Proposal to eliminate ram harvest for 5 years

[Bambistew]

Well nr have a four year waiting period to come hunt sheep again if successful so maybe implement that for res

The 4 year wait is a joke. I looked at the stats on this with ADFG. There was like 3-4 NR a year that it eliminated, and most were next of kin.

I don't see why we allow so many NR tags... Period. NR kill 45% of our sheep. Maybe it shouldn't be that high. Why does AK have to be the welfare state for all others? If anyone should lose out it should be NR first and foremost.

Auctioning off sheep tags isn't going to do anything. Getting rid of NR hunters won't do anything. But it sure will give residents a better shot at killing their OIL sheep. Very fre residents kill more than one sheep. Less than 10% have killed more than 1.

Sheep are swirling the bowl. There is no easy fix. And the worthless W$F hasn't done a single thing in AK since they reformed their chapter... Except auction off tags.

 

[BradA]

The 4 year wait is a joke. I looked at the stats on this with ADFG. There was like 3-4 NR a year that it eliminated, and most were next of kin.

I don't see why we allow so many NR tags... Period. NR kill 45% of our sheep. Maybe it shouldn't be that high. Why does AK have to be the welfare state for all others? If anyone should lose out it should be NR first and foremost.

Auctioning off sheep tags isn't going to do anything. Getting rid of NR hunters won't do anything. But it sure will give residents a better shot at killing their OIL sheep. Very fre residents kill more than one sheep. Less than 10% have killed more than 1.

Sheep are swirling the bowl. There is no easy fix. And the worthless W$F hasn't done a single thing in AK since they reformed their chapter... Except auction off tags.

What do you mean it only eliminates 3-4 Nr from
Coming back and hunting the following year? I don’t understand, if there is mostly Nr take then wouldn’t that eliminate quiet a few guys from coming back the next year and kill another ram?

 

[BradA]

The 4 year wait is a joke. I looked at the stats on this with ADFG. There was like 3-4 NR a year that it eliminated, and most were next of kin.

I don't see why we allow so many NR tags... Period. NR kill 45% of our sheep. Maybe it shouldn't be that high. Why does AK have to be the welfare state for all others? If anyone should lose out it should be NR first and foremost.

Auctioning off sheep tags isn't going to do anything. Getting rid of NR hunters won't do anything. But it sure will give residents a better shot at killing their OIL sheep. Very fre residents kill more than one sheep. Less than 10% have killed more than 1.

Sheep are swirling the bowl. There is no easy fix. And the worthless W$F hasn't done a single thing in AK since they reformed their chapter... Except auction off tags.

I imagine less then ten percent of nr kill a second ram in their lifetime as well.

 

[Bambistew]

What do you mean it only eliminates 3-4 Nr from
Coming back and hunting the following year? I don’t understand, if there is mostly Nr take then wouldn’t that eliminate quiet a few guys from coming back the next year and kill another ram?

There is about 12-14 NR each year that had hunted more than once in the previous 4 years. Most all were NOK. Very few of them killed more than one ram in 4 years, like 3-4 of the total 45+/- in a 4 year period ( if that makes sense).

It was a feel good measure that the AK guide association proposed. It hurt NOK way more than it hurt guided clients and they knew it. Of those 40 return hunters, 3-4 where guided. It's not like they couldn't find someone to replace him and his $$$.

You are correct, very few NR kill more than one sheep. It's one and done because it's expensive. There is no limit on tags that can be sold to NR though. NR have higher success for many reasons, but that isn't a valid excuse to allow them to take 40-45% of the sheep every year. No other state allows that high of NR take for any species. CO is the highest, and it's like 15-18% of the take of elk and deer by NR in some areas. It's absolutely ludicrous that such a small group of guides has such a huge influence on our management. The closure of 19 is landmark, and hopefully just a start. We should have a limited quota for NR and end the OTC, BS. I tell everyone resident that asks me, if they want to kill sheep, hunt where the outfitters hunt. They have the best areas, and they say the reason residents don't have as high of success, is because they don't hunt as hard. They really don't like competition, and the clients dislike it even less.

As I said I'd bet that it will be reopened with a quota to "save" a few outfitters livelihoods. I've no doubt that proposals are already drafted. The board was split ( not a surprise considering 5 of 7 of them are linked to the guide industry) I heard one of the outfitters in 19 had a 20% success rate last year. Imagine booking 15 clients and shooting 3 rams and booking that many again this year knowing how they did last year. The BOG did those future clients a favor.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

I heard one of the outfitters in 19 had a 20% success rate last year. Imagine booking 15 clients and shooting 3 rams and booking that many again this year knowing how they did last year. The BOG did those future clients a favor.

The 19C Outfitter I hunted with back in 2012, had hunters go 2 for 4 in 2022. In 2021 they went 3 for 5 and in 2020 2 for 7. I see in Feb of 2022 he commented on a proposal to shutdown or move to permits in 19C by saying it wasn't necessary given the full curl requirement.

 

[Bambistew]

The 19C Outfitter I hunted with back in 2012, had hunters go 2 for 4 in 2022. In 2021 they went 3 for 5 and in 2020 2 for 7. I see in Feb of 2022 he commented on a proposal to shutdown or move to permits in 19C by saying it wasn't necessary given the full curl requirement.

ADFG in the meeting said they didn't know what the lowest level of legal rams should be. It could be zero... The FC regs allow us to shoot everything that's legal. It doesn't happen, but could.

What's scarry is we killed 100 more sheep than MT or CO last year, but supposedly have 5x as many sheep or more.

 

[treedagain]

How would they use that $$ to help the herd? Genuinely curious.

Pretty easy, predator control, move sheep, there will be areas that might be so depleted that they will not have viable herd #s to retain a breeding population.