October hunts?

[firstcoueswas80]

the one time i ever hunted october was a very,very tough hunt. we saw 3 bucks in all for days of hunting (2 of them hit the dirt) and i shot the smallest buck i have ever seen on the last afternoon of the hunt. i will not put in for october again. i almost am to the point where i would rather not hunt than hunt in octber, but is not THAT bad.

[Soar AZ]

First I want to introduce myself. My name is Scott. I wanted to say the reason why I don't put in for October hunts is cause if I put in for archery elk tag like I do every year is because, If I get drawn for that elk tag, most likely my employer won't let me off work the next month in October. So, myself I will continue to put in for what's left of the December tags. And most likely will go deer hunting with an OTC deer tag. BTW awesome site.

[Guest Ernesto C]

Scott,welcome and I agree........awesome site!!

 

Ernesto C

 

Aim for the vitals

[CHD]

Lotsa talk here about October rattlers. Is this one big enough to keep you guys applying for the December hunts only? What do ya suppose this one's been eating?

[billrquimby]

What do ya suppose this one's been eating?

 

Coues white-tailed deer?

[Kilimanjaro]

What do ya suppose this one's been eating?

 

 

Alot of Stephenville,TX cotton tailed bunnies, cuz that is where that snake was caught....

[billrquimby]

What do ya suppose this one's been eating?

 

 

Alot of Stephenville,TX cotton tailed bunnies, cuz that is where that snake was caught....

 

 

Texas white-tailed deer?

[firstcoueswas80]

bunnies? how about small children, dogs, great danes an adult every now and then. i would feel under gunned with my .45 if i came across that thing! i think i might just piss it off!

[dave]

I think one of the main problems that have got in the way is how many folks understand this. There is a difference between the central hunts and the southern hunts. This whole thing was about stratifying the central hunts. If I wanted to hunt the central units next year, I would look at the difference between the southern units that have three seasons and the now central units only have two seasons. I would think that there needs to be an adjustment between the percentage of tags that are offered for units that have three seasons and units that only have two seasons. While a 10% allotment for December tags in the southern units is more than should be allotted being that they have three seasons there. A 10% allotment for December tags in the central units is not equitable. If you only have two seasons there, there should be a more equitable spit. I was thinking 70/30. Not my dog in the fight, just an idea.

 

This would be something I would want to try to establish by next year if I hunted central Arizona.

 

I guess we in some ways would wish we could boycott new ideas that we don?t agree with. I wish we could. Someone will buy the tag. Money seems to be more important than heritage.

[couesdiehard]

I think one of the main problems that have got in the way is how many folks understand this. There is a difference between the central hunts and the southern hunts. This whole thing was about stratifying the central hunts. If I wanted to hunt the central units next year, I would look at the difference between the southern units that have three seasons and the now central units only have two seasons. I would think that there needs to be an adjustment between the percentage of tags that are offered for units that have three seasons and units that only have two seasons. While a 10% allotment for December tags in the southern units is more than should be allotted being that they have three seasons there. A 10% allotment for December tags in the central units is not equitable. If you only have two seasons there, there should be a more equitable spit. I was thinking 70/30. Not my dog in the fight, just an idea.

 

This would be something I would want to try to establish by next year if I hunted central Arizona.

 

I guess we in some ways would wish we could boycott new ideas that we don?t agree with. I wish we could. Someone will buy the tag. Money seems to be more important than heritage.

dave, If you check the tag numbers on the southern units the percentage of Dec tags of the total tags for that unit they run only about 5-7%, i.e. 36A where there were400 Oct tags, 550 Nov tags, and 50 Dec tags which is right at 5% and 36B where there were 1000 Oct tags, 1000 Nov tags and 150 Dec tags which is just under 7%.

[dave]

I think that is why I said 10% for southern units is too much???

[DesertBull]

If not next year, very soon after, the central units will have 3 hunts, watch and see. Then it will be unit 8 and 6B and possibly new whitetail only hunts in units 1 and 4.

[Rembrant]

Thanks Desertbull, I appreciate that. I hope you get your tags too.

Region 6 (central) doesn't have the deer numbers that Region 5 (south) has. The Dept knows this. I don't believe there will ever be three wt hunts in the central units.

I like Dave's idea about the ratio of tags in the central units between the early and late hunts. This is the same thing Doug suggested in his letter to the Dept. Now if folks get more active (me included) we can probably work things like this out with the Dept.

Mike

[Outdoor Writer]

Dave,

 

The 10 percent allocation of whitetail tags is for OVERALL, not on a per unit basis. Total of whitetail permits for this year is 17,120, and there are 1,730 late season ones. G&F tried to keep a min. of 50 late tags in each unit, however. Last year, more than 17 percent overall were late tags. In general, the changes amounted to an overall increase of about 445 permits statewide.

 

I just did an extensive hour-long interview with Brian Wakeling Friday for an article. It SEEMS there's lots of erroneous info out there.

 

I filled out the ADA survey online weeks ago, and as I soon as I did, I had the same concerns Bill Quimby has aired here. Little from that survey can used as a valid polling simply because of how it was conducted. I could have taken the survey several times.

 

Plus, any time one side or the other has a chance to RALLY survey takers, it pretty much tosses out the validity of results because of the lack of randomness involved. That's why pollsters use the telephone to call survey respondents who are generally unaware of the issue(s) and questions beforehand and normally use a smaller sampling such as 1,000 folks.

 

Mike,

 

The very reason that they moved many of the Coues permits from late to early in the central units is why the numbers are skewed toward the latter. The basic premise was to INCREASE hunter opportunity while keeping the harvest pretty much the same. They were able to do that because the early season has a MUCH LOWER success rate -- thus more permits can be issued. So here's what they came up with:

 

Last year in 6A there were 175 early and 150 late; this year 400 and 50 -- and increase of 125 permits. In 23, 300/150 to 425/50 -- and increase of 25. In 24A, it was 175 late only in 2005 and now 550/50 -- an increase of 425 permits. So in these units, there are now 575 more opportunties for permits. TONY

[DesertBull]

When and where will we be able to read your interview?

 

As far as the survey goes, there are two things that bother me:

 

1) The archery elk hunters went through the exact same process and the Commision accepted their results with little opposition.

 

2) The Game and Fish Dept helped conduct and design the survey, then disregarded the results. They could have saved alot of time, money and effort by just being upfront about it and saying they were going through with the changes no matter what.