I’m not a young buck anymore, approaching 50 and the idea that I shouldn’t have opportunities to hunt without doing some 20 mile death march is not necessarily appealing.
Are you saying that you don't have those opportunities now? Are you saying that BHA wants to make all hunting backpack hunting? I must have missed that.
I'm 60. I'll hunt the backcountry until I can't any more, and then be happy that there are still places where the young bucks (including my sons) can hike into, if they want. Just like I did.
Keep in mind this was quite a few years ago but I’ll give you the example I’m referring to. As you head north from Fairbanks in Alaska they have an area called the dalton highway corridor. It runs from the Yukon river to Prudhoe bay which is about 350 miles of road. You cannot drive anything motorized off that road, gotta be on foot or on horseback and you can’t even fire a rifle within 5 miles of the road on either side, bow hunting only.. There was a push to open up parts of it to motorized access in the corridor and the BCHA fought against it. This is literally thousands of sq miles of awesome country for moose, bear, caribou, wolves and fur. Going east it goes to Canada and going west it goes to the ocean. Essentially an area damn near the size of colorado! I recall members of BCHA using the rebuttal of people should just get in better shape , keep it pristine and no atv’s or whatever. No one is hiking 10,15,20,25,30 ,50,80 etc miles off that road to shoot a moose and pack it out. That land was essentially untouchable and unused by anyone. This was also at a time where the state was turning over millions of acres of land to the native corps who then posted and enforced no trespassing on it. So many of us were hit directly by losing ground we were hunting in for years. Members of BCHA were on forums and at F&G meetings fighting it the whole time. That’s the extent of my perspective of the organization and I felt like their mission statement was contradicted by their actions, instead of fighting for public access they went all greeny against the ATV’s with the backpacker attitude when it made no sense under the circumstances.
