bit too serious for whatever reasons, because the couple other rangers i asked said the same thing "we don't ticket anyone going through Seneca to get to state land", so please don't let it get you too fired up, it's just too bad something like this happened but i'm sure we all have our bad luck days from time to time so hopefully this brings a little bit of closure to your situation, i know the taste is bad but hopefully it will eventually go away.

 

DAN

Thanks for the info.

[willhunt4coues]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck/bad day, spoke with the Sgt. here at SC Rec & Wildlife and he says we do not require non-members to have/need a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A, the Rez only has 2 available "Pass Through" permits and they're for the south of Bylas area, other than that you only need a Recreation Permit to pass through the non-closed areas of the rez say like through Eagle Creek onto state land, what yourself and everyone else has been saying is exactly what the Sgt. told me, "since its just a mile or so we do not require non-members to have a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A", so the bottom line is NO you or anyone else does not need to have a permit to pass through Seneca onto 24A, i have a feeling you got the ROOKIE ranger and he takes his job a little bit too serious for whatever reasons, because the couple other rangers i asked said the same thing "we don't ticket anyone going through Seneca to get to state land", so please don't let it get you too fired up, it's just too bad something like this happened but i'm sure we all have our bad luck days from time to time so hopefully this brings a little bit of closure to your situation, i know the taste is bad but hopefully it will eventually go away.

 

DAN

 

 

You the man DAN and he was the rookie....I love to hunt the REZ for coyotes and other varmints but will i run into this guy again and will he take everything away from me? This KID needs to be set straight....He gives the REZ a bad name. Like I have always said I am one all for the LAW but this kid is making it up as he goes and the DEPARTMENT needs to know about it. Thank you for finding a little more out about it BUT Harold did say they need to change it in the regs and I hope for everyones sake that the price drops because it is such a short road or better yet not happen at all and so far so good. Thanks and if you can keep us in the loop it would be great Dan.

[SunDevil]

sounds like you should not worry to much about it. good to bring it up and get some help on the situation and make other people aware.

[COUESAZ]

Not sure what head way you would get in fighting a ticket if you ever got one. We used to hunt the Navajo every year. That was until a field oficer made a stop on us and charged us 250.00 each on the spot for useing a truck to hunt with. We were just driving to our location to hunt. Bows behind the seat of the truck in cases. There were two guys in the front of the truck the bows were in the back seat of the nissan hard body truck. There were two guys setting in the bed of the truck. And their bows were in the truck seat also. He told us if we could not come up with the money right now he would go back to camp with us and take our camper and other trucks in custody until we could come up with the fine hecame up with. We paid our money back at camp. The next day we loaded up our camp and drove into the trible councle offices to report what had taken place. The supervisor told us the field oficer has every right to decide how to site the laws. and can make in the field judgment on fines to be paid to him for the broken laws. Any ways we haver never returned to hunt some of the biggest mule deer in AZ for many years now. Like you said some of the best hunting you could do is on the rezervations. But all the fees to do it just are not woth it to me. We did buy the pass to hunt our 31 coues last year and never saw a sole the part we crossed was only about a mile and it cost us every day to do it. I would not even try crossing it with out it.

 

Good to have people like Dan and Amanda that know the rezervation laws to help you out clay.

[Coach]

I've been hunting and fishing the San Carlos reservation for years - and the Fort Apache side. I've also hunted the Navajo res. Each time I've had an encounter with one of their officers, it was cordial and professional. They were even very helpful and offered advice and information to help out where they could.

 

As far as the San Carlos reservation, I know they are fighting a tremendous battle against poaching - not to mention the grave robbers and other opportunists looking to make a quick buck on jewelry, beads, pottery and whatever they can scavenge. Truth be told, I'm surprised they are as accomdating as they are. The majority of G&F officers you'll encounter on the San Carlos are absolutely stand-up guys who aren't looking to single out non-members. They are just good folks trying to hold on to something sacred and have shown nothing but professional courtesy to me or my hunting partners over a number of years.

 

I think this particular incident illustrates how there may be situations that come up in the "grey areas" of hunting the areas bordering the reservations. Personally, I can say that the San Carlos, the Fort Apache and the Navajo reservations comprise some of the best outdoor experiences available, and none of my encounters with their law enforcement agencies have lead me to believe that they have a bias against non-tribal members.

 

Of course, there are situations where you encounter a single individual with a slightly different perspective than the organization they represent. I've seen this first hand OFF the Reservation, on public AZ hunting lands. In (approximately) 25 years of hunting in AZ, I have encounted dozens of G&F officers in the field - on and off the reservations. Almost every one has been very positive, but on occasion, you meet up with a guy with something to prove. I had an incident near the border of units 1 and 27 where I was in a compromised situation. I was planning to hunt an area in 27 that had closed the day before (a new change I should have known about), while camped in unit 1 that was still open. My bow was in the back of my truck, inaccessible, and I was driving. I met up with an officer and told him my intentions to go hunt a particular area. Turns out that area had closed the previous day due to differing seasons between unit 1 and 27.

 

That was enough - I got cited for "taking game in a closed area". Of course I hadn't taken squat, and was simply en-route, but boil it down how you like, I should have known the specific rules and dates. My bad, I fessed, and went through the system just as if I had knowingly shot a deer in a closed area - without having ever left my vehicle in persuit of a deer. I could have lied and said I was hunting coyotes, but I'm not a liar. I messed up and I dealt with it. Although I never technically hunted or persued game in a closed unit, the way the law reads, and the way the prosecuter in Springerville saw it, I had crossed into illegal territorry.

 

 

I guess the point is, LEO's enforcing game violations are always walking a very thin line, whether they are on a reservation or in forest service or trust lands. And for every accidental mishap, there are probably a hundred blatant attempts to break or exploit game laws. Every legitimate reason is met by a hundred lame excuses or lies, and these guys have to sort it all out.

 

You hunt enough, chances are you might find yourself in a compromising situation, regardless of your intentions. Know the law, be informed, and in a situation like this, be prepared should you have to defend yourself, and most of all, even if you get a hot-head, keep your cool and know when you have accidentally crossed the line and when you haven't.

 

In this particular case, the regulations are clear. You need an access/tresspass permit for very specific roads on the San Carlos. The road in question was NOT called out in the regulations as requiring a tresspass permit. You did nothing wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AZP&Y]

First of all thank you Dan for taking the time to find out from other SC Rec & Wildlife employees what is considered the proper rule/regulation.

 

I was the one pulled over and in this case I am a life long Arizona resident and have spent lots of time primarily on the wht mtn apache reservation flyfishing, but always read up on the rules and regulations to prevent any 'misunderstandings'...

 

As I was about to pass the Seneca Lake parking lot , the officer at the lake, was approaching the exit there and I motioned for him to go on ahead as his red and blue lights were flashing ( I thought he may be going to an emergency situation).... He pointed towards me to go ahead and I drove about 70 yards and pulled over. He got out of the vehicle with his ticket book and seemed a bit excited. Asked me the standard questions, where I'm from? what I was doing ?...THat sort of thing... After he told me I needed a permit, I advised I was not aware of the rule or law. By this point "willhunt4coues" had turned around "thanks Clay" and we proceeded to talk to him about this particular situation. We stated our point and he his. No citations were written and we left unclear on what the true law or regulation states. Again my impression of the small stretch of road is that if you don't leave your vehicle and you continue on , there shouldn't be a problem.

 

After getting on the highway we proceeded back to Globe, stopping on a US forest road to chat for a bit. After about 10 minutes, the SC Rec officer came down the highway saw us on the side of the road and gave us the following regulations. I read them aloud and my interpretation was just the 2 roads needed the permit. His interpretation was that ANY road needed the permit, but he would consult his supervisor upon return to the station.

 

All in all it worked out and there have been lots of good points made , just in the post alone. I spent 2 hours reading the regulations and feel,I have an ever greater understanding of the tribal rules, but still believe EVERYTHING We did was in the right.

 

Azonecam and Azcoues both make great points which should be considered when traveling on the REZ>

 

HIGHLIGHTS of this spectacular day included- A bald eagle, Red Tail hawk and a Coues doe and fawn.

 

 

For your reading pleasure

 

http://www.scatrwd.com/Regulations.html

 

 

AzP&Y

Doug