Your response does a good job of demonstrating the entitlement that long-time hunters often have. You work on policy and stewardship, which makes you more worthy. You clearly know better than CPW and other state game agencies about management goals and objectives. New hunters should be the first ones excluded, so that there are enough animals for you to hunt.
If this is what you took out of my comments, I rest my case.
Stewardship and conservation doesn't need to conflict with recruitment. They can build on each other. More hunters leads to more money for the system, a larger pool of volunteers and advocates, more people likely to vote in favor of hunting issues, more people likely to participate in state game agency planning and policy making. All those things can lead to MORE animals if we care to put effort toward that. But so long as a large number of people are worried about getting their slice, then we won't be successful in growing the whole pie and making more slices
If this is your plan and outlook then keep doing it. I applaud this. Be careful where your plan came from. This thread is partially about the influence of others and how it has ruined hunting for most/some of the commenters. Their words not mine. I only reflected the same in CO. Because it has.
And I'll be back in your spot this year, trying to get my first deer with bow. See you out there.
A metaphor would be something like, "He is running like a scalded dog."
I see nothing but a statement here. Quite possibly a response in sarcasm to all the commenters who said something beforehand. But, I've been wrong before and will apologize if so.
What you don't know and is not your fault, is that I have mentored more than a dozen private hunters from various hunting forums across the internet and helped quite a few to success in my backyard and made lifelong friends. As stated above, I don't hunt my backyard. If someone else can be successful, I am happy to trade my limited managed opportunity for them to have a chance to succeed. Then I concentrate on areas that need better management or culling for my own person.
Every client that I have taken out while guiding I see as a student and try to teach them how to come back on their own and hunt for themselves, if they would like the knowledge. Hopefully they come back with years of success and save a few bucks by not needing an outfitter or guide. A new client comes in, hopefully the cycle repeats.
What I cannot abide by is OTC hunters ruining areas because a commission is held by funding constraints. Particularly CPW. It's not good as a whole because they are stretched way to thin. AZ I feel does a much better management job and that is just what it is. You are probably a good, responsible hunter. The new majority are assholes. Plain and simple
So, I have hunted OTC AZ in the past. You will not see me there until I feel that the species population/hunter numbers/biological cycle swings and it is beneficial to the area for me to go back. In other words, I might never get to hunt there again. It depends on what my research and the biologists from AZ tell me over the phone or email.
Hunting is a very small part of stewardship in my view, but personally is more important than it is for others.
For instance, this year I was bow hunting a very tough draw unit in NM and let a 370" bull walk at 40y because the meat would have spoiled even though this would have been my personal best bull ever. I was 8 miles in. An outfitter watched me from across the valley. Later, when I walked by, he asked why I didn't shoot. So, I told him. He them offered me a guiding gig whenever I want it.
I hope you can find my spot, kill him, and get it out responsibly. I'll even tell you where it is.