Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Rural determination

For those of you who want a say in the way Alaskan hunting and fishing is split between rural and nonrural hunters, the Federal Subsistence Board is now looking at which communities should be judged rural. If you say nothing, then don't complain if you get no piece of the pie.

Read all about it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> OSM webpage announcement

Too bad the vote to be considered rural couldn't be tied them having to pay their own taxes for schools, police and fire.

I won't vent my first opinion on this issue, but it includes "unconstitutional", "racist", and a few other words.

My second opinion is that if you can pee off your porch and no one complains, you count as rural (or have nasty neighbors, which is close eonough!) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My wife is 1/2 Athabascan Indian from Tok, while I could probably make the rules work for us, 458 Lott and las hit the nail on the head, what a bunch of b.s.!
Do we get more PFD since we live in town versus a village and pay taxes?

458/las/1ak.....Amen!

Our state becomes more divisive every day, and it's sad to watch.

I don't care how you sugar coat it. Giving people something for nothing, only serves to diminish them. Something we here in the welfare capital of the world, just don't seem to get.

Jeff

When I lived in Barrow ( 94-96) I was "rural". In my yard I regularily had drunks, druggies, thieves, and vandals (my Mexican neighbors on the other side were way cool tho <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> )

Here in "non-rural" Sterling, I share my yard with moose, hares, brown bears, eagles, owls, hawks, grouse, coyotes, wolves, the occaisional caribou and lynx, and a few other critters. And I am on the main road to the State Park headquarters - not even "off the beaten track". But I am not "rural"!

In Barrow, as a white-eyes without permission to hunt Native-held lands, I had to snowmachine 3 townships (18 miles) south to hunt caribou, as the close-in area was private land belonging to the Native Corporation (fair enough - private land is private land).

I have a definate problem with exclusive hunting rights granted to special groups on a racial or sip-code basis on PUBLIC lands, however!

I totally agree. I don't think preferential treatment should be given for the enjoyment of public lands. Tags #s should be set by the state, but I should not be required to hire a guide on public lands.

pointer I have to agree with you up to a point, but the idea of guys coming here that have never hunted bears gives me a bit of the willies.

It would be hard for you to believe some of the experiences I had while guiding, I'm not keen on the idea of more wounded bears not being recovered because in the idea of fairness the "must be guided" rule would be lifted in your scenario. We're left here to live with the aftermath, and while there is no way to prove it, I'd be willing to wager a large sum the incident of unrecoverable wounded bears would go up in such a scenario.

It's not fair but I don't know how to address it alternatively, I sure am not keen on expanding the role of F&G to include proficiency tests for people. But on the other hand a very small percentage of folks I guided the only reason they needed a guide was because the law calls for it!

I have no doubt that some of the guys that have lot's of black bear experience down south could do more than an adequate job of taking a brown bear here and we certainly have our fair share of doofuses here that give me the willies that they are even out in the bush with a rifle.

A few years ago there was legislation introduced to expand the "must be guided" to include moose, being licensed as a guide I was contacted to give support for the legislation. One of the arguments used was that a higher incident of wanton waste on moose is perpetrated by unguided non resident hutners, that's probably true, but I believe in that instance it is best to severely punish the wrongdoers than exclude a whole class of people from hunting without hiring a guide. So I refused to support the legislation which drew the ire of some of the guys I worked with and for.

I hate to see hunting become the domain of the rich only as I was born poor, I now enjoy an upper middle class income ( still just po' white trash mentally though). It's expensive enough to hunt here and the "guide requirement" adds an expense that would make the dream of hunting Alaska prohibitive for many middle class income folks that are still hardcore hunters.

But back to the bears, for safety reasons (for bears and humans both) I support the guided requirement, it's not a perfect answer and does nothing to address the idiots that reside here, but it's better than nothing.

Just my take on it, doesn't mean it's right, but it's how I see it. 1ak