West River Goat Population

[Smarty]

I'm sure some of you have been West River antelpe hunting by now and found out the goats were wiped out last spring by the storms.
The GFP has a myth that they migrated south, north, west, or about anywhere else they can think of.  Everyone in those areas say hogwash.  They're not there.  Must be some magical pasture they are all in and no one can find them.  Antelope Heaven maybe.  They issued 2 season in Harding Co. and gave out triple tags for 600 hunters in each unit plus other units had double and triple tags as well and they knew full well the population was extremely low.  They were only looking out for the almighty $$$$.  Why didn't they issue single tags?  Money???  Now you put all those hunters out there and they each shoot another one and the population dwindles even more for next year or the year after.  My point:  they should've reduced the licenses, plain and simple.  There is a huntable population, but not to the point of issuing all those license.  They want more money, raise the price of an out of state pheasant or fishing license.  They'll pay it.  Can't tell me that an out-of-stater who leases or bought land here won't pay another $50 for a license and there's a lot of them.  I'm just venting and trying to get a discussion going on the hunting forum.  Hasn't been much for a while. These are just "my" opinions.

[TLA]

Uh, oh. Lol, I always love it when people paint the GFP so black and white. Considering I haven't been to the Hills for awhile nor talked to anyone there I can't say whether goats have dwindled or not.

There are a few flaws in your logic tho. As a wise old con man  once said "you can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" so if it was just about bucks the GFP would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. They might be able to scam one year with no game and possibly two years but after that the well's run dry. No one will come to hunt because no one will believe there's any game around, no matter what GFP says.

While I may not always have a high opinion of the intelligence at GFP I don't think they are dumb enough to kill golden geese, at least not intentionally. Now the politicians, that's another story.

I do know antelope migrate to areas where they are comfortable. I do know that climate change is causing some changing conditions in SD and the rest of the country. I do know that with changing climate conditions game is going to be moving to where it's more comfortable. Anything where SD is on the edge of their range could be major league impacted. So IMO it's possible GFP lied but it's also possible they just moved.

Lol, perosnally I'd like to see dicsussions like this one on the blog as I don't have such stringent conditions for people to post there. Then we can get a wider variety of opinions on all subjects. For those of you who want them I can give you posting priveleges so you can post what you want. Just shoot me an email and I'll set you up or you can go to the blog and signup and I'll approve it. Blogs located at Freshwater Fishing Tips and you can register at Register for Fishing Blog

[Smarty]

Actually, they must've moved out of state.  The population is far below 50% fewer.  One of the Commisioners for the gfp in Rapid City has admitted they messed up.We had a severe Spring storm.  Out by Rapid City it lasted almost 2 weeks.  Travel was shut down and no one could get around.  The local ranchers say there were sometimes as many as 30 dead goats laying in the corner of their pastures.
As for the goose that lays the golden egg.  I gotta laugh.  In eastern SD they have gone out and shook the eggs of the honkers so they won't hatch.  They say there are too many and destroying crops.  Then the warden turns around and harasses people for reloading their guns too fast and trying to shoot a limit of these over populated geese.  These are true stories.  The last one happened to a friend of m
ine up by Webster just last weekend.
Thanks for the discussion.  Been kind of boring around here.

[TLA]

Yep, been pretty boring, no contoversy of any kind to speak of. More fun when we have the good arguements.

There are always going to be dumb ass game wardens. Every state I've ever lived in or hunted and fished in has had an almost universal contempt for their states GFP, DNR or whatever. Most states actually do a pretty good job with their game management but there's always something they do wrong according to a lot of people.  I doubt it can be helped as it's a very complicated area and their are factors GFP can't control.

Back in the day I wasn't to much for the DNR and was seldom happy with their decisions. It was a black and white issue. Now I'm old and their is no black or white, just millions of shades of gray.

[Smarty]

They do have a tough job.  They have to try and please everyone.  I'm pretty fortunate in my area.  I like the wardens around here.  We can find fault in about every process that goes on no matter what it is.  Thanks for the conversation.  I was venting.  All I can say is if their myth about migration is correct, there is one heck of a herd of goats somewhere.  I tend to believe it is in goat heaven.  Somebody forgot to do a survey count or just went by last year.

[TLA]

Heh, don't get the idea I think they're perfect cause I don't. They could always do better. Lol, I was hoping for more responses. I suppose we could always talk about why they've never dammed up the south end of Thompson.

Hey, it was a nice vent.  Just a thought but deer are just as vulnerable so are deer down in the hills too?

[Smarty]

Ya, I can't believe no one is adding their 2 cents.  They're not much fun.
I don't know about the deer in the hills.  Season opens in a few weeks out there.  I have plenty of buddies that go out.  Some of them just came back from elk hunting.  They hunted in 5 inches of snow and only saw one cow elk all weekend.  That's just them though.  They said they saw plenty of whitetails just no elk, but I don't think they really know what they are doing.  LOL

[icefishin]

I just got back from goat hunting in perkins county and there is not much for goats up there...at least not in the unit north of highway 20. In our group of 5 hunting on private land no one even got a shot at a goat. This is the same land we have filled all our tags for the last 4 years on. We saw small heards in the land right west and north of the ranch and some into corson county but nothin where we could hunt them. As for the GFP issueing to many tags i dont think it was known just how bad the winter was on them before the tag numbers were set. I believe they do that pretty early on in the year. They did eliminate all un sold licenses after the first draw so there was a few less tags out there this year. You cant blame gfp for it...they didnt kill the goats. And if they lowered the number of tags issued there would be the people that complained they didnt give enough tags and that they couldnt get one. Just no way to keep everyone happy at the same time. And as for the goose problem...I know the game wardens in day county and they do want to see the geese thinned down. There was one that was opposed to the egg destroying and one that was for it but i think both agree there was to many geese this summer. I cant believe your buddy was harassed for reloading to fast on geese unless the warden was pretty sure they heard him shoot more than 3 times without reloading. And I do believe they should dam up the south end of thompson...cut water off from going under the bridge. that may help bring up the water levels a bit. Lets get some discussion going...i agree its been to quiet around here!

[icefishin]

Oh and we did see a lot of deer out there...both muleys and whitetails. I think we may have even seen more deer this year than last year so they didnt take much of a hit.

[quakd]

if they were seeing deer they were to low of elevation.  elk are almost always in higher elevation than the deer.