NE NoDak Game and Fish Meeting

Zogman

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From the GF Herald by Brad Dokken

Officials from the North Dakota Game and Fish Department got an earful this week in Grand Forks from hunters frustrated with not being able to draw a deer gun tag in recent years.

Some hunters said they've now gone more than five years without drawing a gun season tag.


About 65 people, mostly middle-age and older men, (them Gosh Darn Baby Bombers) filled the Red River Archers' indoor range Tuesday night for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department's District 4 fall Advisory Board meeting. Game and Fish is mandated to hold the meetings twice a year in each of the state's eight Advisory Board districts.
District 4 covers Grand Forks, Nelson, Pembina and Walsh counties.
As in previous years, deer hunting discussion dominated the fall meeting, but the level of frustration some of the more vocal hunters expressed Tuesday night seemed higher than what I've heard in the previous 40 or so meetings I've attended in the past 20 years.
The Game and Fish Department traditionally aims to issue deer gun tags at a level that ensures a hunter success rate of 70 percent. Unfortunately, a series of three consecutive tough winters beginning in 2008, coupled with habitat loss and several previous years of aggressive harvest combined to drastically reduce deer populations.
Fewer deer on the landscape means the department has to issue fewer tags to maintain that 70 percent success rate.
"We would like to see more deer out on the landscape than what there is, but the only way to do that is habitat," said Terry Steinwand, Game and Fish director, who led Tuesday night's meeting with Wildlife Chief Jeb Williams.
Providing more habitat will require hunters to contact their congressional delegation to encourage support for Farm Bill habitat provisions such as the federal Conservation Reserve Program, Steinwand said.
"In North Dakota, habitat matters," he said.
Finding a balance

Game and Fish this year offered 54,500 deer gun licenses. That's up from last year, a sign deer numbers are moving in the right direction, but it's still far below the mid-2000s, when more than 100,000 tags were available and supply often exceeded demand.
About 40,000 hunters applied for gun tags this year but didn't get drawn. Some people Tuesday night wondered if managing for a 70 percent hunter success rate still is realistic, given the difficulty in even drawing a tag.
"On the system we have, if you don't draw, you don't go," one hunter said. "I'm 69 years old and haven't drawn a tag in six years. If I draw one next year, I might as well sell the gun."


Big reductions
Responding to criticism the department issues too many doe tags, Williams, the wildlife chief, said Game and Fish in 2008 offered 9,000 antlerless tags in Unit 2C, a unit in far northeast North Dakota north of U.S. Highway 2. This year, 300 antlerless tags were available in 2C, he said.
"The majority of the state where our reduction is coming has been in the antlerless segment, so I think we have done that," Williams said. "Now, whether you want to say we should have had 9,000 tags back in 2008, that's a different subject, but at that time, there were many people in this room that said 'Yeah, we should; we should sell more.'
"We have drastically reduced the number of licenses in pretty much all these units, and that's also some frustration now. Now you can't get a license. So which one do we want?"
As for the future, the best the department can do, Williams said, is be conservative with licenses while relying on Mother Nature and efforts to encourage the conservation of wildlife habitat.
When CRP was at its 3.5 million-acre peak in North Dakota, the federal government paid out $130 million in annual payments to landowners, Williams said. By comparison, the Game and Fish Department's entire two-year budget is $75 million.
There's only so much the department can do for habitat, in other words.
"We're not going to get back to levels people would like," Williams said of deer and license numbers. "Is this what we're going to have to get used to? At this point in time, yes. I get it, we're not meeting the public's expectations."

Sorry I am bored today.
So did anyone attend any of these meetings??

 


lunkerslayer

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From the GF Herald by Brad Dokken

Officials from the North Dakota Game and Fish Department got an earful this week in Grand Forks from hunters frustrated with not being able to draw a deer gun tag in recent years.

Some hunters said they've now gone more than five years without drawing a gun season tag.


About 65 people, mostly middle-age and older men, (them Gosh Darn Baby Bombers) filled the Red River Archers' indoor range Tuesday night for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department's District 4 fall Advisory Board meeting. Game and Fish is mandated to hold the meetings twice a year in each of the state's eight Advisory Board districts.
District 4 covers Grand Forks, Nelson, Pembina and Walsh counties.
As in previous years, deer hunting discussion dominated the fall meeting, but the level of frustration some of the more vocal hunters expressed Tuesday night seemed higher than what I've heard in the previous 40 or so meetings I've attended in the past 20 years.
The Game and Fish Department traditionally aims to issue deer gun tags at a level that ensures a hunter success rate of 70 percent. Unfortunately, a series of three consecutive tough winters beginning in 2008, coupled with habitat loss and several previous years of aggressive harvest combined to drastically reduce deer populations.
Fewer deer on the landscape means the department has to issue fewer tags to maintain that 70 percent success rate.
"We would like to see more deer out on the landscape than what there is, but the only way to do that is habitat," said Terry Steinwand, Game and Fish director, who led Tuesday night's meeting with Wildlife Chief Jeb Williams.
Providing more habitat will require hunters to contact their congressional delegation to encourage support for Farm Bill habitat provisions such as the federal Conservation Reserve Program, Steinwand said.
"In North Dakota, habitat matters," he said.
Finding a balance

Game and Fish this year offered 54,500 deer gun licenses. That's up from last year, a sign deer numbers are moving in the right direction, but it's still far below the mid-2000s, when more than 100,000 tags were available and supply often exceeded demand.
About 40,000 hunters applied for gun tags this year but didn't get drawn. Some people Tuesday night wondered if managing for a 70 percent hunter success rate still is realistic, given the difficulty in even drawing a tag.
"On the system we have, if you don't draw, you don't go," one hunter said. "I'm 69 years old and haven't drawn a tag in six years. If I draw one next year, I might as well sell the gun." Doesn't he know he can go to other units to get a tag, i wonder why he doesn't take up that offer to hunt in a different unit?


Big reductions
Responding to criticism the department issues too many doe tags, Williams, the wildlife chief, said Game and Fish in 2008 offered 9,000 antlerless tags in Unit 2C, a unit in far northeast North Dakota north of U.S. Highway 2. This year, 300 antlerless tags were available in 2C, he said.
"The majority of the state where our reduction is coming has been in the antlerless segment, so I think we have done that," Williams said. "Now, whether you want to say we should have had 9,000 tags back in 2008, that's a different subject, but at that time, there were many people in this room that said 'Yeah, we should; we should sell more.'
"We have drastically reduced the number of licenses in pretty much all these units, and that's also some frustration now. Now you can't get a license. So which one do we want?"
As for the future, the best the department can do, Williams said, is be conservative with licenses while relying on Mother Nature and efforts to encourage the conservation of wildlife habitat.
When CRP was at its 3.5 million-acre peak in North Dakota, the federal government paid out $130 million in annual payments to landowners, Williams said. By comparison, the Game and Fish Department's entire two-year budget is $75 million.
There's only so much the department can do for habitat, in other words.
"We're not going to get back to levels people would like," Williams said of deer and license numbers. "Is this what we're going to have to get used to? At this point in time, yes. I get it, we're not meeting the public's expectations."
Yes this is what we will be getting used to here in north dakota for the see able future. Maybe we can have a unit stocking of deer option NDGF would have a huge game farm to raise deer, moose, antelope, pronghorns then release then into the wild were they are needed.

Sorry I am bored today.
So did anyone attend any of these meetings??


1
 

eyexer

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I didn't get drawn six years in a row and just gave up. So I can feel these guys pain. And it's going to get more and more heated every year until they come up with a better system. Things have changed dramatically in the last 40 years so there obviously needs to be a change in the system. I don't think the Game and Fish will be able to kick the can down the road much longer.
 

WormWiggler

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I didn't get drawn six years in a row and just gave up. So I can feel these guys pain. And it's going to get more and more heated every year until they come up with a better system. Things have changed dramatically in the last 40 years so there obviously needs to be a change in the system. I don't think the Game and Fish will be able to kick the can down the road much longer.

now just wait one god damn minute, the last week melted down the website and it was determined that it ain't broke so don't fix it (see various polls & arguments)
 

zoops

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I hunted 2C when I was in college in the mid-2000s and deer numbers were through the roof. My grandfather owned a couple hundred acres by the Red and one year it had sugar beets on it and it was like a petting zoo. The fact that jumped out at me was the reduction of doe tags from 9000 to 300 in less than 10 years - WOW! That is astounding. Are there really that few deer over there now?

I won't offer much for opinions on the deer tag issue since it's one of those topics that no one will ever agree on. Definitely no simple solution.
 


Account Deleted

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Maybe some of you guys can talk to the does and have them start dropping more triplets. About as productive as the other things that have been suggested.
 


Bfishn

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I didn't get drawn six years in a row and just gave up. So I can feel these guys pain. And it's going to get more and more heated every year until they come up with a better system. Things have changed dramatically in the last 40 years so there obviously needs to be a change in the system. I don't think the Game and Fish will be able to kick the can down the road much longer.
What unit?
 

You

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regarding the deer population (or lackthereof) the answer IS habit and a good run of weather. a solution does not exist in changing tag allocations and/or how the LOTTERY is ran. i belive the food/forage to be adequate in most parts of the state.

now, how can the g&f promote long term habitat creation in each and every unit? I don't know, but if it were my job or full time responsibility to look out for herd health I'd definatelly have some decent ideas by now.

I know a lot if not most of their funding comes from license fees. the deer LOTTERY has to be one of the biggest sources of revenue for them (maybe the biggest?) it's in their interest to have a larger herd. they need to work towards that. they need more money to promote long term habitat creation. external funding sources/ideas need to be hatched but some must come from within by way of fat trimming. I'm sure there are oodles of fat-trim options but the few 'no-brainers' I'm aware of are:

1. paying even one red cent to enroll an acre of featureless, coverless land into the plots program is stupid

2. maintaining and managing a sustainable deer-decimating population of mountain lions and all the unnecessary studying/collaring/tracking/man hours bs that goes along with it, just so the same few groups of houndsman can take their 5th, 6th, and 7th nd lion is stupid in more ways than one.

3. bighorn sheep. give it up already HOLY HELL. like most i do hope to draw one but our 'hope' has never been worth the price of admission. so so stupid.

4. promotional agency. I don't entirely know what this means but i know the g&f is considered one.

to me it should mean the hunters ed program, kids fishing ponds and rods/tackle, the occasional school function, public input meetings, or the occasional media clip or radio session.

it should not mean a massive presence at the state fair and all the man hours, hotel rooms, and per diem that I assume goes with (overtime too?). and it sure as heck shouldn't mean paying for embroidered vests, tshirts, pullovers, and hiking boots for every licensing clerk, accountant, and administrator in the Bismarck office. even the biologists, people in fisheries, and others that go afield from time to time. I'd give them boots and a removable badge/nametag. that'd be the extent of their 'uniforms' and uniform budget. (wardens excluded. uniform the crap out of them)
 
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frozen4sioux

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Absolutely blithering lunacy....

The only thing dropping faster in 2C than doe tag allocations is shelter belts!.

Each shelter belt along a quarter of land used to hold at least a doe and fawn set....
Cant have it both ways....

9000 tags was disgusting...but so was watching massive heards of deer struggle through winter.

You can not doze every shelter nelt from the 50s and y0s and expect the deer to be able to survive
 

shorthairsrus

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On the system we have, if you don't draw, you don't go," one hunter said. "I'm 69 years old and haven't drawn a tag in six years. If I draw one next year, I might as well sell the gun.



SELL YOUR GUN boomer. How many tags and deer did you shoot when Randy was handing out tags like a drunken sailor. 69yrz old and all you think about is "me me me me me me".
 

lunkerslayer

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Absolutely blithering lunacy....

The only thing dropping faster in 2C than doe tag allocations is shelter belts!.

Each shelter belt along a quarter of land used to hold at least a doe and fawn set....
Cant have it both ways....

9000 tags was disgusting...but so was watching massive heards of deer struggle through winter.

You can not doze every shelter nelt from the 50s and y0s and expect the deer to be able to survive

What about the argument that those shelter belts collect snow making them unhabitable for big game. I am afraid that the real deciding factor is still and has always been the numbers of predators and record snow fall. There is not a easy solution to deer management but give me 8 to 10 foot high industrial hemp six row wide for 2640 feet I will give you habitat fit for suitable protection from mother nature. What cool about hemp is it can be planted as a wind break. I know know never going to happen but man what a great concept. Now close your eyes and picture wind breaks made of hemp
 


Davey Crockett

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Thumbs Up You dirty hippy you are just making up excuses to plant it so you can smoke it.

- - - Updated - - -

Haha That was common knowledge a couple years ago .
 

dust in the wind

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What about the argument that those shelter belts collect snow making them unhabitable for big game. I am afraid that the real deciding factor is still and has always been the numbers of predators and record snow fall. There is not a easy solution to deer management but give me 8 to 10 foot high industrial hemp six row wide for 2640 feet I will give you habitat fit for suitable protection from mother nature. What cool about hemp is it can be planted as a wind break. I know know never going to happen but man what a great concept. Now close your eyes and picture wind breaks made of hemp

let me start by saying I know this isn’t how it works but.....

when i I read this all I pictured was a bunch of deer like cheech and Chong....

thats all.
 

Reprobait

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On the system we have, if you don't draw, you don't go," one hunter said. "I'm 69 years old and haven't drawn a tag in six years. If I draw one next year, I might as well sell the gun.



SELL YOUR GUN boomer. How many tags and deer did you shoot when Randy was handing out tags like a drunken sailor. 69yrz old and all you think about is "me me me me me me".

It is only going to get worse. The baby-boomers are going to make for some horrible "greedy geezers".
 

Obi-Wan

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So wanting a tag is greedy but wanting a multi tags is not. Those old geezers most likely hunted through both bad and good years and have seen it both ways which most of you youngsters on this site have not had to deal with. Also you will be an geezer a lot sooner than you think.
It is only going to get worse. The baby-boomers are going to make for some horrible "greedy geezers".
 


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