I have been a moose hunter…

I have been a moose hunter for almost 20 years and the tag allocation is/was obviously not working since I've ever only received 1 tag in a group. I hunt mostly in WMU 42 and some years in WMU 21/22. My main issue is for WMU 42 where my family has a hunt camp. When the tags changed a few years ago I decide to quit moose hunting for reason that the draw was unfair and the amount of tags was just not worth the money I keep paying every year. I'm sure the ministry has noticed a decline in moose hunters in all of Ontario never mind just in WMU 42, and let me guess the moose population hasn't went up? Not sure why the ministry thinks its moose hunters that are the cause for the moose population decline. Bears kill more moose per year than hunters. The good part is that the ministry kind of realized that and re-opened the spring bear hunt. Although I don't hunt bears in the spring and I only hunt in the fall I try to manage the moose population in my little hunting area that way. With the sudden drop of moose hunters that must have been a lot of money that the ministry hasn't got from the hunters. Now your proposing a fee to apply and then another fee for an actual license. I guess this is kind of like the Elk draw but again it's more money out of hunters pockets.

Mandatory surveys. I've been filling these surveys out for years and still not sure why. It asks me how many moose i've seen and from what I can tell the population isnt going down and see at least double digit moose in a week long hunt. Does anyone actually look at these and do they take it into consideration in the population of moose?

Printing of tags: The ministry no longer prints out the tags and I don't necessarily disagree with that. I like the forward thinking of less pollution and saving cost which should be important for any business but the license fees should also go down since that cost is no longer associated with printing of tags.

Now don't get me wrong some of these suggestions are positive. Maximizing groups helps the hunters who don't hunt or know that many people who hunt, cutting down on ghost hunters is HUGE and a major problem that people have finally noticed. Like "getting my wife to take the course and applying and then transferring the tag and never setting foot ever in the bush" was obviously happening all over the place. The idea of split cow/calf tag is interesting but may be problematic as I see the problem with the later calf season that is happening now. If you have a cow tag and fill it now you have a calf on its own with a higher risk of not surviving and thus bringing down the population for no reason.

I'm not sure why the Province of Quebec moose population is staying strong and they have the most simple system of all, 2 hunters equals 1 tag. Plain and simple. The rules your going to impose seem very complicated and someone has to keep track of this point system. Would it be fisable to just make it the same for Ontario? maybe not with 2 hunters but lets say 4 hunters for a bull and 3 for a cow and no calf hunting for a few years till the population goes up and if you see the population go down for cows for example then bring the quota up to 5 or 6 hunters for that year. That way 6 people have used their tag and cant even shoot a calf which keeps the population up.

Limiting people out of province and making them pay is a great idea. I know their are a lot of people that buy property in Ontario for that reason. Yes a small part of the moose hunters will be mad but now they will just have to pay a little more to hunt just like I do if I want to hunt out of province.

I don't think bringing the km down is really going to do much other than make hunters more mad than they already are. With everyone having cell phones now days and or walkies talkies with ranges of 25km plus their is no need to bring that down.

I guess with a point system I will be guaranteed a tag eventually which the old system didn't have that. Not sure how many years I will have to wait or how many points I'll need and how much money I'll need to spend but I guess that will be up to me and all the other hunters to decide.

I probably won't hear from anyone cause their will be thousands of responses but I'm ok with that since I had my chance to say something.