Free: Contests & Raffles.
Quote from: lokidog on December 14, 2016, 08:26:07 AMQuote from: Rainier10 on December 14, 2016, 08:10:22 AMI put in 60-100 hours of service teaching hunter education classes each year and another 16 hours repairing fences knocked down by elk.Quote from: Okanagan on December 14, 2016, 08:00:29 AMI've never liked the MH program since I first heard it proposed. It sets up a two tier class of people among hunters, a recipe for tensions and ready-made for divide and conquer anti-hunters. Master Hunter strikes me as a pseudo elitist designation which IMO appeals to the kind of person who likes to join clubs, of which I am not one. But I'm probably in the minority. The volunteer work is good but there are less divisive ways to achieve that. Two tier is actually what you have. The WDFW wanted a group of hunters that could work as ambassadors of hunting and interact with the private landowners to build a positive image of hunters. The goal was to paint hunters in a better light and hopefully open up more private land for all hunters to access.Is it working to do that? In many cases yes. However these bad ones really put a black on the program.One other thing that the program does and I have witnessed personally is to change the habits of the elk. I have seen the impact of these "hunts" on the elk in 3911. I used to see 300-400 elk in the farmers fields in my area and since the hunts have been going on the elk have moved to ground that doesn't result in conflict with private land owners. That's a good thing for everyone. The point of these hunts isn't to give master hunters the opportunity to harvest more elk the point is to haze the elk and make them change their habits. The side benefit is MH's have the opportunity to harvest elk. Now that the hazing is working there is not as much opportunity to harvest an elk.I wonder if your last sentence is part of the problem? Maybe many of these guys see this as their only opportunity to put meat in the freezer and take less than optimal shots once the shooting begins and there are multiple shooters.The trespassing issue aside, it seems that ethical/accurate shot placement is a big complaint in these group shoots. Sent from my Moto G (4) using TapatalkAgain Loki, there are going to be bad apples in every group of hunters. I will say that something required of MHs and not of the general licensed hunting population is a minimum shooting proficiency. A MH must qualify with a minimum proficiency in at least one of I believe five different firearms (bow, rifle, shotgun w/slug, ML, crossbow). Some choose to qualify in all 5. This is definitely an effort to enlist people who have the ability to take better shots. In addition, there's a huge amount of material covering ethics and hunter safety. But, this isn't going to weed out bad apples. It's only going to do what the program can to eliminate as many of them as possible.
Quote from: Rainier10 on December 14, 2016, 08:10:22 AMI put in 60-100 hours of service teaching hunter education classes each year and another 16 hours repairing fences knocked down by elk.Quote from: Okanagan on December 14, 2016, 08:00:29 AMI've never liked the MH program since I first heard it proposed. It sets up a two tier class of people among hunters, a recipe for tensions and ready-made for divide and conquer anti-hunters. Master Hunter strikes me as a pseudo elitist designation which IMO appeals to the kind of person who likes to join clubs, of which I am not one. But I'm probably in the minority. The volunteer work is good but there are less divisive ways to achieve that. Two tier is actually what you have. The WDFW wanted a group of hunters that could work as ambassadors of hunting and interact with the private landowners to build a positive image of hunters. The goal was to paint hunters in a better light and hopefully open up more private land for all hunters to access.Is it working to do that? In many cases yes. However these bad ones really put a black on the program.One other thing that the program does and I have witnessed personally is to change the habits of the elk. I have seen the impact of these "hunts" on the elk in 3911. I used to see 300-400 elk in the farmers fields in my area and since the hunts have been going on the elk have moved to ground that doesn't result in conflict with private land owners. That's a good thing for everyone. The point of these hunts isn't to give master hunters the opportunity to harvest more elk the point is to haze the elk and make them change their habits. The side benefit is MH's have the opportunity to harvest elk. Now that the hazing is working there is not as much opportunity to harvest an elk.I wonder if your last sentence is part of the problem? Maybe many of these guys see this as their only opportunity to put meat in the freezer and take less than optimal shots once the shooting begins and there are multiple shooters.The trespassing issue aside, it seems that ethical/accurate shot placement is a big complaint in these group shoots. Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk
I put in 60-100 hours of service teaching hunter education classes each year and another 16 hours repairing fences knocked down by elk.Quote from: Okanagan on December 14, 2016, 08:00:29 AMI've never liked the MH program since I first heard it proposed. It sets up a two tier class of people among hunters, a recipe for tensions and ready-made for divide and conquer anti-hunters. Master Hunter strikes me as a pseudo elitist designation which IMO appeals to the kind of person who likes to join clubs, of which I am not one. But I'm probably in the minority. The volunteer work is good but there are less divisive ways to achieve that. Two tier is actually what you have. The WDFW wanted a group of hunters that could work as ambassadors of hunting and interact with the private landowners to build a positive image of hunters. The goal was to paint hunters in a better light and hopefully open up more private land for all hunters to access.Is it working to do that? In many cases yes. However these bad ones really put a black on the program.One other thing that the program does and I have witnessed personally is to change the habits of the elk. I have seen the impact of these "hunts" on the elk in 3911. I used to see 300-400 elk in the farmers fields in my area and since the hunts have been going on the elk have moved to ground that doesn't result in conflict with private land owners. That's a good thing for everyone. The point of these hunts isn't to give master hunters the opportunity to harvest more elk the point is to haze the elk and make them change their habits. The side benefit is MH's have the opportunity to harvest elk. Now that the hazing is working there is not as much opportunity to harvest an elk.
I've never liked the MH program since I first heard it proposed. It sets up a two tier class of people among hunters, a recipe for tensions and ready-made for divide and conquer anti-hunters. Master Hunter strikes me as a pseudo elitist designation which IMO appeals to the kind of person who likes to join clubs, of which I am not one. But I'm probably in the minority. The volunteer work is good but there are less divisive ways to achieve that.
No,need to bow out. I'm glad you are proud of the program. You and Bob highlight what the program stands for. That's important. Personally I've had equal exposure to the good and the bad. I'm not really swayed either way.
Additionally there is a 2 tier list within the MH group. The A team has great reviews and are the embasador for the program and those names are talked about.
Quote from: Special T on December 14, 2016, 09:58:12 AMAdditionally there is a 2 tier list within the MH group. The A team has great reviews and are the embasador for the program and those names are talked about.First I've heard of an "A team" list and a second lower class in the MH program. Is that an actual list at the WDFW?
If this was a group of MHs, then there was a hunt coordinator. If they were hunting on private land without permission, all of them will lose their MH status. MHs are held to much higher standards of conduct in order to keep the designation they have worked hard for. I'm unsure what happened on this specific "hunt", but it's quite possible that this group was called in to cull several animals at the request of the landowner or because a bio saw the need to thin the herd in that specific place. There's not enough information here to make a judgement just yet.The MH program provides a minimum of 16,000 hours of volunteer conservation work each year - minimum; that's if each MH only does what's required. At $10/hr, that saves conservation resources a minimum of $160,000.00 a year. I've personally never done less than 20 hours and I'm not alone. I suggest that our wildlife and budding young hunters would suffer greatly as a result of eliminating this program. Are there a$$hats out there who abuse the program? Yes, of course there are and the WDFW is doing their best to identify and remove those types from the program. Are there regular hunters out there who are unethical and shed a bad light on hunting? I would guarantee there are far more than in the MH ranks. Does that mean we should eliminate hunting altogether? What do you think? Before you decide to eliminate a program which provides much to conservation and our wildlife, I suggest you should definitely learn more about its benefits to our hunting community and wildlife. Closing the program would be tantamount to cutting off your nose to spite your face, IMHO.
Quote from: pianoman9701 on December 14, 2016, 07:23:26 AMIf this was a group of MHs, then there was a hunt coordinator. If they were hunting on private land without permission, all of them will lose their MH status. MHs are held to much higher standards of conduct in order to keep the designation they have worked hard for. I'm unsure what happened on this specific "hunt", but it's quite possible that this group was called in to cull several animals at the request of the landowner or because a bio saw the need to thin the herd in that specific place. There's not enough information here to make a judgement just yet.The MH program provides a minimum of 16,000 hours of volunteer conservation work each year - minimum; that's if each MH only does what's required. At $10/hr, that saves conservation resources a minimum of $160,000.00 a year. I've personally never done less than 20 hours and I'm not alone. I suggest that our wildlife and budding young hunters would suffer greatly as a result of eliminating this program. Are there a$$hats out there who abuse the program? Yes, of course there are and the WDFW is doing their best to identify and remove those types from the program. Are there regular hunters out there who are unethical and shed a bad light on hunting? I would guarantee there are far more than in the MH ranks. Does that mean we should eliminate hunting altogether? What do you think? Before you decide to eliminate a program which provides much to conservation and our wildlife, I suggest you should definitely learn more about its benefits to our hunting community and wildlife. Closing the program would be tantamount to cutting off your nose to spite your face, IMHO.Highly doubtful that a landowner requested any culling from this herd. For one thing, the herd was mainly hanging around in the Wind Farm area off of Hwy 97; no farms or cattle ranches until they get across the highway into the valley. These 'hunters" drove up a Private Road, clearly marked Private Road, and No Hunting, parked their trucks directly in front of two homes less than 20 yards away and opened fire on the herd in the direction of another property with horses and a few cattle. The property the elk were on consisted of maybe 10 acres of grass and burned sage. When they claimed they had permission from the property owner that "owned the Mexican Restaurant in town", the property owner with the horses told me that's a lie because his brother owns the restaurant and doesn't even own the property that the elk were shot on. The hunters also told me that they'd been "chasing" this herd for 3 days. Clearly, once they saw that the herd had settled on a piece of land off of the private road, they bailed out of their trucks and shot into the herd. Five hunters, 3 elk down and several others wounded and ran/limped off back onto the Wind Farm property.
If the facts are accurate, the individuals that performed this way should be removed from the MH program.They will still be just as unethical, if not more so without a "zero tolerance" policy. Their marksmanship will be just as poor.When they cripple an animal, miss, trespass, or violate any other legal or ethical code we most likely will never know.
