A way to give your opinion to ‘dang Fish and Game’

Back in the old days, I worked my way through college as a member of the university's grounds crew. While many of my student co-workers loathed such work, I actually enjoyed it.

In fact, looking back, I consider it one of the most enjoyable aspects of my college experience. Not because I thought being on the business end of a shovel was so grand, but because of the relationships I developed with my co-workers.

Oftentimes, our lunchtime conversations focused on hunting and fishing. And as we talked, it didn't take long for me to realize that the full-time guys with a little gray showing around their temples had significantly more hunting and angling experience than we student employees. At the least, they had more stories to tell than we did.

Naturally, the difficulty came in trying to determine which of those stories were actually true and which were little more than pure embellishment. Whether we talked about deer, elk or pheasants, I was like a dry sponge soaking in as much information as I could.

As is almost inevitable when outdoorsmen gather and swap their tales of the ones that got away, our conversations often turned to the wildlife management side of the hunting or fishing equation. It was then the stories told around the lunch table frequently ended with the phrase "dang Fish and Game." Referring, of course, to the local wildlife management agency rather than fish and game they wanted to find in a field.

There was the story about a secret fleet of black helicopters and its use by Fish and Game employees to scare all of the elk off the mountain the night before the season opener. Naturally, this occurred only in those hunt areas where the story teller chose to hunt. Dang Fish and Game.

Then there was the story about how in the days leading up to deer season, wildlife biologists darted all of the mule deer bucks and sawed their antlers off so no one could find them. Probably because they had so much time on their hands. Dang Fish and Game.

One of the more frequent discussions that happened around the lunch table centered on the participants' desire to see not only more deer during the hunting season but also more and bigger bucks as well. While some guys just complained, others actually threw out some ideas that had some thought behind them. The only problem was there was no one at the table who could do anything about those ideas or even answer questions about the local Fish and Game department's management actions.

That is where the public input process comes into play. In Nevada, the process of setting season dates, tag quotas and even establishing or changing regulations governing hunting and fishing is a public process. Traditionally, that involves attending meetings of the local County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife or the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners.

However, the Nevada Department of Wildlife is providing outdoor enthusiasts with another option for sharing the ideas whose genesis began during a campfire discussion or around the lunch table.

"Decisions regarding tag quotas are the responsibility of the Nevada Board of Wildlife commissioners," said Brian Wakeling, game division chief for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. "And it is the job of the game biologist and the game division to provide the best recommendations possible for the commission to act on. We base our recommendations on the best available science on the biology of the species we manage, but we also need to know how we can make things better, easier and more appealing for the public."

To that end, NDOW has scheduled a series of town hall meetings from Nov. 2 to 6 at locations across the state. The meetings will run from 6 to 8 p.m. at the following locations:

* Monday — Reno — NDOW Headquarters, 1100 Valley Road.

* Tuesday — Las Vegas — Nevada Division of State Parks, 4747 Vegas Drive.

* Wednesday — Ely — Mt. Wheeler Power, 1600 Great Basin Blvd.

* Nov. 5 — Elko — NDOW Office, 60 Youth Center Road.

* Nov. 6 — Winnemucca — Humboldt County Court House, Room 201, 50 W. 5th Street.

Those interested in participating in the town hall meetings can obtain some background information by downloading the publication Harvest Management Guidelines for Nevada at www.ndow.org/Harvest-Management-Guidelines. If you can't make it to one of the meetings, you can submit specific comments by sending them to Game Division, 1100 Valley Road, Reno, NV 89512, or fax them to 775-688-1518.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His "In the Outdoors" column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached atintheoutdoorslv@gmail.com.