Ontario's moose hunters are…

Ontario's moose hunters are a diverse group, from a variety of backgrounds and with a range of goals and desires. I'm 40 years old, and have hunted nearly my entire life. Many of the complaints from hunters stem from one simple fact, that when something doesn't work in one's favor, it's often easier to blame the system. I believe our current system while not perfect, does a very good job of fairly distributing moose tags. I have hunted moose nearly every year for the past 20 years, and have almost always managed to be part of a group who had the opportunity to hunt adult moose. Often it has meant travelling farther north than I may have liked, but it does give the opportunity to see different parts of the country. The group allocation system does a great job of presenting data from year to year, in a relatively simple format that allows us as hunters to roll the dice in a way that suits us that year. The proposed system might work ok in some of the most densely hunted/desired WMU's, but for many it could result in significant disadvantages. There are years that for a variety of reasons I can't hunt the northern WMU's where tags are easier to get. The current system is fair to me and I can take a chance and apply in a southern WMU, say 56. Say I do this for 5 years, and then a year comes up where I can go north to a WMU that is easy to get a tag. I then would use all of my 'points' on that northern WMU tag, even though they were accumulated in a WMU that was much more difficult, and then used in an 'easy' WMU. I'd be starting from scratch if I then was going back to WMU 56 in the south.

Honestly, the current system might need some tweaks, but changing it completely will result in a new set of complaints, many of which will be legit. I think changing the calf harvest to a tag system in all WMU's would make sense and be a great first move. The group size restrictions and distance restrictions will just frustrate hunters, and should not be implemented. With limited opportunities already, is there really a need to limited the area and size of groups?

Thanks,
Dave