Columnist Barb Henderson: Hunters should attend county wildlife meetings

Barb Henderson

Friday, May 16, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

Barb Henderson is an outdoors enthusiast, freelance writer and producer/host of outdoors radio television programming. Her column appears Friday in the Sun.

Nevada hunters who have applied for big-game hunting tags, will be notified of their results by June 20 after a random computerized tag draw.

To be eligible for the tag drawings, licensed hunters had to have submitted an accurate application before April 21.

Before the setting of big-game quotas by the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners, hunters had an opportunity to attend a County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife meeting in their county.

These meetings are a great way for hunters to get involved, share their input and to hear reports gathered by wildlife biologist.

The county boards will take their recommendations to the wildlife commissioners for consideration.

The folks who make up these advisory boards are everyday hunters like you and me. How do I know this? Because I once served on the Clark County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife.

These 17 county advisory boards are extremely important to the process and play an important role when making their recomendations to the wildlife commission. If you've never attended one of these meetings, you should make plans to attend one in the future.

We hunters get pretty excited when it's time for the results to make their way to our mailboxes.

We'll head out and and check our mailbox several times throughout the day and we'll start making telephone calls to our hunting buddy's throughout Nevada just to check and see if anyone has received news.

By the time the results actually do come out, most of us hunters would have already exhausted any and all alternatives of finding out if the results are out.

When you are notified, the last thing you want is to receive is a check. A check means that you were unsuccessful in the draw and have received a bonus point.

Hunters do not want a bonus point and they don't really want their money back. They have taken the time to fill out the proper application and they've made sure it was received by the deadline with the hope of being successful in the draw for a big-game hunting tag.

Before I started applying for hunting tags, I used to wonder why my husband would be so concerned on whether the mail had come yet and, if it had, did he receive an envelope from the Nevada Division of Wildlife.

I have to admit that now I'm the first one out to the mailbox.

It is pretty exciting when that envelope contains a tag. I've been successful in a few draws over the years and have had the opportunity to hunt deer, antelope and sheep.

All kidding aside, hunters realize and appreciate why there are only a certain amount of tags allotted each year.

In June, when you hear bugling, bellows, squeals and yelps, it's not a bull elk. It is the reaction from the hunters who received another bonus point and not a bull elk tag.