BigGameHoundsmen.com

This is a link to the comment form. you gotta print them out and mail. This is basically the last chance for input. proposals have been made. it's down to the commisioners, which will use the comments to decide.

On mine i voted in support of the new seasons (because, i feel, it is the best of our options) and in the comments, asked them to make the early seasons residents only.

http://www.wvdnr.gov/hunting/proposed%20changes.shtm

Resident only
I spent over 500 dollar's on license's for my son's and I to come down and hunt plus food & gas . I'm not the only one in our camp that comes from out -of- state. I think it is good to have the revenue from both in state and out-of-state hunters.

I'll agree residents only , not to make anyone mad but if their only opening a few counties theres not enough room for everybody. It's bad enough now on opening day of our Dec. hunt tring to track your dogs let alone putting everybody on the eastern seaboard into 15 counties.
And now talk about money , yes it only costs us 10.00 for a bear stamp.
But look out all the money we spend throughout the year . We hunt at least 9 months out of the year , go 2-3 times a week ,spend at least 50.00
a trip see, we put alot of money out . Not to mention Dec. season hunted everyday spent at least 1000.00 . I sat and figured for 2007 training and bear season I spent over 4000.00 just on gas alone. As of now nonresident' are allowed to come and train in our state when small game season comes in , That's the first week of Oct. I think that's the way it should stay . Sorry if anyone gets offended.

That one week is not all the time I send down there
At lest one or two weeked's a month year round to make the hunt easier for are group cleaning trail's cutting firewood ect. 500 is just a small amount that I spend bear huning And I'm force to live out state do to the job market the rest of my family lives down there southern 1/3 of the state

sherlock14 wrote:I'll agree residents only , not to make anyone mad but if their only opening a few counties theres not enough room for everybody. It's bad enough now on opening day of our Dec. hunt tring to track your dogs let alone putting everybody on the eastern seaboard into 15 counties.

Welcome to my world. Try doing the same thing except you jam all those people into 4 counties instead of 15. That's what it has been like hunting in the southern counties for the last few years. I'm looking forward to spreading these people out this year. It will be a lot easier on me. Residents only would be nice, but I don't think it's going to happen. WV has always been very accesible to out of state hunters and more than happy to accept their money.

Jim

I'm sure it is tough to have so many out of state folks come in and hunt but I believe if you make it residence only, you will have guys moving from out of state and being in the woods twice as much. Idaho went to a 70 out of state draw system and almost every hound hunter from Washington moved to Idaho because of the chance of not getting drawn. Just something to think about. Educating folks on just running them and not killing them is the key. A dead bear won't be there to run next time.

Darvin,

It's not going to happen anyway so it's really a non-issue. The bigger problem with the way WV handled the early season was that only 4 counties in the entire state were open for it. So you had every bear hunter in the state along with the out of state hunters jammed into those 4 counties. You couldn't even track a dog there were so many signals bouncing around. This year WV is going to open an early season in all the bear hunting counties which will drastically reduce the early season pressure in the 4 southern counties. That being said the WV DNR has made it clear that they want more bears killed and if the bear hunters don't do it they will open a concurrent bear season during the deer gun season next year and let the stump hunters do it. So for the most part, if they get treed they will get killed.

Jim

Do you guys have a kill season in the spring? If not, what is the date of the first kill season?

We don't have a spring season. As far as the date of the early season I'm not really sure. It looks like it will be in September, but they haven't implemented the new regs yet. They will do that next month.

Jim