What would you do?

I will be hunting a F/IM Ibex starting on March 3rd through the 7th. One of my sons was also called up for the March 10-14th hunt. Would you take a Female or would you look for an immature male?

I ask this in relation to some conversation and web trolling I have had or done. Many have said there aren't as many Ibex on the mountain as years past, and the quality of the Billie's is down (not many over 40"). Yet the NMGF have offered these hunts to reduce the numbers. I am torn because of the two arguments.

Here are my two thoughts:

1- If I take a female it reduces the reproduction population. It will allow the overall numbers to drop, but allow the number and maybe quality of Billie's to increase.

2- If I take an immature Billy it allows the females to remain and increase the overall numbers. However, it would be taking a male off the mountain who could be a potential trophy later in life.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions.

The female.

The immature male or a very young one (you won't be able to tell the difference in sexes at that age).
We need all the reproductive potential they have. All the females I have helped hunt in the past several years have been pregnant with twins this time of year, so you are really taking out 3.
Between Rifle, youth and muzzleloader there are too many Billy tags to allow billies to get old enough to reach their full potential.

>The immature male or a very
>young one (you won't be
>able to tell the difference
>in sexes at that age).
>
>We need all the reproductive potential
>they have. All the
>females I have helped hunt
>in the past several years
>have been pregnant with twins
>this time of year, so
>you are really taking out
>3.
>Between Rifle, youth and muzzleloader there
>are too many Billy tags
>to allow billies to get
>old enough to reach their
>full potential.


I will agree all dep tags have hindered the population and quality of ibex. I personally think the hunts are unnecessary,and are doing more harm than good.

A 1 year old Billy can service 10 nannies or more, a 2 year old 25 or more, 3 year old or "mature Billy" up to 40!!!
If you realize that you should also realize if you take one more unnecessary Billy off that hill you'll be taking more than 1 pregnant nanny. Hope this helps.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-27-18 AT 07:37AM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Feb-27-18 AT 07:37?AM (MST)

BuglenmIN-

I guess you have confused me a little. LOL

Your first reply said take a female, then your second reply agreed with taking an immature Billy from NMhunter4life's response. However, the last part of your second post with the comment "one more unnecessary Billy off that hill you'll be taking more than 1 pregnant nanny" leads me back to taking a female I believe.

I understand your logic with the servicing capability of the different aged Billie's, but there has to be a population there for the Billy to service, don't you think?

LAST EDITED ON Feb-27-18 AT 09:00AM (MST)[p]While I have never figured out the DGF management plan on ibex, it occurs to me that one concept behind the F/IM hunt would be to alter the herd's billy/nanny ratio. There may be too many females. Just a guess. I'd take a nanny instead of an immature billy in any case.

There's more nannies than billies. Their will be plenty for them to service. So I'm sorry to confuse you,take the nanny.

Have you been up there recently? I was up two weeks ago and there were definitely more billies than nannies. Mostly young billies above the legal limit but not even near trophy size.

As you said. It only takes one billy to service many nannies. I do not understand your logic in shooting a nanny.

My fear is that G&F is going to knock the numbers low enough that the ibex end up in a predator pit and will have trouble getting numbers back up. This is essentially what happened to all the desert bighorn herds that were stuck just barely holding their own until G&F started targeted lion removal with snares that allowed them to reach a critical mass and start increasing their populations. (Kudos to G&F for realizing this and doing something.)

The predators on the Florida's are used to a large population of ibex, and nobody really knows what number of ibex are killed per year by nonhuman predators. If predators are killing 100 ibex per year, that won't affect a population of 1200 but it will really hammer a population of 400. Between lions, eagles and G&F moving too slowly to adjust tags downward I am very concerned that the ibex are going to end up in a predator pit.

Here is a link to an interesting diagram of a predator pit if you have not read about this concept before.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...te-plotted-on-the-left-ordinate_fig3_43453216

If G&F ends up with a population of 400-700, which is their goal, then trophy billy tags will need to be seriously cut to keep up quality. It takes about 7 years to hit the low to mid-40's on the several ibex heads that i have seen and counted the growth rings on. A population like this would probably only be able to support 15-20 trophy billy tags per year while keeping quality good. I consider the OIL, youth and muzzleloader tags to all be trophy billy tags.

I hope I am wrong and G&F does not overshoot things with the 600 depredation tags that they are giving out. My "boots on the ground" observations would say there are fewer ibex than G&F thinks there are.

If you look at the graph on the link I posted, I think that right now the ibex are to the right of the critical intersection point. My concern is that with the number of tags this year they are going to overshoot things and end up in the "pit" to the left of the critical intersection point.
I guess only time will tell.

Simple logic, one nanny can be responsible for up to 3 lives a year,a Billy can be responsible for many more than that. I think g&f has already hurt the population enough ,I don't agree with all the dep tags,but don't see anyone turning them down,after all it could be a guys only chance to hunt 1!!
Just like elk hunting,if I don't have an opportunity at a mature bull,I'll shoot a cow before a rag horn. I don't see a reason to harvest what can potentially be a trophy bull,when I'm only looking to " FILL MY FREEZER"

The first time I was in the Floridas was 2004. I've been there every few years ever since and the quantity and quality of ibex appears to be lower every time I've been back.

Some is no doubt to the depredation tags. Some is due to many hunters having 3-4+ spotters and willing to shoot unreal distances. I've seen guys blasting away at 600+ yards at nannies. None hit that I observed, but the odds that one or more were wounded is pretty likely. I think the number of animals hit and not recovered is a lot higher than other species, although that's just my opinion.

I don't see the need to reduce ibex numbers. No other big game lives on the mountain and there is plenty of food for them; it's not like they are denuding the landscape of edible forage.

I can't figure out G&F logic.

Carl

>The first time I was in
>the Floridas was 2004.
>I've been there every few
>years ever since and the
>quantity and quality of ibex
>appears to be lower every
>time I've been back.
>
>Some is no doubt to the
>depredation tags. Some is
>due to many hunters having
>3-4+ spotters and willing to
>shoot unreal distances. I've
>seen guys blasting away at
>600+ yards at nannies.
>None hit that I observed,
>but the odds that one
>or more were wounded is
>pretty likely. I think
>the number of animals hit
>and not recovered is a
>lot higher than other species,
>although that's just my opinion.
>
>
>I don't see the need to
>reduce ibex numbers. No
>other big game lives on
>the mountain and there is
>plenty of food for them;
>it's not like they are
>denuding the landscape of edible
>forage.
>
>I can't figure out G&F logic.
>
>
>Carl

I agree!

Thanks for you opinions. I am leaving work and heading for the mountain. Wish me luck and I will let y'all know how it goes.

Done yet?

I am done and didn't harvest. Just couldn't seem to be in the right place at the right time. Seen some but I don't think I saw near enough to justify 600 tags for the reduction hunt.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-14-18 AT 08:44AM (MST)[p]Me and my Dad just finished up our back to back depredation hunt. We both were fortunate enough to tag out on our first Ibex! We are super thrilled with our harvest and the opportunity given to us to hunt Ibex.

With that said, here were my observations. I have only been to the Florida's the past 2 years so I really have no basis of comparison. We only touched a very small portion of the mountain and saw quite a few Ibex. At least 250. Not sure if that's a lot? Not sure if we were in one of the better areas or not?

I will agree with NMhunter4life, we saw more billies than nannies. Tons of billies that were too big to be legal, but would probably not go any bigger than 25-30 inches. Made it tough trying to look over herds and find legal animals. We only saw 2 good sized herds with mostly all nannies (20-30), and the rest we saw were all different herd sizes with at least 60% -80% billies. Seems to me that ratio is out of wack, and that's going to be a tough thing to fix IMO. How are you going to have management billy hunts? My Dad and I tried to take small billies when we had the chance to look over the herd in range. Unfortunately, we missed those shots. Little suckers are tough to hit. haha We ended up taking a mature nanny and a small one that also turned out to be a nanny.

Travis