Free: Contests & Raffles.
The Commission acknowledges that they support resource allocation. Commissioner Gutlwiler said that out loud at the Commission meeting last Friday.But what is now clear (and what will be costing bowhunters time in the field) is the mature buck and bull harvest.The WDFW is taking elk time away and changing elk dates because stats that show that 25% of the "mature bulls" killed are taken by bowhunters, but bowhunters only make up 19% of all hunters; so we are 6% over. The M/F take 60% of the "mature bulls" and are 66% of the total number of hunters; they are 6% percent under. So the M/F representative complained that archers are killing a disproportionate amount of 'mature' class bulls.What the WDFW calls a "mature" bull is, in my opinion, arguable. They define a 'mature bull' as having 5 or more points on one side. So it doesn't matter if it is a raghorn three-year-old five-point or a five-year-old five-point. They are counting it as "mature".M/F (80%) kill 87% of the mature bucks. Archers (13%) take 8% of the mature bucks.At yesterday's meeting of the Resource Allocation Sub-committee it was confirmed that the WDFW is holding strong on their 2009-11 season proposals. The only thing we appear to have gained through yesterday's negotiation is that we will again get first crack at the Sherman GMU 101 for whitetail, but the start date will be pushed back to the 20th (instead of the 10th). I hope to get a full report in a day or so.
If anyone can direct me to published information that will show that my hunch about 3-year-old bulls having five points is right, please, will you do so? I have four days to gather data to prove the point. Thanks.
So if Archers are BEHIND in their BUCK take, Why are they taking away the Best opportunity to increase our BUCK take by doing away with all the 200 units late openings???They can't have it both ways!If it's good for the M/F elk hunters then it should be good for the Archery BUCK huntersMORONS!
I don't know if they have data indicating how many points the bulls have that have been taken by all user groups. Is that a question that is asked on the hunter reports that we are asked to submit?Thanks for the link; I'll check it out.I need a copy of page 13 of Jim Zumbo's book Elk Hunting. I can view it on-line but can't print it. It says a bull in its second year (a raghorn) will have four or five points, and goes on to say that they will usually gain their sixth point in their fourth year.