F&G TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HUNTERS
April 7, 2007, 11:48 am
ifennell in General
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By Michael Vroman
There was a time in old Idaho when hunter, if he or she
wanted a deer or let’s say two they could do it. And that went on for years.
Now in this new days, when the Idaho department of fish and
game is use post be so good at managing, game. You be lucky to get a deer in
two or three years in a general hunt.
Let’s look at today’s average figures published by Idaho
Gish and Game vs, my experience from the old days. I know from 1966 1986, you
could get your deer and it wasn’t anything unusual to shoot a four if you
wanted one. I moved away from Idaho for about 11 years, and cane back eight
years ago.
It has been a very disturbing and hard eight years in terms
of hunting to see how far ldaho FIsh and Game has lit the deer herds go
downhill. Fish and game wells deer tags
like nothing is wrong.
When I first came back I was looking for just a nice four
–point in the places where I had always seen or killed one years before. But
for two or three years after I came back, no deer for me. At first I thought I was being too picky.
Then I was reading an article in December 2004’s outdoor life called “Bears
facts,” A man responded to outdoor life’s
October’s snap shot feature, where he had read that they were going to
have a bear hunt in New Jersey.
New Jerseys.
Department of fish and game approved a hunting season for bear which sounded ok
to me but to make a long story short , he wrote
that they were selling 10,000 permits when the state had somewhere
around 3000 bear in the whole state. So they justified selling 10,000 permits
because the harvest was expected to be 3 to 5 percent out of the entire herd of
3,000 bears.
.
This made me thing that’s what Idaho fish and game is doing.
They know that for a genera hunting
season, 17 to 25 percent are all who are
going to bring home a deer out of units 74, 75, 76, 77, and 78 and it could be
the whole state of Idaho, for the general hunt as far as that goes.
That sounds like New Jersey’s. So with that reasoning Idaho fish and game
says, “let’s sell 10,000 permits or tags
even though so few hunters will get their deer.”
That is just wrong. Look at all the hunters fish and game is
taking advantage of just because they love to hunt. And that is what Idaho fish and game is doing
to its hunters year after year, knowing that it has small herds of deer and
that only 17 to 25 percent of the deer in the small herds will be harvested.
F&G’s mindset is. “let’s sill tags like we have big
herds of deer and look, look at all the money we will get and we’ll have all
those hopeful hunters in the field.”
Fish and game also knows the percent of hunters that will
screw up and make mistakes or unknowingly, break the rules, and they will write
up tickets fish and game makes even more money.
Look at unit 77 for the last six years. Around 168 deer are
taken a year. Somewhere around 13 are four points or better. In a good year fish and game will sell around
930 tags, so that means that in a good year they send 765 hunters home without
a deer. And that is just one unit.
.
It makes me and other hunters sick looking at the harvest
reports for the last six years. It’s time for fish and game to quit selling
tags for deer they don’t have and start managing the deer herds right. All it’s
going to take is one bad year for the fawn herd to be wiped out, and none of us
will be hunting for three to six years. Some older hunters don’t have that much
time left when that happens.
So Idaho Fish and Game, start managing the small herds and
make them into big herds or manage. Or manage the small herds the right way.
You have the schooling and knowledge to do it the right way.
And quit selling deer tags for deer that we don’t have.
.
Today, to getting a good four-points buck not a Boone and Crockett
(the ultimate trophy) is like playing the lotto. It is too much of a long shot.
Come to think of it, we should take all that money that we spend for licenses,
tags, permits lodging, food, bullets and gas and play the lotto instead. And if
you are lucky and win the lotto take the money and go to another state, to a
private ranch where they know how to manage deer herds.
Micheal Vroman of Preston Idaho is a hunter who lives to
hunt large herds of deer that are actually there.
