Poor Hunter behavior at Lake Sonoma.

[Beastie]

I have always believed in keeping the hunt archery only. If for some reason there is a shotgun season next year, having a draw strictly for shotguns is the only realistic way of managing the number of hunters and their safety. And as in most "bad" situations, it only take one or two people to ruin it for everyone, literally!! I am a park ranger also, not at Lake Sonoma, and have much experience in implementing public programs and the issues that arise with the public, both positive and especially negative. And just like the news everday, you rarely hear about anything good, it is always the bad negative news you hear about which is caused by, in the big picture, a very small number of people. The more freedom you give the public, particularly in this type of situation, the more problems and negative behavior will encounter.

In my opinion, Ranger Joel, eliminatiing the shotgun season is the safest action. Some people may not appreciate this comment, but lets be realistic about this, guns make hunting easier, which in turn allows more people to have access, which in turn attracts a wide variety people with different beliefs, which in turn usually and in this case, leads to poor decisions and behavior. If you give the public and inch, they will take a mile. Thats just the way it is. In order to curb that, rules and regulations need to be in place and in this instance, the removal of the shotgun season completely. Im sure you are a very knowledgeable person Ranger Joel, but all it will take is ONE accident with this shotgun season, and more than likely, the whole hunt will be shut down anyway. Again, this is just my opinion, but the number of hunters and the amount of land available to hunt is just not a safe situation. To eliminate one month of shotgun hunting out of a 6 month hunting season does not sound unreasonable to me, especially since the majority of complaints are coming right now during the shotgun season.

 

[Rangerjoel]

Wow!

I was expecting to get a new one torn by opening this thread but the reposes here are well though out and helpful.
The check in station is a good idea as well as limiting the number of hunters. As of this weekend we are up to 1,200 hunters! It was a lot better when we had about 800.

I think a volunteer requirement for shotgun privileges would also take care of ALL of the irresponsible guys. (Fence mending between our property and the neighbors would go a long way to improving good will and allow the volunteers to get a little scouting in before the opener.
<o></o>
Keep the ideas coming and thank you!
<st1>Joe</st1>l

 

[BackCountryHNTR]

I propose to make the shotgun season draw only and crossbow for for disabled hunters only.

Thank you Rangel Joel.

 

[Rangerjoel]

Oh, also, it looks like we will be getting an archery range in the park soon. An agreement with the Sonoma County Bowmen is in the process of being approved so those of you in <st1><st1><st1:city w:st="on">Sonoma </st1:city></st1><st1>County</st1></st1> will have a new place to compete.
Joel

 

[sancho]

rangerjoel.

i would love to help with some volunteer work. i typically hunt the liberty glen area. running around with one of your park specialist learning new areas would be great. any information? can i bring my bow?

personally, i think shotgunners would do a great (better) job in eradicating the pigs. i myself am not helping matters at all. i have yet to get a pig. either way, i never feel endangered. i feel crowded, i and i do see beer cans tossed about. but that could be anyone. bowhunter, or shotgunner.

 

[muddy_udders]

My 2 cents.
Shotgun draw only for the month.

That way you know who is there and when the deer get shot you know who to blame.

I usually hunt with a recurve but bought a crossbow this year. I don't understand why the people are saying no crossbows, sounds the same as someone saying traditional bows only.

Can't we all just get along. :lol bashing sign:


PS: Joel, Thanks for the opportunity to hunt close to home. I truly appreciate it.

Robert

 

[Hogbutt]

Hello Everyone,
<o></o>
This is my first post and I picked a touchy subject to start out with. We all know this is a great hunting opportunity. One that probably does not exist anywhere in Ca. Thanks to Joel we as the responsible hunters need to look at this objectively. And yes I am an archer first and a gun hunter second. In my mind I think it would be great to have Lake Sonoma all to myself for archery only but the reason we all are allowed to hunt there is because there is a pig problem. The first thing that comes in my mind is hunter safety. That should be paramount. If someone where to get hurt whether by arrow or gun could jeopardize what we are all looking for and that's an opportunity to take a wild pig under fair chase conditions. This is not a pig ranch where you give X amount of money to sit in a tree stand and shoot a hog after the feeders are turned on with a guide by your side. And no offence to those guys because that experience is well worth the money especially when your just starting out. So with that in mind Lake Sonoma is not a pig ranch that is under tight control and will take responcible hunters to keep it safe, beautiful and enjoyable. So my first thought in this situation is to limit the amount of hunters by lottery in which you are assigned access by date. Like Joice Island. This will allow a certain number of hunters on any given day. Also split shotgun into two seasons. First 2 week season opener and last 2 week season ender. The archers can take the middle dates and limit the complaints. The following week after the last hunting day should be a volunteer day to pick up trash, fix fences or whatever needs to be done and have a bbq at the new range Joel’s working on.

Thanks,

<o>Hogbutt</o>
<o>
</o>

 

[Backcountry]

So my first thought in this situation is to limit the amount of hunters by lottery in which you are assigned access by date. Like Joice Island. This will allow a certain number of hunters on any given day. Also split shotgun into two seasons. <O>
</O>

This is how it used to be and they were killing even less hogs than now. The reason they went away from the limited lottery was to attempt to kill more pigs. With the lottery system, guys were only able to hunt once every few years. The advantage of the current system is that hunters may choose to hunt there a lot, learn the terrain, learn where the hogs tend to be (or not be), ect...

Trust me on this one... most of the hogs killed at Lake Sonoma are killed by the same small group of guys, year after year, because they know the area and put in the time and hard work required. If Joel gets rid of those guys with a lottery system, the already low harvest rate will decline even further.

 

[Mikey88]

Joel,

I want to start off by saying how blessed I feel to be able to hunt at Lake Sonoma. It is a beautiful place and one I can get to in a short amount of time. I have been hunting up there about ten times in the last month. I have seen one hog with in bow range but the rest of the time has still been awesome to just recharge mentally and meet other quality hunters.

I definately have seen a change in the amount of people and quality of hunter ethics between hunting in January and February. There are responsible shotgun hunters out there but with the offer of "shotgun February" alot of people with shotguns have come to "hunt". As has been said before if you address the shotgun period I think these incidents will be close to eliminated. I would be in favor of eliminating the shotgun season. I would also be interested in volunteering to help out with a fence project or any other good will toward the neighbors event. This hunt has been an awesome privilege to me and the other hunters I have talked too up there and would be a huge loss if taken away.

 

[TRey]

Mikey...good point. There are enough of us responsible hunters out there that can give back some time to Joel, join Friends of Lake Sonoma, and volunteer to do projects out there.

 

[sancho]

mikey..great post.

i for one, would love to put a homing beacon on "white mamba".

joel, let us know.

 

[TRey]

Hey Joel...Thanks for letting the info out about the archery range...I'm a SCB board member and wasn't too sure if I should mention the range yet or not. We are very excited about it. It's going to be great and as soon as the club president and your top person get this contract signed we'll be up there setting the range up.
There are a lot of good suggestions here. From what I am seeing the majority so far is suggesting cancelling shotgun all together. I think that is the easy way out...not good, not bad...just easy. Kill numbers would go way down and you want more dead pigs, not less. Or some other reasonable numbers.

I like the volunteer idea. Fixing fence, doing trash patrol, those kind of things go a long way to fix bad feelings with the neighbors and non hunters.

The check in station (obviously I'm partial to it since I mentioned it in my previous post) puts a little more organization and accountability in to the system. The 1%'ers aren't going to like checking in and out with an LEO or a ranger every time.

Orientations should be thorough and include the laws, regs, guidelines YOU want us to follow and should also go over the maps to ID the fencelines, how to ID hogs (vs deer or rabbits), shoot no shoot scenarios, and maybe a few other common sense things as well. Orientations now are only over the counter, here's your permit, heres your boat tag, here's your maps, have a nice day.

Anyway, me and some friends will be up at Liberty next week, hopefully from the 4th to the 8th, going after them with our trad bows. You see a silver F-150 with a camper shell and L1401 IAFF sticker on the back and a short funny looking guy with a recurve stop and say hi. We'll chew this subject up some more!

 

[fishnhunt]

This is how it used to be and they were killing even less hogs than now. The reason they went away from the limited lottery was to attempt to kill more pigs. With the lottery system, guys were only able to hunt once every few years. The advantage of the current system is that hunters may choose to hunt there a lot, learn the terrain, learn where the hogs tend to be (or not be), ect...

Trust me on this one... most of the hogs killed at Lake Sonoma are killed by the same small group of guys, year after year, because they know the area and put in the time and hard work required. If Joel gets rid of those guys with a lottery system, the already low harvest rate will decline even further.

Nobody thus far has suggested that it be draw only for bow hunters only for shotgunners....So those people who know the area well and regularlly take hogs will still be able to hunt with archery as they wish. I have resisted commenting on this since I live a ways away but I hope to stop by when I come down to vistit family since my pig tags are free. I haven't hunted there since I was a kid and shot my first deer. I do not own a bow and don't see one in my future so it would be shotgun for me. Although I'm interested in archery money has been holding me up. I can understand the need to limit shotguns but I would hate to have my only current option taken away.

 

[White Mamba]

Sancho, I wish I knew you were up there. Me and my freinds got on pigs almost every day, and a couple times on some days, we just couldnt make it happen. I think the pig gods are mad at me!

 

[sancho]

Sancho, I wish I knew you were up there. Me and my freinds got on pigs almost every day, and a couple times on some days, we just couldnt make it happen. I think the pig gods are mad at me!

dude, i am googling "homing beacon" right NOW! congrats on the encounters!

cliff

 

[Hogbutt]

Hey Backcounty,

I totally agree about the knowledgable hunters having most of the success at Lake Sonoma. I got to hunt there a week before shotgun opener and got my you what handed to me. But I enjoyed every minute of my hunt and was very appreciative of the opportunity and can't wait to go again. I was able to launch my boat during the weekday and not see another hunter after 2 solid days of hunting. I said there should be a limit on the number of hunters per day and that is going to be hard to accomplish with the limited supervision. If Lake sonoma has 8000 acres then how many hunters per acre can it support. This kinda reminds me of my tournament bass fishing days on the Delta. I'd be flippin a tule bank while the wake boarders were cuttin up the water. No respect.

 

[Mikey88]

"I think the pig gods are mad at me!"


No, you took me with you...the ultimate bad luck charm!:lol bashing sign:

 

[j30004x4]

Hey guys, I might get bashed for this but it is not just the shotgunners that are messing things up. I have personaly found garbage and other things in the archery only area. I came across a pretty fresh deer scull before shotgun even opened up, Which was a shocking surprise. I am not trying to blame any one group I just want to tell what I have seen. I hunted the lake last year and this year and unfortunatly I have to say this year is way diffrent, tons more people and garbage. Some people don't even seem to care if you have a place staked out they just seem to just walk thru or start making alot of noise. I try to get way off the trail so this doesn't happen but some times it does not work. I like archery hunting but it is also nice to take out the big gun every now and then, two diffrent ways to hunt ya know. I think a draw system would be a good idea but something for archery as well as shotgun. Maybe only a sertain number of hunters a year, and if you hunt one year you have to skip the next to give the next guy a chance. I also read in the post here that someone said they should get rid of the JR. hunt, that is totaly stupid. The kids that would hunt in that have nothing to do with the problems we are seeing this year. I love taking my son up hunting and he realy loves it to, he can't wait to get a pig, but with the way I have heard shotgun season is going this year I don't think I will bring him back up until shotgun season is over. Thanks for the space for my thoughts.

 

[NikolaKangrga]

I agree that canceling the JR hunts would be a BIG mistake! Every time they go out to lake sonoma for a hunt, not only are they staying off the streets, but they are spending quality time with love ones, AND most importantly learning the responsible ways of enjoying the outdoors from responsible hunters willing to spend the time with their kids/friends. Not allowing a young kid the chance to be introduced to the outdoors SHOULD NEVER BE AN OPTION! I would gladly give my right to hunt lake sonoma so a youngster could take my place every year!

As for finding a fresh deer skull.... Iam VERY familiar with the liberty glen side of the lake, which is a archery only area. I know for a fact that "atleast" one mountain lion is using this area frequently. I have run into this cat multiple times within the last few years. Infact my GF spotted him/her last month just below the camp grounds and pointed him out to me in FEAR for her life! Ive never seen her move that fast in her life! Im not saying that "this" cat killed the deer you speak of, but it most definitely is an option. If you would have found a carcass with a hole in it, well then thats something else. but just a skull...??? Even if "just a skull" was found on the shotgun side, I dont think I would blame it on the shotgun hunters. There are ALOT of predators out there, and they all kill the same game.

 

[upper]

Not to get off trak but a tournement bass fisherman and a wake boarder have a lot in common. Upper