I've personally watched 18 elk die. 4 during the TRNP thing, 14 on real hunting trips. I've seen them killed with: 257Wby, 270Win, 300Win, and 338Win. I personally killed one w/257Wby, 10 w/300Win. My 270Win hand loads accounted for 2 more by other folks. One via buddies 300Win and his own...
I gotta admit, this spring on the river when my buddy caught a ~10# pike w/big ol' fat belly I had a hard time believing the words that came outta my mouth, "put her in the well". It felt sadistically GOOD when I laid the knife to it and threw 1/2 billion eggs in the garbage with the...
And the generous limits of smaller fish worked to sustain a great fishery, then, by accident, they learned that gizzard shad make for an acceptable substitute for rainbow smelt in the event of a "smelt flush". Because of that they averted forage base deficiencies in '08, '09, '11, and '12.
We could have another flood. We could have a drought. We could lose the food base and Oahe could go back to 14 fish/day. There could be a bajillion more gizzard shad that come outta the Black Hills.
COE is of far more concern than 200-300 boats from Bismarck to the Cannonball on the...
River in and S of Bismarck looked just like this year in spring of '08 and '12, pretty sure '07 as well. I remember leaving my boat/truck on my dad's RV pad next to his house in Bismarck for Apr/May in '06, 07, and 08.
I'm not saying don't keep an eye on numbers but if you think the river...