REMINDER! - ODNR Open House Meetings!

[bkr43050]

I just thought some folks may appreciate a reminder that this upcoming Saturday is the date for the open house meetings. This is a chance to have your voice heard.

Open House Location Information for March 3:
•Central Ohio - Wildlife District One Office, 1500 Dublin Road, Columbus, 614- 644-3925
•Northwest Ohio - Wildlife District Two Office, 952 Lima Avenue, Findlay, 419-424-5000
•Northeast Ohio - Wildlife District Three Office, 912 Portage Lakes Drive, Akron, 330-644-2293
•Southeast Ohio - Wildlife District Four Office, 360 E. State Street, Athens, 740-589-9930
•Southwest Ohio - Greene County Fish and Game Club, 1538 Union Road, Xenia, 937-372-9261

Here is the link to the complete info.
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/News...fe-Issues.aspx

This meeting pertains to all of the hunting regulations and not just deer although the deer seems to get the most of the focus. Here are a couple links to the proposals for next year.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/News...g-Seasons.aspx

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/News...Proposals.aspx

[bkr43050]

I wish I could go but I have another conference that I will be at all day. My oldest son is going to the southeast meeting in Athens and a good buddy of mine is going to the southwest meeting in Xenia. I know we always have plenty of opinions tossed around here and now is the time to put it out there where it can be heard by folks who may actually be able to do something with it.

If I was able to make it I know I would be lobbying for at least a slight reduction in limits which is what my boy and his buddies are doing. My buddy's concern relates to the zone change for some of the counties. He Shelby county which is going from Zone A to B. While the bag limits do not change for each zone Shelby county will increase from 2(1 plus 1 antlerless tag) to 4 (2 plus 2) That is double!

[Ted Dressel]

I'll be going to the districk 5 meeting.

[bkr43050]

My son an his buddies got to spend about an hour talking to Mike Tonkovich, who many of you may recognize the name. He is the lead deer biologist for the ODNR. That is pretty cool that they got that opportunity. Mike seemed impressed that three 18-19 year olds wanted to spend time discussing such things with him. I know the boys really appreciated it.

I wish I could have gone to the meeting. It sounded as if he presented a lot of good charts and detail. He was discussing things such as hunter success and had data pertaining to the number of hunters harvesting multiple deer. For instance he showed how many take a second deer, third, fourth, etc. My boy said he thought that the fourth was something like 1 to 2% of hunters. I figured that number would be pretty low but that seemed lower than I suspected. It would be great to see that data somehow.