Two issues for me:
ethics
disease
Ethics
It's in the eye of the beholder and i feel i have little control on that. I started hunting deer with rifle in 1959 and my last year was 1995.
As i look back over that time there have been many ethics issues that i have seen and been involve with myself. My thoughts have change a lot on that subject as i have age to finally in 95 i shot my last whitetail with a rifle. I now even question the ethics, with todays rifles and scopes, the shooting of deer during the rut. But to each their own and i will not question what you do or ask for rules to limit what you do.
One needs to police themselves as to ethics in their own mind. I cannot do that for you nor can Game and Fish with rules (they cannot watch everyone all the time). i ask the same of you. I will live with what i have done over the years and hopefully i have become more understanding of fair chase and respect for the wildlife. I will not force my views on you.
Disease:
I do not have the book learning for this nor am i a part of all the research on this.
I feel game and fish nor anyone has an understanding of what to do. Game and Fish will ban so it looks like they are doing something but have no idea if it will help. Shot in the dark.
I believe all common sense is missing. When the experts say plots are okay as deer do not eat off the ground with plots, the experts say lets kill all the deer in an area and then tell me the disease lives in the soil as a way to cure it, with a little common sense one knows none of this is right and the list can go on.
So i continue to call and contact those who have the say on this and i feel it is a lost cause but hopefully we can change the hunting guild on this before our governor signs it.
As for game and fish:
I hunted deer by walking by myself or with others. In 1995 after a day of walking a guy came with a pickup and a nice deer for the time in the back box. How you find him i ask? I was driving down the road, seen him running, drove up to him, got out of the vehicle and shot him.
For me and my brother we decided, at that time, we are done chasing deer. Like all living things the need for habitat, food and water. So we decided to do this and let the deer come to us. Had 1140 acres to work with. I told my brother i will check with game and fish to make sure this is legal and the hunting over bait. We both did discuss the ethics of this.
Call Bismarck and the person at game and fish said let me check with others in the office. Came back and said it was legal but maybe you heard all the laughing and i said i did not. Well, all of us here thing this is the biggest joke we every heard. They will come up at night, eat all your corn and you will never even see a deer, and then he laugh on the phone. My brother ask me what they said and i told him they think your a big joke as we proceeded with our plans. That was in 1995. Yea, it was a big joke alright. Wish i had gotten the name of that person.
I have experience this other times with the most recent the elk in the Turtle Mountains. I ask the game warden who manages the elk up there how many elk are up there and he said the last count was 300. A few weeks ago a couple of friends of mine, one afternoon, count over 550 at three spots south of the peace garden while they sat on a hill. A friend took a couple up in a plane and they counted over 900 on the south side of the border. Not easy to count but they felt these number were on the low side.
I have told game and fish there could be at least 1500 elk up there. I feel they will not listen to me so, like Medora, we will wake up with a problem. Then all the so called experts will come in and the first thing is to hire a sharp shooters to kill with the pretense to feed the people who are starving up here. Hell a hand full of those on this site have told me they are tire of me talking about this and to shut up.
Trust me there is a problem and if not, then i guess i was wrong.
But, please, take the time to come and look before you judge. db-2
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But as an after thought, i will adapt and have made plans accordingly. db