Nickman, I hear you! You make some good points, especially concerning what bring in money and what doesn't.
I've been concerned with the way Calif has been steadily taking away our sportsman's heritage. Seems every year we get cut back one way or another, tags, season length, or bag limit, across the board and our fees go up. Not just deer but upland for example, not too many years ago we had awesome hunting for wild pheasant in our state. Chucker, mt quail, valley quail, dove, wild pidgon...
Yes there are still some hot spots to hunt these critters but we would find much better game populations and diversity if temporarily, our prey were hawks, eagles, coyotes, fox, coon, skunk, bobcat, bear, and mt lions. We are at a high in the cycle of the predator, both wing and fur. Being there is little chance to have sportsmen buy tags and allowed to quickly adjust to predator prey ratio, looks like we're going to have to wait until the cycle runs it's course naturally.
I vividly remember my Grandfather telling me of when he was a boy and seeing the first deer ever spotted on the ranch that he grew up on. Imagine that, knowing every nook and cranny of a place and then one day coming across a deer. In those days there were predators galore. By the time i came along as a young man, there were no or few predators but lots of deer and upland game. Now there is some game but the predators again out number the prey and it's going down hill fast. The cycle has turned full cycle in the course of about 80-90 years. This was just one ranch but it was a big one and i think it serves as an example of what i'm seeing in a lot of places statewide.
Another of our problems is that the rest of Western USA is ready to cut us loose. Many figure the battle is lost in Calif., don't want to waste their support, and give us up as already having lost the battle. I suppose they have good reason to think we have lost with all the anti's that live here. The anti get the ink and mostly, we just complain, feeling our voices are going unheard.
I'm not one ready to cut and run. I am one of them though that still think that the real battle to protect or hunting heritage, our claim of being able to balance the wildlife, and our ability to support the programs, if done correctly and without our governors hand in the pot, through hunters and fisherman's hard earned dollars will not only work but be the right way to get it done.
Yes, i suppose i'm too much of a believer in common sense but just maybe enough guys are still around that saw it when it was good and want it to be again like that for our future generations. We can and have to get it done. Save the day, save the future of generations to come. I'm hoping we can all arise, get our voice heard above all that bad ink and non-support from the rest of the country to get it done. All it takes is common sense.
Joey