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Idaho does there big game counts with choppers every year, they do a few units each year and try to get back to each unit every 4 to 5 years.
Quote from: bigmacc on December 06, 2017, 11:51:44 AMA partner of mine killed a HUGE buck back in the 1980,s , if I remember right it was a 4 by 4 and field dressed, weighed in in the low 300,s(I,ll do some checking), anyway it had a collar on it with a transmitter and a brass tag that said if this collar is found please contact the game dept. (along with other contact info). We turned it in to the game folks we knew and they came up with some Bio,s and other game folks and gave the old buck a good looking over, they told us thank you and said we would be getting a detailed letter about the bucks life during the 3 or 4 years they tracked him. What I remember from the letter was the buck was trapped using a helicopter in the winter of 1982 in the northern part of the Methow on the winter range as a 3 1/2 year old, they picked him from a lot of other bucks because they said he was a "prime specimen" at the time, big, healthy and dominant, they tracked him for 3-4years until the batteries went dead, they had his summer range approx 20 to 25 miles into British Columbia and every winter he would migrate the 50 plus miles to his winter range in the Methow, the batteries had went dead and they lost track of him for a few years. They figured he had been nabbed by a predator or died of natural causes because of his age by then and also the collar not being turned in by hunters. I remember in the packet my friend got in the mail along with the letter and biography were a bunch of pictures showing the trapping and collaring of the buck, one of the pics were of the deer in a net being dipped into the Chewuch river with a helicopter to kind of "wake him up" a little. We heard from a Game dept. friend that the biologist that handled that buck put the collar on a plaque and it hung on his mantle at his house, it was his first mule deer project as a young bio and it really meant something to him.....That's a cool story. I got a lion on a trail cam in the Blues a few years back that had a collar on. I sent the pics to the bio and was told he was collared probably 5 years earlier and a general area in the Blues the collar was put on him. We weren't able to ID the lion so not able to say for sure any specific details.
A partner of mine killed a HUGE buck back in the 1980,s , if I remember right it was a 4 by 4 and field dressed, weighed in in the low 300,s(I,ll do some checking), anyway it had a collar on it with a transmitter and a brass tag that said if this collar is found please contact the game dept. (along with other contact info). We turned it in to the game folks we knew and they came up with some Bio,s and other game folks and gave the old buck a good looking over, they told us thank you and said we would be getting a detailed letter about the bucks life during the 3 or 4 years they tracked him. What I remember from the letter was the buck was trapped using a helicopter in the winter of 1982 in the northern part of the Methow on the winter range as a 3 1/2 year old, they picked him from a lot of other bucks because they said he was a "prime specimen" at the time, big, healthy and dominant, they tracked him for 3-4years until the batteries went dead, they had his summer range approx 20 to 25 miles into British Columbia and every winter he would migrate the 50 plus miles to his winter range in the Methow, the batteries had went dead and they lost track of him for a few years. They figured he had been nabbed by a predator or died of natural causes because of his age by then and also the collar not being turned in by hunters. I remember in the packet my friend got in the mail along with the letter and biography were a bunch of pictures showing the trapping and collaring of the buck, one of the pics were of the deer in a net being dipped into the Chewuch river with a helicopter to kind of "wake him up" a little. We heard from a Game dept. friend that the biologist that handled that buck put the collar on a plaque and it hung on his mantle at his house, it was his first mule deer project as a young bio and it really meant something to him.....
Quote from: bearpaw on December 06, 2017, 01:36:55 PMIdaho does there big game counts with choppers every year, they do a few units each year and try to get back to each unit every 4 to 5 years.Wish there was a way to volunteer for the ride along.
Quote from: X-Force on December 06, 2017, 01:43:31 PMQuote from: bearpaw on December 06, 2017, 01:36:55 PMIdaho does there big game counts with choppers every year, they do a few units each year and try to get back to each unit every 4 to 5 years.Wish there was a way to volunteer for the ride along.careful what you wish for I watched a helicopter (Robinson R44 I think) doing a duck survey along the river, all the sudden it flared up and chopped the power lines by my house knocking out power. Dude landed in my hayfield next to me, I was on a Kubota watching the helicopter go up the river at low altitude. The pilot checked out his rotor blades and was about to take off again and I'm like: "dooood! - don't you think you ought to call someone?? like FAA? you just knocked out power to the whole town it's not like they aren't going to find out it was you then you'll be in bigger trouble. I mean he had a federal USFWS gal with him, he wasn't going to get away with it... pilot: "sigh, ya probably better.. can I borrow your phone?"I think you better 20-30 minutes later I had Stevens CO, Border Patrol, Ferry CO, Park Service, WDFW, NFS...fire department.. I don't know who all but about 30 some gov vehicles in my hayfield, glad I didn't have a crop in
Something to think about. I knew Rocky.https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/state-agency-cited-in-biologists-death/
