Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

The MNR in Ontario has now stated that hunters from the northern part of the province will get preferred treatment when it comes to issueing tags. I feel for the guys up north but how can the government do that? Alot of northern hunters apply single and can`t figure out why they don`t get tags. Maybe they should form hunt camps and take holidays like us "southerners". Maybe they should cut back on outfitter tags. Issue more to residents since we are the ones that fund the MNR through our taxes (the bulk of which comes from the southern part of the province). Better yet just do away with group applications and make it a crap shoot residents and non-residents alike. We apply every year with no Pool 1, or Pool 2. If you draw a tag ten years in a row great , if you never draw tough. The hunters in the North complain about never getting tags but that has alot to do with the fact they want to hunt in their backyard, drive abit like I do and you`ll get tags. Still surplus tags availiable if you want to drive. Nothing against northerners but if I pay the same taxes as you I should get the same treatment.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

I heard rumors about this nonsense last winter. What are you basing your information on? Have the MNR posted anything officially to this effect?
What we need is a preference point system for moose. You accumulate points for every year you don't draw, and the people with the most points get preference. Pretty simple and fair in my opinion. I would also take it a step further and make the points only valid for tha zone you applied for. By that I mean if you hunt area 11 for moose you can't go and accumulate points in area 49 to guarantee yourself a tag after X amount of years. You want a tag in a zone then apply for that zone. Doesn't matter, the MNR will never go for it, too simple too fair!! Our genius Liberal government is too busy passing laws prohibiting the giving away of wild game meat and chasing game farms. If this Northern preference thing goes through they are going down a slippery slope. What next prefence for medical care for Toronto residents because thats where the hospitals are? None of this has any common sense or fairness. Oh wait a minute I forgot, we're talking about LIBERALS aren't we![:@]

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Here`s what I read, More moose tags for northern hunters by 2005
By Dan Gauthier

Miner and News

Northern Ontario moose hunters will have a better chance of receiving an adult tag in next year's moose lottery, says Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay.

Ramsay said on Friday the MNR is reviewing the moose tag allocation process and lottery technology to ensure residents of northern Ontario have better access to adult validation tags by the fall of 2005 hunting season.

"There are ways to do a preferential draw for northerners," said Ramsay. "So we will, in some sense, make that happen next year."

Ramsay was responding to criticism last week from both NDP leader and Kenora-Rainy River MPP Howard Hampton, and NDP natural resources critic and Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson. Both Hampton and Bisson said Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty has not followed through on his True North 2003 election platform that promised to give Northern Ontario hunters a better shot at moose tags this year.

Ramsay, however, defended the Liberal leader and his northern election platform as a four-year plan, not a quick-fix strategy.

"When you launch a campaign platform, these are the goals over a four-year period," said Ramsay. "You're basically laying out a program over the term of a four-year government and you can't do everything overnight."

Ramsay said the NDP was wrong in their criticism as the ministry has allocated nearly 400 more adult moose tags for resident hunters this year on top of more than 16,000 tags that were available in 2003.

"That's got nothing to do with the promise they made in their election platform," said Hampton.

Hampton said that the number of available moose tags across Ontario are not the issue here as they are allotted based on the size and strength of the moose population. He said the real issue is changing the lottery system to the advantage of northern Ontario hunters and is skeptical that the Liberal government will have this new system in place by 2005, especially since the moose tag draw takes place in the spring.

"Unless they have an altered lottery system already in place, that won't happen by the fall of 2005," said Hampton of the planned changes to the moose tag draw. "You need to know what you are doing on this."

Ramsay said the new lottery system would have been in place sooner if not for the outdated computer technology in place that the draw was implemented on in the 1980s, but again promised to have it place by the next hunting season.

"It will be done," said Ramsay. "Those changes will be in place by the fall of 2005."

Hampton said that both he and his natural resource critic Bisson will hold the minister to this promise as will all moose hunters across northern Ontario.

"I'll be watching with interest and I'm sure Gilles Bisson will also be watching with interest over the next six months," said Hampton. "This issue can create more heated public discussion more than any other issue I know."

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Contact Clint Beardy for hunts in manitoba. [email protected] or see the web-site below.:D

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

That's all we need more of this BS north ,south, east, west crap.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Well I hate to say that any one should get "better treatment"......but I am from the "North" and although I am from an WMU that offers a low % on adault moose tags, my dad and I have not seen them in 14 years. Please understand that I see moose walk the shoreling from my house and I spend months of the year patterning and scouting for the season. We are hunters for substanance, and it is unexplainable to not be able to harvest the animals that walk through our yard, and even worse to have a hunter come from 600 miles away and set up a 100 yards away and shoot the moose you have watched all year. I understand that our economy depends on tourist dollars but the economy of the rual areas of the North is poor and we depend on such hunting for food. I would like to have the chance to hunt "Bug Jon", "Charlie", "Ed".......or some of the other moose that I have observed since they were calves.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

I can understnad you thoughts here, The thing I don't get is Why is there a problem now with moose tags. I thought the MNR had the population on a rise. Also what up with surplus tags ? Thought there was lots in the north?...BT

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

I can see that its frustrating to not draw a tag especially in 14 years! But we all pay the same taxes and are all equal citizens in Ontario. Our group of hunters usually has a tag but that is because we hunt in northwestern Ontario in zones like 9A or 16B. That's a 24 hour drive for me. You can do the same and get a moose tag. To start and give preference in anything because of your postal code is biased and unfare. How would you like it if your kid was denied access to sick kids hospital in Toronto because you don't live there? Pretty extreme example but it starts somewhere. If you want a tag, do like the rest of us and spend the money, burn holiday time travelling, and sleep in a wall tent in the bush. I wish I could hunt moose from home also.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Well I can understand that we all live in Ontario and therefor we should all recieve the same benifits. But I would like to point out that in the small Northern community where im from my taxes are the same and you are right there sir, as well as all the other parts of paying to become an equal member of Ontario. BUT!!! I drive 35 minutes to pick up my mail, drive 25 to the garbage dump, have a dirt road that I plow myself, not one stop sign or stop light in my community. Is this what you meen by equal members? or is it the fact that I have to suffer from the clear cuts for the lumber for all our "equal" citezens. Or is it all the pollution from the factories that I dont work at in the South, that seems to find its way into my drinking water and food. I understand what you meen and dont get me wrong I am an Ontario resident but to say that I am like you or some one from Toronto is wrong. Dont get me wrong I hunt in a tent and take my vacation in the fall as well, after all I have to because groups of people litter the shore lines of the lake that my house is on.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Yes I'm sure they do but even larger, much much larger groups fill up my favourite rainbow streams down in Southern Ontario. They have as much right to the renewable natural resources as I do even if does not suit my personal interests. To deny tags in a lottery system will be biased and unfair. The reasoning is quite tranparent. You could piss off every moose hunter in Southern Ontario and statistically speaking we would have no effect whatsoever in an election. The opposite is quite true in the north. It will guarantee a win in the north and yet have no effect down south due to population size and electoral riding. THere are ridings in the GTA that have more population than all of the other ridings up north together. Doesn't matter a seat is a seat and that lieing B@#$%^D McGinty is just buying some insurance and screwing tens of thousands of southern hunters. I will say it again. Drive 24 hours like we do and you will get a damn tag!!!!

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

OK TerryM and Turk man,

For once the North is being noticed. You guys talk about how you pay the bulk of the taxes and you should get priority at southern hospitals. As southerners, you drive up north to hunt. As northerners we drive down south to go to your hospitals. Would you drive to Timmins to goto a hospital that provides the same care one in Toronto would - nonsense right. Yes, the bulk of the tax base is in Southern Ontario, I hope you're not saying you don't benefit from that. You've seen our roads, maybe experienced a little of our eroding infrastructure or witnessed the lack of development here. YOUR POINT????
You are absolutely right - we do want to hunt in our backyard and we want the opportunity to hunt more than one week of the year if we don't fill our tag week one. Hence the reason I live in Northern Ontario - almost solely for that reason. We put up with crazy weather - weather I hate but fishing and hunting is my passion and I have made the choice to live here for that reason. Look at the lifestyle you live in Port Hope - not even comparable to that of us in the North. NO - you shouldn't have the same right as we do. I invite you to ask your wife and family to come live in Northern Ontario - would there even be a thought. I would be interested in listening to that discussion and the excuses why NOT to live here!!!!
You talk about the number of people in particular ridings - you just hit another sour cord with Northerners - we are clearly out numbered by you guys and for that reason alone - we have a very small voice in decisions made in this province. ie. spring bear hunt - no need to discuss this any further.
Look outside your own interest and try and pay some respect to your northern outdoorsman. The same people that volunteer to stock lakes, create spawing beds, keep the outdoors clean, enhance wildlife habitat so you can come up here once a week to hunt or fish.
I look forward to an ongoing discussion on this issue.
Your friendly NORTHERN MOOSE HUNTER.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Northern Mose Hunter,
You don't get the point I am making at all. Hey I would love to live in Fort Frances and have a 2 month deer and moose season and a tag every year. What I am saying is the guy in the south is no better nor is the guy up north. Everybody is equal in this province. If you think that the south does not subsidize your crumbling roads up there then you don't understand the cost of capital investments and infrastructure. If there are less services up north (which nobody is disputing ) its because there is no population/tax base to pay for them. You choose to live up north for its recreational benefits thats your choice. I choose to live down south for the employment benefits, again thats my choice. Fishing and hunting is also my passion, one does not need to live up north for that. The majority of the people you bump into in the fall during the moose hunt are from Southern Ontario, its just basic math thats where the most people live. Just don't try and convince me or the rest of the southern hunters that a computer draw where everybody is equal is unfair. Of course more people down south draw tags, there's more people! By the way, I ironically would benefit from this stupid Liberal plan anyway, Both of my hunting partners live up north so we would likely always have a tag!! I still think it opens up a can of worms that creates Bias that will lead to no good. You guys get pissed off when the Natives start hunting in August now the metis in September so would you have everybody south of the fFrench river hunt 2 weeks after you guys. Don't try and pin the bear hunt on hunters who live in the south either. That was killed by non hunters not sportsmen. And last, no I did NOT say that we should get priority in southern hospitals, quite the contrary thats the point I am trying to make. Equal access to all the services and assets of the province regardless of where you live!

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Unfortunatly decesions like this make some people happy and others upset. What needs to be recognized is that all People that live in Ontario are not equal. Unfortunaltly people in Toronto, Ottawa and other heavily populated areas make decesions that affect the way we conduct our life styles ie spring bear hunt and numerous other anti hunting preasures that the government encounters. I think its pretty safe to say that its not a Northern family that makes under $15000 a year that needs to hunt and fish in order to survive. Terry Ill tell you a story........ my father first moved to the North in 1950 and built a house, the only one on the lake. My dad was a trapper and through many years of searching he found many areas in which to trap beavers and other animals back off the lake we live on. Trails were made to allow him access and beaver ponds were found and used by are family to hunt and trap for years. Because it is just me and my dad that hunt these areas (4 in paticular) we have been pushed out by people that stumble across these areas and decide to post 50 yards away from you on openening morning of moose season. There is no respect given, try and talk to thes people and they reply "I spend good money to stay here, i'll hunt where I please". I doubt that you would ever do that Terry but this is what we encounter time after time. You say that people litter the stream you fish on, well thats no comparison at all. Where you live on the opertunity to participate in outdoor activity is so limited to the very little area that you have, that you always will encounter this. If someone stands and cast over you I promise that its not some one from the North, and thats the difference. This tag discussion is not North and South its different cultures, and culture I mean that people still sustain themselves from the food they hunt and trap and I think that should be recognized.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Spotlight,
I have hunted the north every year for almost 30 years from Cochrane to Dryden and quite frankly the people from the "North" drive the same pickups with the same ATVs in the back of them and in many cases have much nicer homes on much bigger properties than we could ever dream of down here. So I am not sure I go with the "We do it to feed our families". If someone truly needs a moose to feed his family then I am all for him just going out and getting one ( go ahead flame me ). There are plenty of hardship cases up north and I truly believe they should be allowed some lattitude. But those people are not the ones you meet in the bush. As a rule they don't have the money to burn chasing moose. My best buddy and hunting partner is a conservation officer up north and he has a list of poor families who he takes road kill and game seizure moose to all the time. They more than appreciate it and deserve the help. You say that we are not the same because I live down south, funny I didn't realize that a southern guy could not be a hunter. Northeners have valid complaints about the economy and politics and the hands they are dealt but what you are confusing here is hunters and the provincial government. Sound game management can not be mixed with politics, it does not work. The whole black bear closure was nothing but provincial politics and had nothing to do with sound game management or hunters wishes north or south. You say hunting is not part of my culture because I don't live up there but oddly enough I have had game in my freezer my whole life as did my father, grandfather and his father. So do my brother and sister. Trust me I eat game because it is in fact a part of what I am not because I have to. And the last time I drove through Ignace on my way moose hunting I had no problem buying groceries at my choice of multiple grocery stores.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Terry: culture, I define as a way of life and not a sport or past time that one is involved in. Im sure you are a hunter and are for all the rights one has as such. What I am trying to get across to you is that (and I can only speak for the area of the North I'm from) is that we live different lives which make up our lifestyles. I have read the plan that Ramsey has put forth and I dont think it will affect the opertuntiy of non-local hunters. Again Terry if you have been coming up to the North for 30 years you should know that tourist camps accomodate people who don't even have to apply for the moose draw are still allocated specific adault tags, this has been "Grandfatherd" and accepted.

And another thing Terry you dont have to be poor to be on the road kill list, however I am glad you dont have a problem with giving us the scraps off the highway. I am all for sound game managment and conservation but you must understand that some of us eat game because we HAVE to not just because our families have been doing that way.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Yeah, most people with computers and internet access are also subsistance hunters. I would suggest we agree to disagree. On that note, I hope you have a great hunting season or whatever is left of it for this year and enjoy the woods as I plan to. No offence intended, just my own opinions.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

I think this is quite funny

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

What it means is: more tourist establishments will get tags.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Actually I don't think the point I am trying to make is trying to split the pack up. Quite the contrary, I think we are all the same and should be treated the same. I have also got more information about the McGinty tag scheme. What they are going to do is withhold back 5% of all tags provincially and have a 4th special draw after the A) large group B) small group C) individuals. Yes thats right people who apply as an individual get the third kick at the can during the draw. Frankly that peanuts, and if northerners can be tricked and bought off with so few tags then I have no problem with that. In most cases it will not change anybodies odds of drawing a tag at all. It will still cause ill feelings and nothing will be gained but then again they are liberals and sticking it to gun owners is party policy.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

It does not matter where you are from or anything else or who has a better chance at the draw. The new draw is set up so those northern hunters that do not get a tag after two years will be put into the second draw. The 5% of the total tags is not even taken off the total tags these are extra tags. Northern hunters have groups but some don't because they are so rural not enough friends to get a large enough group size to get a tag for sure.
The only thing that pisses me off and other northwestern hunters is that this is are backyard TAKE WHAT YOU BROUGHT. I was out hunting today in an area that was tented by southern hunters I am not going to say where but I talked to them and know where they are from. The campsite was left a mess, garbage, plastic, beer cans, burnt chairs, a BBQ, even the kitchen sink. I could not believe the kitchen sink. TAKE YOUR S*#T HOME IF YOU CAN'T KEEP IT CLEAN YOU SHOULD BE BAND FROM HUNTING UP HERE. I will take my garbage to your backyard and dump it out there so your kids can play in it. You southerners get it yet, leave it the way you found it. I am not going to clean up after you anymore I am going to slash tires while you are hunting that is how pissed I am.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Here we go again "YOU SOUTHERNERS". I have a friend who has lived his entire life in Gogama and a couple of summers ago we were camped on the shore of a lake fishing for Aurora trout and he wanted to start a small dump instead of packing out the trash. Needless to say we pack everything out so NO ITS NOT ONLY SOUTHERNERS WHO ARE IGNORANT SLOBS, I have friends in law enforcement up there and they issue plenty of tickets for garbage dumping and illegal burning to the locals and guess what 90% of all game infractions they write are to "LOCALS". And lastly slashing tires sounds really intelligent.

RE: Ontario Moose Hunters!
 

Terry you have alot of fight in you eh LOL hopefully you can use it to get through the months of Nov and Dec in the cold stand. Good luck to you this season......oh and where in the South do you live?