I agree with you luv2hunt, i wasnt in anyway meaning you were one of the ones who are always complaining, I just pulled your name out of the kitty because of the example of your activity and posting here. I was lumping together just all kinds of crap I have heard from a multitude of different forums over the last couple of years, people always just griping about everything that the FWC has done, or is planning. It just gets me so aggravated, any issue where everyone starts to say how the FWC has or is going to screw things up, and my major point is that all there changes are because of a large portion of us hunters yelling we want this or we want that, then yellin if the other guy gets his wish, and we didnt, or its a compromise to what group a and group b want.
I mean a large part of the people arent going to be happy no matter what. On one hand they gripe that as gun hunters they dont get much opportunity to take does,, at the same time yellin that the population isnt large enough, because they are not seeing as much game as they think they should. So the FWC limits doe harvest after archery, (which is a good barometer of breeding times coincidentally.) to protect bred does.These same guys complain that bow hunters shouldnt have all the opps at does, yet when you say that the reasoning for the limited doe harvest after archery is to protect those does that are quite possibly been bred by then, they dont want to hear that, and say how other states with a more recognizable rut period , the breeding takes place during the late part of the gun season.
Also, people always yapping what other states do, do they realise those other states, many only have about a 2week season? We dont want that. We cant try and model our game policies after other states.
I have a question for the guys that are never happy, and always want to complain?,
Ok you say that there is no checkstation in the WMA you hunt, how about this, you and a few buds that are regulars on that WMA,,, Get together with the warden in the area, or call the FWC office,,,pitch in, buy the material, and spend an afternoon, build a small checkstation ,it doesnt have to be anythinbg fancy,, and a weatherproof box to have some game logs, and overall observation logs, and everyone start to log in and out and fill out the reports? Soon hopefully everyone will do it, and at the point we have contributed and essentially delivered some important info that the FWC personal can go thru and now they will be getting a bunch of the data that they need to monitor game condition and harvests, and such. with no expense to them for the gathering of that data. It might cost you a half afternoon in the summer, and maybe a six pack less a weekend for a couple months. If you arent willing to do that, then you have no right to bi**h about what isnt or isnt happening as far as the FWC and monitoring is concerned.
A few guys from each WMA willing to do that could be a major difference in things getting better.
If you really looked into it, all the WMA's that have the checkstations, (manned or unmanned,) and cleaning racks, those were done by people volunteering there time and in many cases money and material. Same with the WMA's with food plots, thats not the FWC, its the NWTF and other groups.
I know this is a hot topic for allot of people and I do not know much about huntting. I just want to remind everyone to respect each other. I 'm not saying that anyone has crossed the line, but I see this is a touchy topic and do not want it getting out of hand.
Name a business the government runs properly. Enough said! 🙁
Ok first, i just want to say i am not trying to be argumentative, or get people going, but when I read this topic, and the first 2 response posts after Cr0cks original were right off bashing the FWC . heres an example
The FWC has our deer seaso more f----ed up that a midget basketball game. Counting on these idiots to fix anything is hopeless.
x2, they hire some of the most ignorant people in the world to make these "game laws". It is hard to understand deer when you spend 85% of your time in the AC. These meetings are totally pointless, they do whatever there so called "expert biologist" say to do anyway
It just gets me mad. Yes I actually agree with you to a point, just like the quota meetings, I have said before I beleive they had their minds made up on what they would do in advance of the first meetings, just had to go thru the motions. But here, in this instance, its talking about holding meetings to discuss possible management zones, to try and appease us hunters again. We are crying that the rut is so screwy and how many areas ( generally the south)the rut is over before hunting season begins, or in others season is over before the rut gets going, and that is the reason we arent killin the numbers or size or whatever. So they start to address the issue and have meetings to discuss making changes that may help, and its immediately FWC bashing time., Oh by the way I am willing to bet money, they make changes so that, for example the guys down south get there season started at least right at or before the beginning of the estimated (guessed) rut periods, then after there first season they will be screaming about how the bulk of their season is now in the middle of the hottest part of summer. I have seen how on the research they have done on conception dates alot of the does are being bred as early as late June, early July in areas of south Florida..
If FWC has a problem staffing and managing these lands maybe they shouldn't purchase them and try half heartedly to manage them.[
First, very little of the WMA lands are owned and bought by the FWC, but are being bought or are owned by other state and federal agencies, or are owned by timber companies and such that work with the FWC to allow us to hunt them.
And secondly, they are trying to "manage" so much land, once again because of us, the hunting, no, the outdoors loving public. We yelled enough that we need more opportunty and availability, for us to have use of lands for all kinds of recreation, that there was an amendment to the Florida state constitution, which requires by law for the FWC to make these opportunities available to us, a specified mimimum amount of land at all times.
Why can't we shoot does? Can the biologist tell me? NOPE!
I agree we need more does harvested, and they only response i ever got when i have asked people why not more doe days during general gun was from a volunteer biologist doing some work with the FWC, and it mades sense to me. What I said before about protecting does that have a high probability of already being bred.
I agree that we do not have the nutrition to grow the midwest giants, but to say that we are unable to produce good deer is incorrect.
No one said we are unable to produce good deer,,,,,, what i said is that so many hunters are always complaining that we dont, and the problem is that their perception of a "good deer" is a B&C class buck. they are unwilling to except that we will never have an abundance of them, it is just not in the cards for Florida deer. Will we have some every year, yes, but never in numbers.. Why dont we get our state biologists to get with the B&C or P&Y people and see about getting a new class recognized for Florida's deer subspecies.. A couple years back just that thing was done for Anticosti Island deer. The biologists showed that due to genetic quirks of that subspecies and available nutrition, a 100 inch deer is equivalent to a 140 inch "normal whitetail" so a new class was created. Same thing out west for Couse deer, a 100 inch buck is considered as big a trophy as a 200 inch midwestern buck. Maybe if these record book organizations say that a 100 or a 110 inch buck is trophy class, ( and Florida does have many that size , or flirting with it every year) these guys will finally except it.
And this is just my opinion, and we all know what opinions are worth, but "subbing out" the management of WMAs would be disatrous, just look at the "unbeleivable success" of that "subbing out" that was done with school systems and the charter school programs, total flop.
I guess my big gripe is lets quit just bi**hing about what the FWC is always getting wrong, (in our perception, maybe not your neighbors though ) and do what we can do to help improve matters ourselves. We yell more does need to be killed, .For whatever reason, the doe harvest is essentially limited to bow hunters,well if you bow hunt, kill more does, quit holding out for a buck all the time.,Do like i said previously about getting with the land managers and building that log and checkstation. We do things like that, and we teach new guys to do such, and convince as many other hunters as we can to do likewise, We will be well on the road to improving matters and greatly assisting the FWC in moving in the right direction, so they cant use those obstacles and the expense of doing it as an excuse.
As for south Florida dates do you know if the park service is even going to cooperate with any new dates??? As access is not allowed in everglades park certain times of the year. From the experiences I've had with the park service I wouldn't be surprised if they don't. Just curious if that came up during one of thees meetings?
