Chesnimnus unit hunt

[bigshark]

Hi aye fsh

Sorry to hear about your trip....but this is the same old thing that has been going on for the past several years. We hunt the lower snake,pine cr, and imnaha. The Ches is close by and we have quite a few old friends that put in for the unit because of the elk.
Usually at least one of these parties draw tags. Overall they are pretty successful but it is because they know how the game is played and they use it to their advantage. To a much lessor extent the same game is played in the snake and pine cr. The game goes like this: A group of "grouse" hunters will go into the better known areas and shoot several boxes of shells or run atvs with blazing shotguns moving the elk out of their normal haunts and down into the deepest darkest and most remote spots they
know. These nice people go back to town and then brag about how they are saving the animals for the "regular" season. It's all in a days fun for the "good-ol-boys". Well
their are those who have learned how to use this to their advantage. Elk are not as dumb
as many think. They know the places that the two legged don't like. Hunt there, if they aren't there today, they will be there in time. As you are aware these spots are the ones the "real hunters" (you know the ones that have their bows with an arrow on the string laying in the bed of their pickups
that drive slowly back and forth on the road looking for whatever must have fallen out)
say they wouldn't go down there after an elk unless they had a fryingpan with them. If I
were a rifle hunter and saw the road hunting
that archery season brings to what some consider "their turf", I suppose I would feel the same way... if I were as stupid as them. Of course it is not possible that there are as many rifle hunters with rifles in the rig ready to go.....right. Wonder which group invented it? Nope ayefsh, nothing
new about what you saw......its been going on for more than a decade. Funny part about this whole thing is it has not always been like this......What happened? When was it that it became rifle versus bow? I'm going to
make it hard on you because I don't like you anymore........How is it the people on this board can have a fellowship of sorts and respect one anothers methods of pursuit and equipment, but in the field there are so many
who dislike each other? Did something go wrong in the regulations that pitted one against the other? Ayefsh, all I can say is sorry that it was one of those times for you.
I hope you are young enough and stong enough to go where THEY will come when the bums pull their mindless and uncaring stunts. Let
us hope that this will come to an end..and soon.

[aye fsh]

I'm still in the midst of unpacking and cleaning up from a week hunting the Chesnimnus unit controlled archery hunt just north of Enterprise. What a complete and total disappointment!

My understanding of this particular hunt was that it was a limited access, high quality archery hunt. What I found when I got there was that the entire area was FULL of range cattle. There was very little vegitation left in most areas and some were literally hogged down to dirt. The riparian zones that the cattle had access to was decimated. There were some fenced off areas that excluded the cattle that were absolutely beautiful, unfortunately there just weren't all that many of them and several had been compromised.

We did get into a few elk, but the masses of hunters on ATV's and road hunters drove them away before we could even hope to approach them. On one occaission I got into a herd of 12 animals with a nice bull in it. I circled around them about a quarter mile and was closing to within a couple hundred yards of them when some schmuck pulls up and flings on the bull from the road, from 120 yards!! I talk to the guy and he's out there with an antique bow (metal limbs, wire cables) and arrows of all different sizes and lengths.

The last straw was when I was heading back to camp for lunch and had 6 cows and calves go across the road in front of me a couple hundred yards. I pull over to see if I could determine where they might be headed when a few seconds later here come two 4 wheelers tear-assing across the area chasing the animals! ATV's are not allowed off the roads, just like regular vehicles. These guys were just blazing across the forest in hot pursuit.

I also observed an individual on a 4 wheeler with a bow in one rack and a high powered rifle with a scope in the other. Two guys on dirt bikes touring through the reprod. Many, many camps set up in just about every area, except of course in the designated campgrounds. Spoke to another hunter that had been there since the season started who told me of how a group of guys with about 20 ATV's had been there the first week and had run all the animals back down into the breaks.

While I understand that we have to have multiple use of our national forest lands, what I observed seemed to me to be more abuse than use. I am particularly sickened by how our forest service has allowed the beef industry to **** the hell out of an area like this for so long. I kept thinking about those anti pollution commercials from the 70's that featured the Indian walking around observing the filth our society had spread across the land, ending with a shot of his face with tears streaming down. Just makes me want to cry. I hunted this same area 25 years ago as a kid and the memories I have of this place are some of the most profound and awe inspiring of any since. Sitting here writing this and comparing what I saw this year to what I experienced years ago literally makes me feel sick. I am unfortunately so naive as to have actually thought we had learned something about taking care of our resources. Once again I am reminded of how stupid I am to think that the majority of others feel as I do, when it is obvious I am in the vast minority.

On a positive note, I happened upon three "wilderness" camps and was able to remove two garbage bags full of trash from the area. Hopefully others will do the same, but I'm not very optomistic. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]