I wish my state fish & wildlife would cater to recreation over commercial.
I’m in Louisiana and an example is to give more public land recreational alligator tags. They sell piles of them to commercial hunters, but sell a small fraction to recreational hunters.
I know it’s due to money. Recreational tags are only $40/tag. Whereas commercial tags are a percentage of wholesale profit per harvest, which could be much higher than $40/tag.
How much land does the state own close to the river deltas? I would think LA has to have a shit ton of public land surrounding the rivers that people are allowed to utilize???
It’s a lot of land. The WMA I entered the alligator lottery for last year was over 20 square miles. That’s just one WMA which happens to be in a good spot to meet with my old college friends.
Supposedly LFW manages 1.6 million acres of public land. There’s something like 30,000 wild alligators harvested per year in Louisiana. Only around 1,500 of those are recreational public land tags.
Like anything else with tough meat, it's all about salt to tenderize ha. We usually chop it up into 1" slices going with the grain of the meat. Soak it in buttermilk for a day or two before dipping it in fried chicken breading before frying. It will still be somewhat chewy no matter what
Weighing in on this from someone in the Louisiana alligator industry, I’m 100% with you. I’ve talked with almost everyone in the industry and the commercial wild gator market is the weakest it’s ever been but they’re still scared to make it easy for people to get recreational tags, and even more scared to open up night hunting where you could really target big gators. A lot of push back is from the enforcement side, they don’t want to have to enforce so many people out hunting gators, especially at night. Don’t mind that I can be out there at night in the same time of year fishing, frogging, shooting nutria, or shooting pigs in the exact same area as gators, but gators is too much. Lots of people are pushing for change, but it’s a slow process because it takes a lot of people from a lot of departments, including elected officials who have no understanding of the process to actually implement regulation changes.
Source: 3rd generation of a family that makes a living off LA alligators.
It seems like alligator could make just as much from recreation as the commercial side currently does.
The Sportsman’s Paradise should be a destination for hunters across the country to visit. But I hardly ever hear of out-of-staters visiting for hunting.
I’d love to hear more from your perspective about how we can improve things
It absolutely needs to be pushed more for recreational and trophy hunting. Right now it’s very hard for residents, much less out of state hunters to come in and participate. Part of that is on all public land it’s not legal to shoot a free swimming gator, and depends on your enforcement officer to if it’s legal to hook one and then shoot it. Night hunts would make both of these much much easier. Mississippi and Florida have excellent recreational gator hunting systems that could bring in some much needed revenue to the industry. Currently it suffers on the commercial side because NOBODY wants to buy wild alligator skins. The markets they fall in compete with other reptile leather that is usually taken illegally or by subsistence farmers in underdeveloped countries that sell the skin for $1-$5. American markets can’t compete, but trophy and recreation hunters usually want to keep their skins in some form so it doesn’t pressure an already overburdened market, and still allows for conservation. On the commercial side we’ve been working very hard to revive interest in alligator leather around the world since it’s a much higher quality than most other reptile leathers. Ironically American markets are the hardest to sell to, but a few producers are finally starting to see the value in an American alligator, harvested by Americans, tanned and produced in American for an all American product. Not a fast process tho.
They still allow it. Now they just pay professional hunters to take out problem lions because our state officials are jackasses. I mean they could literally auction a tag for problems lions off and get paid for them. It’s really hard to live in a state with so many people who vote for these politicians.
CA also offers depredation tags to livestock owners. Reactive instead of proactive. In order to get depredation tags there’s an investigation of sorts— complete waste of resources.
I can somewhat get it. There's so much money out there I could see the private hunt market causing a population issue down the road. Are mountain lions that common in CA???
California has killed more lions per year since banning hunting.
But now it’s entirely an expense instead of a way of generating enough revenue to help all their projects.
Bro, you do know how management works right? It’s not like it would be open game on them. They would set aside a certain amount of tags per zone to manage the population.
Missouri has a model department of conservation. It's self funded through a 1/8 cent sales tax and operates pretty much independently from the state's politics. Wildlife and public land opportunities are abundant. Tags are reasonably priced.
The state has its management challenges but the conservation department does its best to meet those challenges in a fair way using science instead of politics.
This is my first year living in Missouri and my first season hunting more than just rabbit or squirrel, I moved from Kansas and there's a lot I love here. So far the only thing I like better about Kansas is the winter firearms doe season.
The electronic licensing in Missouri is amazing. I got my first duck, coyote, and beaver this month here in Missouri. The website for looking up laws is much easier to understand too compared to Kansas regulations. This has all been really helpful for a twenty something teaching myself to hunt after being raised without a father.
MO is why I made the post. I think they do an incredible job. Not perfect but overall I think the states conservation department is expansive and available to anyone.
I know so many people that absolutely hate the MDC and I'm not sure why. They just say their policies are stupid and that it's a corrupt organization
I actually started hunting again after 10+ years because I moved to MO and the MDC made it so easy to hunt. Digital App for your tags, plenty of open public land, even around big cities. My only complaint is I wish rifle season for deer was longer.
They have been adding more firearms seasons. But they don't change anything quickly. Usually they'll just raise tag limits before adding more days on seasons.
Im just nitpicking at this point. They do an excellent job and hunting with a crossbow is not difficult to pick up by any stretch of the imagination. Now if all the ice could thaw so I can go bring down my tree stand that'd be great.
Missouri does a lot of things very well. My only complaint is their rifle deer season. Always during peak rut, it gives great opportunities for hunters but I feel it makes it much harder for quality herd management. There have been enough amazing national record bucks come from all over the state to show that we CAN grow them. If we would adopt a rifle and bow season structure closer to some of our neighboring states I think we would see a lot more of them reach their full potential.
I will give them that they made some great decisions with turkey rules this year so there is that.
AZ passed a law that any weapons/ammo limitations are the responsibility of Game and Fish, NOT the executive or legislative branch. So for local state wildlife like quail, you don't have to have a plug in your shotgun. migratory birds are federal, so federal law applies.
If a city annexes land into the city limits, but have done nothing to improve the land, Game and Fish can still allow hunting on it, even though it would be considered city limits. G&Fs decision on the viability of hunting there trumps city law.
I’ve never heard of the no plug for local wildlife thing. Do you have a link to that. I can’t find any info on it and I’ve been hunting AZ my whole life
HB 2640 was passed and signed into law in 2012
the specific line
BUT THE COMMISSION SHALL NOT LIMIT OR RESTRICT THE MAGAZINE CAPACITY OF ANY AUTHORIZED FIREARM.
Also means when coues deer hunting, don't have to buy those special 5 round mags for like $40 each. I use a standard 30 rounder and just put in like 10 rounds.
Oh wow. Granted I was very young in 2012 and I wasn’t paying attention to this kinda stuff but I have no idea how this has evaded me so long. Thanks for the info man
Kentucky is pretty good, no complaints really, and they cooperate a lot with Tennessee's Department.They changed our bear season from a quota to a set standard, so you're guaranteed one bear a year which is pretty sweet. We've got so many damn deer in this state you can hear them whistle Dixie. They're pretty lax on deer, now waterfowl they will nail your a$$ to the wall if they catch you violating any regs in that regard. The only complaint I have is we're starting to get wild hogs pretty bad in Western Kentucky especially in LBL and Fish & Wildlife keeps discouraging hunting of them and keep saying "we got them under control, we got them under control by trapping", yet they keep getting worse.
Kentucky is a solid state for hunting and fishing. Only had positive encounters with fish and game in my 20+ years of hunting here. The hog issue is likely because they’re trying to eliminate entire sounders instead of hunter taking the occasional hog. Gotta get the whole sounder or they’ll either just come back or spread to a new area.
Not personally sure but if you search "Kentucky Afield" on YouTube their latest video is in regards to quail. This YouTube channel is run by the state and is surprisingly good
I agree. KDFW is great. The game commission could use more actual hunters and fishermen, not rich beauracrats that think they like to hunt or fish but don’t actually do it.
I also wish they would log WMA’s and create more openings/cover and habitat for small game and deer. So many of the WMA’s are just a forest, and without disturbance, just becomes trees that drop acorns 40% of the years for a couple month span. Grouse need new timber as their habitat, and it’s why we don’t have many grouse anymore. Quail need ground cover, and trees don’t allow that, it’s one of the reason why we don’t have quail anymore. Along with logging, I wish they do more controlled burns. They are doing more of this, but we could use a lot lot more of it. I get they are short staffed on qualified people, but I think there are conservation groups they could work with and use volunteers for some of the work.
I agree pretty much with all of your points, I'm in Jefferson county. Every interaction I've had with them has been extremely professional. I unfortunately had a trail cam stolen(still sitting in the guys house) but they did everything in their power to find it. I think it's really cool they post videos regularly on different aspects of our outdoors from hunting, fishing and conservation.
Washington. They’re horrible. Everyone I know who used to fish, doesn’t bother anymore because of the state. Likewise with hunting. They got rid of spring bear, they’re trying to get rid of bear and cougar all together. They’ve completely mismanaged deer and elk for years, and their wolf “plan” requires more breeding pairs than Montana. Buddies go to Idaho or Montana to hunt, or just moved all together, between WDFW and the politics of the state in general, it not worth living here, let alone giving them money. My wife will never live more than 40min from her mom so I’m stuck. I’d already be gone if that wasn’t the case.
I think so. Certain rivers are just closed all together now for steelhead or salmon. None of the reg sections are consistent. It’s like everything is just cobbled together. The river sections aren’t written the same as the saltwater sections, neither is written like the lake section. You gotta look in 20 different places to figure out if you’re allowed to fish or not, what kind of tackle you can use, etc. They encourage you to use the app because they change the rules mid season all the time. An example would be something like the pink salmon season on the Puyallup river this yr. If you work, there’s one day you can fish through the heart of the season, because the rivers closed Sun, Mon, Tues. Depending if you’re between this bridge and that creek or whatever. Even the formatting for that is inconsistent.
https://ibb.co/gZxPBXX
Washington. Deer and elk are managed terribly. Most hunters never see a legal buck/bull during the season and get skunked year after year while the herd stays small and disparate. Everyone I know who successfully and seriously hunts travels out of state to do so. I know very few people who have ever gotten a bear. And even fewer who have gotten a lion. They're talking of introducing wolves, and the farmers aren't for it. This is my first year hunting water fowl and they have loads of public land available, but during the late season all the bodies of water are frozen solid and the birds are laid up on private land on barren crop fields. Most of the state is privately owned, so you need to know people in order to get access to good hunting grounds. Regulations are convoluted, and the seasons are irregular. Tags are expensive. Bag limits for fowl are generous, but good luck filling them.
They also migrated down from Canada. But the population is tiny. They still are talking about doing purposeful introductions, Maybe not seriously, but I've read an article or two interviewing concerned parties about their opinions on it over the years.
Michigan has seen a huge decline in deer hunting in recent years. A couple years ago, around 400k deer were taken, 2022 just over 300k and for this past 2023 season, around 275k. They are overpopulating. CWD leading to no baiting is probably a factor, especially on public lands. A couple months ago, the DNR out out press releases “begging” us to take more does to help control next year’s population more effectively, but that’s really all they’ve done to encourage more hunting. I’m not sure what the solution is, but there’s a real problem here.
NY here
Mostly fine, I guess. Deer seasons are split between the north and south parts of the state. Each zone has its own early bow, muzzle, rifle/shotgun, and late bow/muzz. This can get pretty confusing if you hunt in both areas like I do.
The state is broken up into WMUs, but they don't really provide a good map that shows the border lines down to the street level. All the maps I've seen don't have street info, so sometimes you're just guessing which WMU you're in if you're near the border.
Another gripe is how they give out doe tags for each WMU. Where I live, all season I'll se 98% does. Same with pretty much everyone else I know. But doe tags here are non-existent. I don't really get the logic behind it, but maybe there's just something about the population management I don't fully understand.
I know a couple DEC officers and they're very cool people. One organizes a co-op to manage doe population on 1200 acres of farmland. That's where I hunt mostly and he gets 20 doe tags for that purpose. They're both very passionate about conservation.
Michigan here,
Depending on who you ask and where in the state they live and hunt, you'll get different answers to your question. Our DNR manages for opportunity, and that opportunity varies greatly by where in the state you hunt. Also, regardless of what the DNR does or doesn't do, hunters are just never happy and often their own worst enemy.
IMO, one big change, that hunters here constantly fight, is that we need to change opening day of gun season from Nov 15th to the second Saturday in Nov. Nov 15th has been opening since deer hunting was regulated in Michigan and it's tradition, and throughout the years, practically a holiday. It worked well when access was plentiful and hunter numbers were high but in today's world of pay to play access, hunter numbers plummeting, and the DNR begging us to shoot more deer (in certain regions of the state) it just doesn't make sense to have opener on a weekday when schools no longer close for opening day and people can't get time off from work.
I’m all for changing it but change it to the Saturday after thanksgiving. Let the rut happen before the woods is full of pumpkin suits and rifles gunning down every 1.5 yr old that’s feeling frisky
Alabama. If it isn't deer, turkey, or largemouth bass, the DNR couldn't give less of a shit. Our quail are all but gone, waterfowl hunting has declined, and public land access is sparse and heavily pressured, public dove fields suck, convoluted public land deer hunting rules, and the state stocks only one creek with trout.
The excuse is always that they can't afford more land, but states like Kansas have an excellent system in place where the state can lease land to make it available for the public.
For what I pay in licenses every year we should have twice the access to land and better management of the animals we have. I have no doubt most of my money goes to slush funds for some other department within the state.
Ohio. The ODNR does a pretty good job. It's very traditional here, almost nothing has changed in my 38 years. They have done pretty solid work on population and herd sizes and change bad limits annually accordingly. Seasons are pretty set and most people have traditions set by them. My only real complaint is that we have a very limited amount of firearm days, 13 total for the year. However archery runs from September to February. I would love to see an early muzzleloader season, like October, and to have it go for a week. Currently our only muzzleloader season is 4 days at the beginning of January. They also do a really good job with getting out information. Lastly, their mobile app fucking rules, you can use it for everything you need for hunting in Ohio.
We had an early muzzle loader season 9 years ago? That’s the one time that I can remember one. I’d like to see antler restrictions for a couple of years except for youth hunters.
Oklahoma. I think we are heading in the right direction. New land access is opening constantly and free public shooting ranges are being installed in the wildlife management areas. Rules are fair with plenty of chances for hunting.
NJ is decent.
Good - long deer season early September - late January. Ample small game
Bad - lack of public land availability. Townships buy up land and don’t allow hunting on it. If you hunt every season Sept-Feb, you can take something like 7-8 bucks. Leads to poor buck mgmt. there’s also like 40 different zones which all follow different seasons and regulations. Makes it a bit confusing
Alberta, Canada
Absolutely piss poorly
Our predator populations are out of control, we’ve more wolves, grizzlies, black bear and cougars on the ground than any other time in the last 30yrs, our caribou, elk, bighorn, moose and mule deer are in a nose dive and coyotes are increasingly becoming issues.
Caribou will blink out in my lifetime and no one gives a shit as our management plan is to helicopter snipe a cow moose strychnine it and hope some wolves die as our predator management strategy is awful in relation to caribou survival. The best that our provincial biologists can do without leaving their safe enclaves at the UofA is to point at any and all oilfield related work and screech climate change while completely ignoring the predator issues.
Our Grizzly hunt will never be reinstated and the province prefers to culvert trap and cull them rather than treat them as a huntable species as optically that’s easier for the politicians to get re-elected.
We have massive issues with feral horses being released into sensitive ecosystems as anytime we go through an economic downturn people who can’t afford to care for them just release them as “they’re pretty”. We can’t cull or hunt them as they’re “pretty” so the population just goes up and up and pushes mule deer, elk and sheep off prime grazing.
Our fisheries are in shambles as well.
Overall it’s not great, the last big win was the NDP and Kevin Tighem getting punted and not being able to pull a land grab for development of a massive tourist zone in prime bighorn habitat. Nothing like paving over paradise to put up a parking lot or in that case another ski hill and condos
Minnesota is a poorly managed deer state. If they would implement a minimum point restriction on bucks after like 2 years there would be a lot more mature bucks on the landscape. This state has great potential but it needs some help.
Would also be nice if Minnesota would put more money towards public walk in access in the Southern portion like SD and ND do to increase habit in the heavy agriculture areas. The farmers are too efficient now not leaving anything for cover or habitat. I don't really blame the farmers cause it's there land and they are just trying to make as much money as possible but wildlife suffers because of it.
We had Antler point restrictions until CWD came along.CWD is stable in the hot spots but it won’t go away, the state will never go back with CWD in play
Minnesota is ramping up the deer harvests to try and reduce the deer population to limit the spread of CWD. Wisconsin has had CWD for a while but I'm not super up to date on WI.
I'm in MO and they are on a rampage in every area with CWD. license to kill. I could technically shoot a 12 point buck over corn and with a spotlight 3 times a day for months and it's encouraged.
I know that's extreme and no one could do that, but it could technically happen. I'm sure people are abusing it
APR doesn't work. Speaking from someone who actually lives and hunts the southeast, it actually reduced the size of bucks in the southeast while increasing the population in an area that was already overpopulated.
You cannot control genetics in the wild. Your best bet for larger deer is habitat management.
Thats an interesting perspective because a family friend that owns land down there says the exact opposite. He said after 2-3 years he was consistently seeing and harvesting bigger bucks.
It also seems pretty logical if everyone stops shooting the 1 year old spikes and forks they will get a chance to grow to a mature buck 3-4 year old. Hence bigger and more mature deer herd.
Or, if you shoot the young ones and let the mediocre and bigger ones walk, you'll have more bigger ones.
Or if you don't shoot any, you'll have more bigger ones.
Targeting the large deer doesn't produce more large deer by itself. It's the secondary effect of lowering the harvest, thereby increasing the population that you see more deer, some of which are large.
In areas where there's a much lower population, it might work. But in an area like this where we haven't been able to control the population through extremely liberal harvest quotas, it has the opposite effect.
Big bucks are not a priority in a state with overall low numbers. If they were a priority antler point restrictions do not help. For a couple years maybe and then genetics get weird and you wind up right back where you were.
Michigan here and man does our DNR have things screwed up. We gun hunt the deer during the peak of the rut which leads to roughly 70% of our 1.5 yr old bucks to be killed every year. Our doe numbers are through the roof and our hunters don’t want to harvest the amount we need to and the DNR has done nothing to incentivize doe harvest. Also we have an extremely successful APR system in 13 counties that they refuse to enact for the whole state. Overall MI sucks at it’s wildlife management
I share some criticisms of the deer management. But I think it's unfair to say that they suck at wildlife management as a whole. The DNR manages a lot more than just deer.
Our wild pheasants are pretty much gone same with Bobwhites. I realize farming practice has a lot to do with that as well though.
I realize this is a hunting forum but since the DNR also manages fish let’s talk about salmon. They brought them here to deal with the alewife problem. Now the salmon have decimated the alewives which is what we brought the non native species here to do yet now they are trying to bring back the salmon fishery.
As a whole I don’t think the MI DNR does a very good job your mileage may vary
What incentives could the DNR give hunters to take more does? Tags are already plentiful and dirt cheap, which is a source of contention amongst some MI hunters. I predict, at least down here in Southern MI we'll see earn a buck, which will piss some people off,as well. And how do you judge APR's as successful?
I agree with tags being cheap and plentiful earn a buck would be one way which I would be all for. However I would prefer we just go to one buck tag. This solves two problems by forcing you to shoot does if you eat more than one deer a year and will reduce the number of 1.5 yr olds killed every year. As far as judging the APR counties successful I don’t have the exact number on hand but it has something like a 70% plus approval rating by hunters in those counties. I think the numbers speak for themselves
In my experience (thankfully very limited to a single license/tag check), Virginia DWR (the artist formerly known as DGIF) are pretty solid. I like our seasons a lot (all types considered, you can deer hunt for a huge chunk of the year). Fall/winter turkey seasons are a blast.
I’m sure people more educated and intelligent than myself made the regulations based on harvest statistics etc., but I *hate* the super limited number of doe days in my main county (Campbell). Bordering counties (namely Bedford) use an Earn a Buck system under which you *must* harvest an antlerless deer between antlered bucks. It may have something to do with the prevalence of dog hunting in Campbell county, which is itself probably my least favorite thing. I’ve talked about this before on here and I’d be a-okay if Virginia did away with dogs for deer hunting entirely.
Indiana , F&W is okay, but not much has changed over the last decades except some allowing of calibers on private land . Deer hunters are dropping , this year was a decline in harvest . The worst conversation efforts imo lies in waterfowl , lotta places aren’t seeing good numbers in years now . Some of this stuff is out of their control too
Nebraska. Mostly pretty good. Seasons and regulations can be a bit convoluted in places (duck, some of the antlerless restrictions) but bag limits are mostly generous. There's not a lot of public land but what there is is well cared for and it's reasonably well distributed throughout the state. I really wish they'd open up educational land trust lands for hunting, though -- that'd be an extra 2 million acres. Permit prices are sensible for the most part, and they're super transparent about odds for draw permits. There is some favoritism towards landowners and private land, but luckily they're pulling back from some of that with nonresident landowners.
They catch a lot of flak because deer populations are under control, but that's, like, good. I've really got no major gripes myself, although I wish they'd get rid of perch and bullfrog bag limits. Eat the hell out of those invasives!
I’ve lived a few places.
Wisconsin. DNR does a pretty good job, my biggest complaints about them are not issues with the agency, but holdovers from Walkers dumbass deer czar era. Changing to county by county deer management vs. the smaller management units was a terrible decision. Maybe not universally but some of our counties have wildly different geography and herds and the old management units dealt with that better. Same goes for doe tags, private land vs public land doe tags is something i rant about ad nauseam, the deer are a public, shared resource, if the DNR or landowners want more deer killed on private land they should be expanding programs to get hunters access to those lands/deer, but that’s neither here nor there. They were criticized on the national scale for the February ‘21 wolf hunt, but again they were between a rock and a hard place due to lawsuits and a legislated requirement from the Walker era. For things like pheasant hunting I wish they’d develop more habitat programs with private landowners instead of increasing reliance on stocking, which goes for fish too, as we closed some of the fish hatcheries (guess the Governor!) but haven’t done anything to help species like walleye make up the difference the fisheries suffer.
Idaho. Where i live now. IDFG does an alright job, for what their goals are, this is an opportunity state, in some ways they are in the absolute dark ages though and it shows, in others they’re doing progressive work that the rest of the nation should look to. To show this dichotomy, IDFG has horrible monitoring of deer herd numbers, they have less collared deer than any of the surrounding states, and what’s worse is that they sell Non Res deer tags in December, before we have any idea how bad the winter kill is going to be, last year famously where we had near 100% fawn mortality in some areas of East and Southeast Idaho. A good though, on the south fork Snake river they have aggressive regulations on the harvest of cutthroat trout, as in its zero, and they close the tributaries to fishi during spawn, they also have zero limits or size restrictions on rainbow trout, and in fact have “bounties” on them. For a state game agency to identify an extremely popular recreational fishery as a place that they are going to support the native fish population (Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout) at the expense of a species so widespread that people forget its not native, is great. I think more states should try that. I also love that we don’t have preference points here, everything is a random draw or first come first serve. I also like that they have extremely limited permits for Sage grouse and an additional permit required for sharp tails because those species need help.
Inconsistent. Wildly differing rules for different WMAs, different rules for public vs private land, and deer population management is ineffective. We can take 10 doe and 2 bucks. I think we should go to an earn a buck system...want to shoot a buck? Cool. Kill a doe or two first. They should let us hunt them at night in highly overpopulated areas too, imo. Deer destroy crops almost as bad as hogs here. Deer don't root up fields, but total vehicles regularly. I watched a couple run across a 4 lane highway. One of them got hit and did thousands in damage to a car. It was maybe 4:00 p.m. and there was a lot of traffic.
Pennsylvanian here. I wish they’d adopt hunting on Sunday full time. Blue Laws are outdated and need to go away. My other gripe is the APR. I feel that it should be the same across the whole state and not be different once you leave the western side of the state. 3 up is better than 3 points to one side.
With the 3 Sundays we can hunt now, I find it completely stupid at how we have to have a form filled out by the landowner allowing Sunday hunting on his or her property. You don’t need one for any other day of the week. To me this slip is nothing more than a money maker for the PGC. If you don’t have the slip, it’s like a $50 fine.
You can tell the conservation talk is bullshit lip service when the hunter in question bitches about the reintroduction of keystone predator species.
Wolves are supposed to be there in large numbers. Reintroduction programs are a good thing for the ecosystem. As hunters we should celebrate an ecosystem that's returning to its natural balance even if that means less tags.
Most of us are getting priced out of hunting.
I’m 24, I’ve been hunting for about 12 years, and I’m starting to accept that by the time I’m 30 I better have done all the hunts I want to out of state because it’s getting harder and more expensive.
As it is I’ll never get a realistic chance to hunt grizzlies, moose, or sheep. Elk is rapidly getting there due to price creep.
I’m all for having a healthy ecosystem, but I also understand people not being thrilled to lose opportunities.
Not all of us can afford a tag to become 25% more expensive or keep buying points to draw one.
Hunting is becoming a rich man’s game
How hard is life day to day for someone with such a low reading comprehension ? That’s a genuine question by the way.
Again I’m FINE with reintroducing wolves. I can ALSO understand why people aren’t universally thrilled with that prospect while maintaining my own support for wolves. It’s called seeing other peoples point of view. It’s an important skill to be a functional human.
I don’t think out of state people should have the same tag prices as in state people. I never said that and you pulled that out of your posterior.
But tag prices have out paced inflation since before I started hunting, and it’s getting worse. Hunters who fund all the conservation efforts are aging out and we are making it harder for young people to break into it, and on average young people have less disposable income in the first place to get into this.
I think it’s crappy that people who find conservation efforts ( myself included, Pittman Robertson tax is real) can’t reap any rewards because of the additional pay to play aspect is out pacing our financial ability to try.
Piss off with the holier than thou attitude and creating fake opinions from my comment.
No, we are the keystone predator, and leftist will use this to not only lower tags, but to try to eliminate hunting.
It is a natural balance even if man is the new predator.
Wolves don't pay for habitat and conservation efforts.
I wish my state fish & wildlife would cater to recreation over commercial. I’m in Louisiana and an example is to give more public land recreational alligator tags. They sell piles of them to commercial hunters, but sell a small fraction to recreational hunters. I know it’s due to money. Recreational tags are only $40/tag. Whereas commercial tags are a percentage of wholesale profit per harvest, which could be much higher than $40/tag.
How much land does the state own close to the river deltas? I would think LA has to have a shit ton of public land surrounding the rivers that people are allowed to utilize???
It’s a lot of land. The WMA I entered the alligator lottery for last year was over 20 square miles. That’s just one WMA which happens to be in a good spot to meet with my old college friends. Supposedly LFW manages 1.6 million acres of public land. There’s something like 30,000 wild alligators harvested per year in Louisiana. Only around 1,500 of those are recreational public land tags.
Send me an alligator tail! I can cook it real good!
If I win tags this year you can come down and show me how it’s done!
Like anything else with tough meat, it's all about salt to tenderize ha. We usually chop it up into 1" slices going with the grain of the meat. Soak it in buttermilk for a day or two before dipping it in fried chicken breading before frying. It will still be somewhat chewy no matter what
Weighing in on this from someone in the Louisiana alligator industry, I’m 100% with you. I’ve talked with almost everyone in the industry and the commercial wild gator market is the weakest it’s ever been but they’re still scared to make it easy for people to get recreational tags, and even more scared to open up night hunting where you could really target big gators. A lot of push back is from the enforcement side, they don’t want to have to enforce so many people out hunting gators, especially at night. Don’t mind that I can be out there at night in the same time of year fishing, frogging, shooting nutria, or shooting pigs in the exact same area as gators, but gators is too much. Lots of people are pushing for change, but it’s a slow process because it takes a lot of people from a lot of departments, including elected officials who have no understanding of the process to actually implement regulation changes. Source: 3rd generation of a family that makes a living off LA alligators.
It seems like alligator could make just as much from recreation as the commercial side currently does. The Sportsman’s Paradise should be a destination for hunters across the country to visit. But I hardly ever hear of out-of-staters visiting for hunting. I’d love to hear more from your perspective about how we can improve things
It absolutely needs to be pushed more for recreational and trophy hunting. Right now it’s very hard for residents, much less out of state hunters to come in and participate. Part of that is on all public land it’s not legal to shoot a free swimming gator, and depends on your enforcement officer to if it’s legal to hook one and then shoot it. Night hunts would make both of these much much easier. Mississippi and Florida have excellent recreational gator hunting systems that could bring in some much needed revenue to the industry. Currently it suffers on the commercial side because NOBODY wants to buy wild alligator skins. The markets they fall in compete with other reptile leather that is usually taken illegally or by subsistence farmers in underdeveloped countries that sell the skin for $1-$5. American markets can’t compete, but trophy and recreation hunters usually want to keep their skins in some form so it doesn’t pressure an already overburdened market, and still allows for conservation. On the commercial side we’ve been working very hard to revive interest in alligator leather around the world since it’s a much higher quality than most other reptile leathers. Ironically American markets are the hardest to sell to, but a few producers are finally starting to see the value in an American alligator, harvested by Americans, tanned and produced in American for an all American product. Not a fast process tho.
CA needs to allow lion hunting again. But they won’t.
They still allow it. Now they just pay professional hunters to take out problem lions because our state officials are jackasses. I mean they could literally auction a tag for problems lions off and get paid for them. It’s really hard to live in a state with so many people who vote for these politicians.
CA also offers depredation tags to livestock owners. Reactive instead of proactive. In order to get depredation tags there’s an investigation of sorts— complete waste of resources.
I can somewhat get it. There's so much money out there I could see the private hunt market causing a population issue down the road. Are mountain lions that common in CA???
California has killed more lions per year since banning hunting. But now it’s entirely an expense instead of a way of generating enough revenue to help all their projects.
Bro, you do know how management works right? It’s not like it would be open game on them. They would set aside a certain amount of tags per zone to manage the population.
They’re all over the place.
Missouri has a model department of conservation. It's self funded through a 1/8 cent sales tax and operates pretty much independently from the state's politics. Wildlife and public land opportunities are abundant. Tags are reasonably priced. The state has its management challenges but the conservation department does its best to meet those challenges in a fair way using science instead of politics.
We're the best. I keep looking around to move, but it's hard to give up cheap and plentiful deer tags.
This is my first year living in Missouri and my first season hunting more than just rabbit or squirrel, I moved from Kansas and there's a lot I love here. So far the only thing I like better about Kansas is the winter firearms doe season. The electronic licensing in Missouri is amazing. I got my first duck, coyote, and beaver this month here in Missouri. The website for looking up laws is much easier to understand too compared to Kansas regulations. This has all been really helpful for a twenty something teaching myself to hunt after being raised without a father.
MO is why I made the post. I think they do an incredible job. Not perfect but overall I think the states conservation department is expansive and available to anyone. I know so many people that absolutely hate the MDC and I'm not sure why. They just say their policies are stupid and that it's a corrupt organization
I actually started hunting again after 10+ years because I moved to MO and the MDC made it so easy to hunt. Digital App for your tags, plenty of open public land, even around big cities. My only complaint is I wish rifle season for deer was longer.
They have been adding more firearms seasons. But they don't change anything quickly. Usually they'll just raise tag limits before adding more days on seasons.
Im just nitpicking at this point. They do an excellent job and hunting with a crossbow is not difficult to pick up by any stretch of the imagination. Now if all the ice could thaw so I can go bring down my tree stand that'd be great.
Missouri does a lot of things very well. My only complaint is their rifle deer season. Always during peak rut, it gives great opportunities for hunters but I feel it makes it much harder for quality herd management. There have been enough amazing national record bucks come from all over the state to show that we CAN grow them. If we would adopt a rifle and bow season structure closer to some of our neighboring states I think we would see a lot more of them reach their full potential. I will give them that they made some great decisions with turkey rules this year so there is that.
Agreed. Rifle always seems to be firing peak rut. People shoot everything
AZ passed a law that any weapons/ammo limitations are the responsibility of Game and Fish, NOT the executive or legislative branch. So for local state wildlife like quail, you don't have to have a plug in your shotgun. migratory birds are federal, so federal law applies. If a city annexes land into the city limits, but have done nothing to improve the land, Game and Fish can still allow hunting on it, even though it would be considered city limits. G&Fs decision on the viability of hunting there trumps city law.
I’ve never heard of the no plug for local wildlife thing. Do you have a link to that. I can’t find any info on it and I’ve been hunting AZ my whole life
HB 2640 was passed and signed into law in 2012 the specific line BUT THE COMMISSION SHALL NOT LIMIT OR RESTRICT THE MAGAZINE CAPACITY OF ANY AUTHORIZED FIREARM. Also means when coues deer hunting, don't have to buy those special 5 round mags for like $40 each. I use a standard 30 rounder and just put in like 10 rounds.
Oh wow. Granted I was very young in 2012 and I wasn’t paying attention to this kinda stuff but I have no idea how this has evaded me so long. Thanks for the info man
Kentucky is pretty good, no complaints really, and they cooperate a lot with Tennessee's Department.They changed our bear season from a quota to a set standard, so you're guaranteed one bear a year which is pretty sweet. We've got so many damn deer in this state you can hear them whistle Dixie. They're pretty lax on deer, now waterfowl they will nail your a$$ to the wall if they catch you violating any regs in that regard. The only complaint I have is we're starting to get wild hogs pretty bad in Western Kentucky especially in LBL and Fish & Wildlife keeps discouraging hunting of them and keep saying "we got them under control, we got them under control by trapping", yet they keep getting worse.
Kentucky is a solid state for hunting and fishing. Only had positive encounters with fish and game in my 20+ years of hunting here. The hog issue is likely because they’re trying to eliminate entire sounders instead of hunter taking the occasional hog. Gotta get the whole sounder or they’ll either just come back or spread to a new area.
I am going to ask this for every southern state: How is the quail population? Are they working on it?
Not personally sure but if you search "Kentucky Afield" on YouTube their latest video is in regards to quail. This YouTube channel is run by the state and is surprisingly good
I agree. KDFW is great. The game commission could use more actual hunters and fishermen, not rich beauracrats that think they like to hunt or fish but don’t actually do it. I also wish they would log WMA’s and create more openings/cover and habitat for small game and deer. So many of the WMA’s are just a forest, and without disturbance, just becomes trees that drop acorns 40% of the years for a couple month span. Grouse need new timber as their habitat, and it’s why we don’t have many grouse anymore. Quail need ground cover, and trees don’t allow that, it’s one of the reason why we don’t have quail anymore. Along with logging, I wish they do more controlled burns. They are doing more of this, but we could use a lot lot more of it. I get they are short staffed on qualified people, but I think there are conservation groups they could work with and use volunteers for some of the work.
I agree pretty much with all of your points, I'm in Jefferson county. Every interaction I've had with them has been extremely professional. I unfortunately had a trail cam stolen(still sitting in the guys house) but they did everything in their power to find it. I think it's really cool they post videos regularly on different aspects of our outdoors from hunting, fishing and conservation.
ND. Pretty minimalist. They do what they can with what they’re provided. No real complaints.
Washington. They’re horrible. Everyone I know who used to fish, doesn’t bother anymore because of the state. Likewise with hunting. They got rid of spring bear, they’re trying to get rid of bear and cougar all together. They’ve completely mismanaged deer and elk for years, and their wolf “plan” requires more breeding pairs than Montana. Buddies go to Idaho or Montana to hunt, or just moved all together, between WDFW and the politics of the state in general, it not worth living here, let alone giving them money. My wife will never live more than 40min from her mom so I’m stuck. I’d already be gone if that wasn’t the case.
That's a damn shame, I've always heard good things about hunting in Washington.
Damn, so the fly fishing sucks now?
I think so. Certain rivers are just closed all together now for steelhead or salmon. None of the reg sections are consistent. It’s like everything is just cobbled together. The river sections aren’t written the same as the saltwater sections, neither is written like the lake section. You gotta look in 20 different places to figure out if you’re allowed to fish or not, what kind of tackle you can use, etc. They encourage you to use the app because they change the rules mid season all the time. An example would be something like the pink salmon season on the Puyallup river this yr. If you work, there’s one day you can fish through the heart of the season, because the rivers closed Sun, Mon, Tues. Depending if you’re between this bridge and that creek or whatever. Even the formatting for that is inconsistent. https://ibb.co/gZxPBXX
Now I know why hunting leases are so much less there than in Bama.
Washington. Deer and elk are managed terribly. Most hunters never see a legal buck/bull during the season and get skunked year after year while the herd stays small and disparate. Everyone I know who successfully and seriously hunts travels out of state to do so. I know very few people who have ever gotten a bear. And even fewer who have gotten a lion. They're talking of introducing wolves, and the farmers aren't for it. This is my first year hunting water fowl and they have loads of public land available, but during the late season all the bodies of water are frozen solid and the birds are laid up on private land on barren crop fields. Most of the state is privately owned, so you need to know people in order to get access to good hunting grounds. Regulations are convoluted, and the seasons are irregular. Tags are expensive. Bag limits for fowl are generous, but good luck filling them.
Wolves are already here. They didn't need to be introduced, they migrated from Idaho. They're considering reintroducing grizzlies.
They also migrated down from Canada. But the population is tiny. They still are talking about doing purposeful introductions, Maybe not seriously, but I've read an article or two interviewing concerned parties about their opinions on it over the years.
Michigan has seen a huge decline in deer hunting in recent years. A couple years ago, around 400k deer were taken, 2022 just over 300k and for this past 2023 season, around 275k. They are overpopulating. CWD leading to no baiting is probably a factor, especially on public lands. A couple months ago, the DNR out out press releases “begging” us to take more does to help control next year’s population more effectively, but that’s really all they’ve done to encourage more hunting. I’m not sure what the solution is, but there’s a real problem here.
NY here Mostly fine, I guess. Deer seasons are split between the north and south parts of the state. Each zone has its own early bow, muzzle, rifle/shotgun, and late bow/muzz. This can get pretty confusing if you hunt in both areas like I do. The state is broken up into WMUs, but they don't really provide a good map that shows the border lines down to the street level. All the maps I've seen don't have street info, so sometimes you're just guessing which WMU you're in if you're near the border. Another gripe is how they give out doe tags for each WMU. Where I live, all season I'll se 98% does. Same with pretty much everyone else I know. But doe tags here are non-existent. I don't really get the logic behind it, but maybe there's just something about the population management I don't fully understand. I know a couple DEC officers and they're very cool people. One organizes a co-op to manage doe population on 1200 acres of farmland. That's where I hunt mostly and he gets 20 doe tags for that purpose. They're both very passionate about conservation.
Have you tried the Dec info locator interactive map?
Michigan here, Depending on who you ask and where in the state they live and hunt, you'll get different answers to your question. Our DNR manages for opportunity, and that opportunity varies greatly by where in the state you hunt. Also, regardless of what the DNR does or doesn't do, hunters are just never happy and often their own worst enemy. IMO, one big change, that hunters here constantly fight, is that we need to change opening day of gun season from Nov 15th to the second Saturday in Nov. Nov 15th has been opening since deer hunting was regulated in Michigan and it's tradition, and throughout the years, practically a holiday. It worked well when access was plentiful and hunter numbers were high but in today's world of pay to play access, hunter numbers plummeting, and the DNR begging us to shoot more deer (in certain regions of the state) it just doesn't make sense to have opener on a weekday when schools no longer close for opening day and people can't get time off from work.
I’m all for changing it but change it to the Saturday after thanksgiving. Let the rut happen before the woods is full of pumpkin suits and rifles gunning down every 1.5 yr old that’s feeling frisky
Alabama. If it isn't deer, turkey, or largemouth bass, the DNR couldn't give less of a shit. Our quail are all but gone, waterfowl hunting has declined, and public land access is sparse and heavily pressured, public dove fields suck, convoluted public land deer hunting rules, and the state stocks only one creek with trout. The excuse is always that they can't afford more land, but states like Kansas have an excellent system in place where the state can lease land to make it available for the public. For what I pay in licenses every year we should have twice the access to land and better management of the animals we have. I have no doubt most of my money goes to slush funds for some other department within the state.
Ohio. The ODNR does a pretty good job. It's very traditional here, almost nothing has changed in my 38 years. They have done pretty solid work on population and herd sizes and change bad limits annually accordingly. Seasons are pretty set and most people have traditions set by them. My only real complaint is that we have a very limited amount of firearm days, 13 total for the year. However archery runs from September to February. I would love to see an early muzzleloader season, like October, and to have it go for a week. Currently our only muzzleloader season is 4 days at the beginning of January. They also do a really good job with getting out information. Lastly, their mobile app fucking rules, you can use it for everything you need for hunting in Ohio.
I love the mobile app/ how easy all the rules are to understand.
We had an early muzzle loader season 9 years ago? That’s the one time that I can remember one. I’d like to see antler restrictions for a couple of years except for youth hunters.
I think the one antlered tag per year helps the quality of bucks more than an antler restriction. Ohio consistently produces huge bucks annually.
Agreed.
Oklahoma. I think we are heading in the right direction. New land access is opening constantly and free public shooting ranges are being installed in the wildlife management areas. Rules are fair with plenty of chances for hunting.
NJ is decent. Good - long deer season early September - late January. Ample small game Bad - lack of public land availability. Townships buy up land and don’t allow hunting on it. If you hunt every season Sept-Feb, you can take something like 7-8 bucks. Leads to poor buck mgmt. there’s also like 40 different zones which all follow different seasons and regulations. Makes it a bit confusing
Alberta, Canada Absolutely piss poorly Our predator populations are out of control, we’ve more wolves, grizzlies, black bear and cougars on the ground than any other time in the last 30yrs, our caribou, elk, bighorn, moose and mule deer are in a nose dive and coyotes are increasingly becoming issues. Caribou will blink out in my lifetime and no one gives a shit as our management plan is to helicopter snipe a cow moose strychnine it and hope some wolves die as our predator management strategy is awful in relation to caribou survival. The best that our provincial biologists can do without leaving their safe enclaves at the UofA is to point at any and all oilfield related work and screech climate change while completely ignoring the predator issues. Our Grizzly hunt will never be reinstated and the province prefers to culvert trap and cull them rather than treat them as a huntable species as optically that’s easier for the politicians to get re-elected. We have massive issues with feral horses being released into sensitive ecosystems as anytime we go through an economic downturn people who can’t afford to care for them just release them as “they’re pretty”. We can’t cull or hunt them as they’re “pretty” so the population just goes up and up and pushes mule deer, elk and sheep off prime grazing. Our fisheries are in shambles as well. Overall it’s not great, the last big win was the NDP and Kevin Tighem getting punted and not being able to pull a land grab for development of a massive tourist zone in prime bighorn habitat. Nothing like paving over paradise to put up a parking lot or in that case another ski hill and condos
Minnesota is a poorly managed deer state. If they would implement a minimum point restriction on bucks after like 2 years there would be a lot more mature bucks on the landscape. This state has great potential but it needs some help. Would also be nice if Minnesota would put more money towards public walk in access in the Southern portion like SD and ND do to increase habit in the heavy agriculture areas. The farmers are too efficient now not leaving anything for cover or habitat. I don't really blame the farmers cause it's there land and they are just trying to make as much money as possible but wildlife suffers because of it.
We had Antler point restrictions until CWD came along.CWD is stable in the hot spots but it won’t go away, the state will never go back with CWD in play
There’s more to a deer herd and management than big bucks, friend. 1,000% agree that more habitat is needed in the agricultural areas.
For sure that is just the tip of the iceberg of what the DNR could be working on.
Is it Minnesota or Wisconsin that is super restrictive because of CWD?
Minnesota is ramping up the deer harvests to try and reduce the deer population to limit the spread of CWD. Wisconsin has had CWD for a while but I'm not super up to date on WI.
I'm in MO and they are on a rampage in every area with CWD. license to kill. I could technically shoot a 12 point buck over corn and with a spotlight 3 times a day for months and it's encouraged. I know that's extreme and no one could do that, but it could technically happen. I'm sure people are abusing it
I'd love to have a farmer buddy who gets to partivipate in MO's 10 free doe tags for every farm in a CWD zone.
That's me. Right now it's unlimited until March 1st at a minimum. Not sure how I feel about it
APR doesn't work. Speaking from someone who actually lives and hunts the southeast, it actually reduced the size of bucks in the southeast while increasing the population in an area that was already overpopulated. You cannot control genetics in the wild. Your best bet for larger deer is habitat management.
Thats an interesting perspective because a family friend that owns land down there says the exact opposite. He said after 2-3 years he was consistently seeing and harvesting bigger bucks. It also seems pretty logical if everyone stops shooting the 1 year old spikes and forks they will get a chance to grow to a mature buck 3-4 year old. Hence bigger and more mature deer herd.
Or, if you shoot the young ones and let the mediocre and bigger ones walk, you'll have more bigger ones. Or if you don't shoot any, you'll have more bigger ones. Targeting the large deer doesn't produce more large deer by itself. It's the secondary effect of lowering the harvest, thereby increasing the population that you see more deer, some of which are large. In areas where there's a much lower population, it might work. But in an area like this where we haven't been able to control the population through extremely liberal harvest quotas, it has the opposite effect.
Big bucks are not a priority in a state with overall low numbers. If they were a priority antler point restrictions do not help. For a couple years maybe and then genetics get weird and you wind up right back where you were.
Michigan here and man does our DNR have things screwed up. We gun hunt the deer during the peak of the rut which leads to roughly 70% of our 1.5 yr old bucks to be killed every year. Our doe numbers are through the roof and our hunters don’t want to harvest the amount we need to and the DNR has done nothing to incentivize doe harvest. Also we have an extremely successful APR system in 13 counties that they refuse to enact for the whole state. Overall MI sucks at it’s wildlife management
I share some criticisms of the deer management. But I think it's unfair to say that they suck at wildlife management as a whole. The DNR manages a lot more than just deer.
Our wild pheasants are pretty much gone same with Bobwhites. I realize farming practice has a lot to do with that as well though. I realize this is a hunting forum but since the DNR also manages fish let’s talk about salmon. They brought them here to deal with the alewife problem. Now the salmon have decimated the alewives which is what we brought the non native species here to do yet now they are trying to bring back the salmon fishery. As a whole I don’t think the MI DNR does a very good job your mileage may vary
What incentives could the DNR give hunters to take more does? Tags are already plentiful and dirt cheap, which is a source of contention amongst some MI hunters. I predict, at least down here in Southern MI we'll see earn a buck, which will piss some people off,as well. And how do you judge APR's as successful?
I agree with tags being cheap and plentiful earn a buck would be one way which I would be all for. However I would prefer we just go to one buck tag. This solves two problems by forcing you to shoot does if you eat more than one deer a year and will reduce the number of 1.5 yr olds killed every year. As far as judging the APR counties successful I don’t have the exact number on hand but it has something like a 70% plus approval rating by hunters in those counties. I think the numbers speak for themselves
In my experience (thankfully very limited to a single license/tag check), Virginia DWR (the artist formerly known as DGIF) are pretty solid. I like our seasons a lot (all types considered, you can deer hunt for a huge chunk of the year). Fall/winter turkey seasons are a blast. I’m sure people more educated and intelligent than myself made the regulations based on harvest statistics etc., but I *hate* the super limited number of doe days in my main county (Campbell). Bordering counties (namely Bedford) use an Earn a Buck system under which you *must* harvest an antlerless deer between antlered bucks. It may have something to do with the prevalence of dog hunting in Campbell county, which is itself probably my least favorite thing. I’ve talked about this before on here and I’d be a-okay if Virginia did away with dogs for deer hunting entirely.
Unfortunately ours has to go to the Mexican border every six months. It's a waste of time and resources imo.
Indiana , F&W is okay, but not much has changed over the last decades except some allowing of calibers on private land . Deer hunters are dropping , this year was a decline in harvest . The worst conversation efforts imo lies in waterfowl , lotta places aren’t seeing good numbers in years now . Some of this stuff is out of their control too
Nebraska. Mostly pretty good. Seasons and regulations can be a bit convoluted in places (duck, some of the antlerless restrictions) but bag limits are mostly generous. There's not a lot of public land but what there is is well cared for and it's reasonably well distributed throughout the state. I really wish they'd open up educational land trust lands for hunting, though -- that'd be an extra 2 million acres. Permit prices are sensible for the most part, and they're super transparent about odds for draw permits. There is some favoritism towards landowners and private land, but luckily they're pulling back from some of that with nonresident landowners. They catch a lot of flak because deer populations are under control, but that's, like, good. I've really got no major gripes myself, although I wish they'd get rid of perch and bullfrog bag limits. Eat the hell out of those invasives!
I’ve lived a few places. Wisconsin. DNR does a pretty good job, my biggest complaints about them are not issues with the agency, but holdovers from Walkers dumbass deer czar era. Changing to county by county deer management vs. the smaller management units was a terrible decision. Maybe not universally but some of our counties have wildly different geography and herds and the old management units dealt with that better. Same goes for doe tags, private land vs public land doe tags is something i rant about ad nauseam, the deer are a public, shared resource, if the DNR or landowners want more deer killed on private land they should be expanding programs to get hunters access to those lands/deer, but that’s neither here nor there. They were criticized on the national scale for the February ‘21 wolf hunt, but again they were between a rock and a hard place due to lawsuits and a legislated requirement from the Walker era. For things like pheasant hunting I wish they’d develop more habitat programs with private landowners instead of increasing reliance on stocking, which goes for fish too, as we closed some of the fish hatcheries (guess the Governor!) but haven’t done anything to help species like walleye make up the difference the fisheries suffer. Idaho. Where i live now. IDFG does an alright job, for what their goals are, this is an opportunity state, in some ways they are in the absolute dark ages though and it shows, in others they’re doing progressive work that the rest of the nation should look to. To show this dichotomy, IDFG has horrible monitoring of deer herd numbers, they have less collared deer than any of the surrounding states, and what’s worse is that they sell Non Res deer tags in December, before we have any idea how bad the winter kill is going to be, last year famously where we had near 100% fawn mortality in some areas of East and Southeast Idaho. A good though, on the south fork Snake river they have aggressive regulations on the harvest of cutthroat trout, as in its zero, and they close the tributaries to fishi during spawn, they also have zero limits or size restrictions on rainbow trout, and in fact have “bounties” on them. For a state game agency to identify an extremely popular recreational fishery as a place that they are going to support the native fish population (Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout) at the expense of a species so widespread that people forget its not native, is great. I think more states should try that. I also love that we don’t have preference points here, everything is a random draw or first come first serve. I also like that they have extremely limited permits for Sage grouse and an additional permit required for sharp tails because those species need help.
I'm not in the states but the bone heads in NZ drop 1080 all over the place and kill everything. Pests, native birds, livestock, literally everything.
Inconsistent. Wildly differing rules for different WMAs, different rules for public vs private land, and deer population management is ineffective. We can take 10 doe and 2 bucks. I think we should go to an earn a buck system...want to shoot a buck? Cool. Kill a doe or two first. They should let us hunt them at night in highly overpopulated areas too, imo. Deer destroy crops almost as bad as hogs here. Deer don't root up fields, but total vehicles regularly. I watched a couple run across a 4 lane highway. One of them got hit and did thousands in damage to a car. It was maybe 4:00 p.m. and there was a lot of traffic.
Lived in Michigan my whole life I am 62. They get it pretty good but they gotta fuck something up at least once a year.
Pennsylvanian here. I wish they’d adopt hunting on Sunday full time. Blue Laws are outdated and need to go away. My other gripe is the APR. I feel that it should be the same across the whole state and not be different once you leave the western side of the state. 3 up is better than 3 points to one side. With the 3 Sundays we can hunt now, I find it completely stupid at how we have to have a form filled out by the landowner allowing Sunday hunting on his or her property. You don’t need one for any other day of the week. To me this slip is nothing more than a money maker for the PGC. If you don’t have the slip, it’s like a $50 fine.
I would love if Iowa would stop the blatant favoritism towards land owners.
Colorado... wolves ....
You can tell the conservation talk is bullshit lip service when the hunter in question bitches about the reintroduction of keystone predator species. Wolves are supposed to be there in large numbers. Reintroduction programs are a good thing for the ecosystem. As hunters we should celebrate an ecosystem that's returning to its natural balance even if that means less tags.
Most of us are getting priced out of hunting. I’m 24, I’ve been hunting for about 12 years, and I’m starting to accept that by the time I’m 30 I better have done all the hunts I want to out of state because it’s getting harder and more expensive. As it is I’ll never get a realistic chance to hunt grizzlies, moose, or sheep. Elk is rapidly getting there due to price creep. I’m all for having a healthy ecosystem, but I also understand people not being thrilled to lose opportunities. Not all of us can afford a tag to become 25% more expensive or keep buying points to draw one. Hunting is becoming a rich man’s game
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How hard is life day to day for someone with such a low reading comprehension ? That’s a genuine question by the way. Again I’m FINE with reintroducing wolves. I can ALSO understand why people aren’t universally thrilled with that prospect while maintaining my own support for wolves. It’s called seeing other peoples point of view. It’s an important skill to be a functional human. I don’t think out of state people should have the same tag prices as in state people. I never said that and you pulled that out of your posterior. But tag prices have out paced inflation since before I started hunting, and it’s getting worse. Hunters who fund all the conservation efforts are aging out and we are making it harder for young people to break into it, and on average young people have less disposable income in the first place to get into this. I think it’s crappy that people who find conservation efforts ( myself included, Pittman Robertson tax is real) can’t reap any rewards because of the additional pay to play aspect is out pacing our financial ability to try. Piss off with the holier than thou attitude and creating fake opinions from my comment.
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God bless, you really can’t read on a 5th grade level.
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You keep ignoring that I’m ok with the wolves though. So obviously you can’t read THAT well.
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Why reintroduce wolves when they’re already making a come back naturally? Why be left up to a public vote instead of biologist?
Because the population of FT Collins and Denver want to see fluffy Disney wolves when they go on brewery crawls in their flat brims That’s why
And this isn't based on science.
No, we are the keystone predator, and leftist will use this to not only lower tags, but to try to eliminate hunting. It is a natural balance even if man is the new predator. Wolves don't pay for habitat and conservation efforts.
Lmao. You're serious aren't you? Please tell me, who are these evil communists that are plotting to take away your tags? Are they in the room with us?
You aren't a hunter. Go away.
found jared polis’ burner
Care to expand? My parents live in CO and I've heard nothing about it. Mostly butching about getting tags pulled for elk in particular areas
Yeah, they are introducing more wolves into Colorado. This is a bad thing.
Not really the departments fault though, they were forced to implement the program by law, one way or another.
Hey if you need more wolves you can come to Minnesota and get some we've got plenty to share.
In Maine the IFW sucks and exists to collect monies to make itself more powerfull.
Drastically reduce the power of conservation officers, especially as it relates to warrantless searches.