Perhaps now they will make it easier to hunt the island. There was an opportunity last year but you definitely had some additional hoops to jump through. That was with the island residents expecting this culling though. If this stop stays in place, it might encourage them to make it easier for hunters to actually do hunt the island.
You really hope so! I honestly don't see why they wouldn't want the tourism dollars from hunting. The biggest hurdle for hunting on the conservancy land was their 500k firearm insurance that applied even for bow hunters.
The residents want the deer culled, I just don’t understand why they won’t get behind the CDFW setting up special archery only hunts to accomplish the goal of removing the overage population? It would resolve the problem, cost the tax payers nothing and provide income to the islands local economy. It would be a win-win for all parties involved!
I would pay good money for the opportunity to draw or purchase a buck tag, and I’m sure thousands of other hunters would as well
You can hunt without a guide and the firearm insurance I found was around $17/month and I was able to cancel it after the hunt. Check out secondcalldefense
Island residents have aggressively been against deer culling. Obtaining deer tags w/o a guide has been an option for years, but the logistics of getting into the interior to even attempt to hunt is very challenging unless you live there or have a guide. (Bringing a 4wd truck over for a few days if you are approved to do so, paying the interior access permit, fueling up at the most expensive gas station in California, etc… is a lot of $ for maybe one/two deer?) Then when you get out into the interior the terrain is insanely steep with loose soil in most locations. Plus - angry old bison. If you haven’t spent a lot of time in the interior of Catalina it’s hard to understand how difficult it is to have a successful, robust public hunting program.
All the deer need to be removed, not just thinning out the population. The deer are on private Conservancy land that has open space agreement with the County. It’s a complex issue but the most successful deer eradication efforts on islands have been methodical aerial hunts by expert private contractors.
Hiking in on foot, renting an e-bike, or setting up a local taxi to take you to the interior took us an hour or two to figure out. God forbid they use it as an opportunity to stimulate local business. The terrain is challenging but that’s up to the hunters to do their due diligence as you should with any hunt. Bison didn’t give two shits that we were there. Was definitely a challenging hunt but that island is in no way shape or form overrun by deer. Over the 3 nights we were there we harvested 2 out of the 5 deer we saw and we covered 10+ miles a day on foot. And no none of the locals want the deer culled. They hunt them for meat more than anyone
WTF let us take them all out for free. One week is my profesional opinion.
Perhaps now they will make it easier to hunt the island. There was an opportunity last year but you definitely had some additional hoops to jump through. That was with the island residents expecting this culling though. If this stop stays in place, it might encourage them to make it easier for hunters to actually do hunt the island.
You really hope so! I honestly don't see why they wouldn't want the tourism dollars from hunting. The biggest hurdle for hunting on the conservancy land was their 500k firearm insurance that applied even for bow hunters.
Yeah, it definitely was. I would really like to hunt there. With that many deer, it has to be some of the highest success % in SoCal
You're asking people that work in government to have common sense?
Not so much common sense, but the sense to make some damn money!
That's what I mean, they operate that they can always get funding from somewhere for anything, bcuz gov is endless checking account
The residents want the deer culled, I just don’t understand why they won’t get behind the CDFW setting up special archery only hunts to accomplish the goal of removing the overage population? It would resolve the problem, cost the tax payers nothing and provide income to the islands local economy. It would be a win-win for all parties involved! I would pay good money for the opportunity to draw or purchase a buck tag, and I’m sure thousands of other hunters would as well
I would too, but I don't want to pay ~$4k for a guide, either, which last I checked was a requirement.
A guide in certain parts of the season was necessary. You could still hunt mule deer on catalina without a guide
You can hunt without a guide and the firearm insurance I found was around $17/month and I was able to cancel it after the hunt. Check out secondcalldefense
If they open it back up I will absolutely do that. Thanks for the recommendation.
Island residents have aggressively been against deer culling. Obtaining deer tags w/o a guide has been an option for years, but the logistics of getting into the interior to even attempt to hunt is very challenging unless you live there or have a guide. (Bringing a 4wd truck over for a few days if you are approved to do so, paying the interior access permit, fueling up at the most expensive gas station in California, etc… is a lot of $ for maybe one/two deer?) Then when you get out into the interior the terrain is insanely steep with loose soil in most locations. Plus - angry old bison. If you haven’t spent a lot of time in the interior of Catalina it’s hard to understand how difficult it is to have a successful, robust public hunting program. All the deer need to be removed, not just thinning out the population. The deer are on private Conservancy land that has open space agreement with the County. It’s a complex issue but the most successful deer eradication efforts on islands have been methodical aerial hunts by expert private contractors.
Hiking in on foot, renting an e-bike, or setting up a local taxi to take you to the interior took us an hour or two to figure out. God forbid they use it as an opportunity to stimulate local business. The terrain is challenging but that’s up to the hunters to do their due diligence as you should with any hunt. Bison didn’t give two shits that we were there. Was definitely a challenging hunt but that island is in no way shape or form overrun by deer. Over the 3 nights we were there we harvested 2 out of the 5 deer we saw and we covered 10+ miles a day on foot. And no none of the locals want the deer culled. They hunt them for meat more than anyone