Wyoming Game & Fish Meeting

[bucklover]

LAST EDITED ON Jan-17-13 AT 06:11AM (MST)[p]Those of you that live in the Evanston area, remember the meeting tonight, Thursday, Jan. 17, 6:30 pm. at the Uinta County Library.

 

[bucklover]

LAST EDITED ON Jan-18-13 AT 11:21AM (MST)[p]Just a follow up for the Evanston area. It looks like most of Knight Ridge is out of the walk-in. Outfitters are just making to good of an offer to the land owners. Fish and Game can't compete. Bear River Divide is probably going to be a draw from now on, and you will have to commit to first half, or second half, like Medicine Butte has been. It looks like everyone will have to leave your 4 wheelers, side by sides, etc. home if you plan on hunting Bear River Divide. You will not even be able to have them in the back of your trucks out there during the hunts.

 

[BuzzH]

Thanks for the update...and for attending.

 

[nontypical]

Interesting...

 

[wyowill]

Was unable to make the meeting. Was this a decision that was discussed at the meeting or did the G&F personnel already have these changes determined when the meeting began? The purpose of the meetings is supposed to be to get hunter input, not let them know what has already been decided. I am just curious about how this one went. Thanks for the update for attending.

 

[bucklover]

Most of the info was just that, info. The F&G was just relaying decisions made by land owners. In order to keep areas open, this is what needed to take place. These are just my thoughts here, but I feel this is just the beginning of what will take place in the future. I feel we will soon see large chunks of ground being locked up. Outfitters will just make it too tempting to the land owners and the common Joe will be left with very little, unless they want to pay big dollars for a place to hunt, or travel a lot further than they are used to, to find a decent piece of public land.

 

[nontypical]

I agree,Bucklover.Couple that with some hunter's lack of ethics and willful disobedience of landowner rules,and it's no great mystery why any landowner would get tired and frustrated with allowing the public on their land.Especially when they will make more money from the outfitter and also know that their fences will be closed and no off-road traffic will occurr.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

 

[elks96]

I have been thinking about this. I have had the fortune to access Ferris Mountain through the land owner program in WY. I was simply amazed that any place in the US had private land like this open to the public. In Colorado that does not happen, outfitters and big money have gobbled up all the access, in addition to the issues caused by those who do not obey the rules...

I actually donate a little extra every year when I apply to the program. I feel there will no longer be a time when the state is competitive with the private outfitter unless things change.

Just one thought I would like to see explored is that the state funds be used to hire on a compliance officer for larger chunks of the areas. The Ferris Ranch we accessed, I saw all sorts of crap going on. Mainly ATVs chasing down animals, but other things as well (an RV dumping water near a stock tank, gates left open, a truck driving into a hay meadow to retrieve an animal, etc.) I would during my last tag I hunted the mountain for 21 days between archery and the rifle season. I saw a DNR 1 time.

I would wonder if we couldn't get a more focused effort on protecting those areas and enforcing the rules. Hell I would volunteer an entire season to work as a volunteer patrol if I could figure up how to do it with out sacrificing my hunting too much. Maybe a small incentive for patrols would work as well. Heck I would even take a weekend for my family in the summer in a cabin someplace as a trade.

In addition to increasing the patrols, I would think that a volunteer work program to help the ranchers out would be great. Maybe each area has a volunteer work weekend where a bunch of labor shows up and helps the rancher out. Everything from fences, to weeds, to clean up, road repairs, etc. I would imagine that this program would be great for the ranchers and I know that I would show up for the Ferris property since I have used it.

 

[wyowill]

As these restrictions continue to expand across the state, which effectively begin to put the control of hunting into the hands of the large landowners, can landowner control of tags similar to what is done in the State of Utah be far behind? This would make hunter management much easier for the Game and Fish department as the landowners would be the ones responsible for controlling access, issuing the tags, ensuring compliance with the law and etc.