Idaho Fish and Game commissioners on Nov. 17 rescinded a proposal that would allow hunters to forego prepaying moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat tags when applying for those controlled hunts in the spring.

Those hunts will remain under the existing rules, which means residents and nonresidents must pay the application fee and tag fee to apply, as well as have a valid hunting license.

Application fees for moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goats will increase in 2018 to $16.75 for residents and $41.75 for nonresidents, which was part of the legislation passed in 2017 that included hikes for nearly all resident hunting, fishing and trapping licenses, tags and permits.

Fish and Game has seen the number of applicants for moose, bighorn sheep and goat tags steadily increase in recent years, and commissioners have grappled with how to keep drawing odds from getting slimmer for those coveted tags.

Commissioners were concerned if hunters could forgo paying up front for a tag when they apply, it would give them more incentive to apply. For nonresidents that would mean not having to put up $2,101, which does not including the license or application fee. Nonresidents are eligible for up to 10 percent of the tags, but the tag fee is refunded after if they’re not drawn, but not the license or the application fee.

Residents also have to pay for the tag up front when they apply, along with the application fee and have a hunting license, but residents pay $166.75 for a moose, sheep or mountain goat tag.

The application period for those tags is April 1 through April 30.

Other decisions made by the commission on Nov. 17 include:

• Postponed the sale of nonresident Sawtooth Zone elk tags. Nonresident deer and elk tags typically go on sale Dec. 1 for the upcoming year, however, the commission has not decided how to allocate those limited tags, which sold out in minutes earlier this year for both residents and nonresidents.
• Commission retained the same pricing for turkey tags for 2018 for resident hunters who are price locked, which will be $19.75 for a resident general tag, $12.25 for an extra tag, and $5 for a special unit discounted tag.
• 2018 prices for residents not in Price Lock will be $22.75 for general turkey tags, $12.25 for extra tags, and $5 for special unit discounted tags.
• Nonresident turkey tag prices will be $80 for nonresident general tags, $80 for nonresident extra tags, and $5 for special unit discounted tags.

Back in June of 2014, I wrote a column titled, “The mountains keep getting steeper,” after having a discussion with a friend of mine about why he had given up hunting and given most of his rifles to his children and grandchildren.

Almost a year later, I wrote a column titled, “Revisiting the mountains that keep getting steeper,” because my grandchildren were starting to ask me who was going to get my rifles and pistols when I died.

All the sudden I realized that I too was actually older than I felt. I started trying to analyze why I didn’t feel like an old guy and why the mountains and hunting didn’t seem to be slowing me down enough that it was much of an issue.

This past hunting season, a friend of mine who is quite a bit younger than I am went hunting with me for the first time. About midday he asked me how old I was. He knew roughly how old I was and was surprised that I didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping up.

Other than telling him my age, I’m not sure how I explained to him the way I stay in condition for hunting. I probably just told him that I hiked and mountain biked in the spring and summer and skied in the winter, and I have a physical regimen that I do three times a week at home, which was all responsible for me being able to handle the physical requirements of hunting each year.

However, diet plus sleep habits also play an important role in staying in good condition.

The first athletic diet that I’m aware of was the ancient Olympic diet that Olympic competitors were fed. It consisted of legumes and meat, which was switched to wine and dried fruit just before competition.

Many decades of nutritional research have contributed to sports nutritional supplements and diets for athletes that are promoted today. One of today’s early products was Gatorade, developed by Dr. Robert Cade at the University of Florida and named after the school’s mascot.

Fast forward to 2017, and we have for many years realized that we need more than just supplements to safely boost physical performance. We need wholesome meals that meet the requirements of people who are involved in strenuous activity.

We have also realized that many of us participate in strenuous activities even though we are not athletes in the normal sense of the term. We also need nutritious meals that will support our active lifestyle, and our nutritional requirements aren’t really much different than the athletes we admire.

Hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts are athletes in their own right, and the nutrition market is recognizing this. Several sports nutrition companies in the USA, specifically Wilderness Athlete and Isagenix, are offering scientifically valid and field-proven products for hunters, backpackers, mountain bikers, skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

Wilderness Athlete offers several supplements and drinks that improve human performance in the outdoor environment, while Isagenix always has provided products that are meal replacements for one or two meals a day, with one 600-calorie normal meal a day. They also have now added products that are one to two meal replacements a day for those engaged in athletics or strenuous outdoor activities, with one-600 calorie meal a day.

Both companies can design a nutritional program that will meet the individual needs of those they serve that is effective and affordable. Just remember that you are using these products in lieu of what you would normally eat or drink. I personally have one meal replacement and one to two normal meals on most days.

Getting sufficient sleep is also an important part of staying in good condition. I’m sure most of us have heard, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” I’m not sure about the wealthy part, but the rest of it is true. Besides, if you are healthy, you probably have a type of wealth that many people wish they had.

Being raised on a horse ranch, I learned early to get my homework and chores done so I could be in bed by 10 p.m. because I had to be up again at 6 a.m. to feed and water horses and still get to school by 8 a.m. I usually returned home from school about 3:30 p.m., trained horses and then fed and watered them until dinner time and then did my homework. If my father got home from his hospital rounds by 9 p.m., we usually went out to the barn and talked about the horses I was training.

Even today I feel like I’ve committed a sin if I stay up past 10 p.m., and I still wake up just before 6 a.m. most mornings. So I guess my father instilled at least one good habit in me, but it drives my wife nuts.

However, I believe my exercise regimen, my eating habits that exclude soda pop, junk food, etc., and my habit of shutting down about 10 p.m. and getting up about 6 a.m. have a lot to do with the mountains being about the same as they have always been as far as I can tell.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming will increase fees for various permits, including backcountry camping, weddings and motor boats.

Park spokesman Andrew White said the fee adjustment is part of the park’s annual review of programs.

“It’s not a response to any sort of budget issue,” White said. “We’re just making sure we’re recovering the cost associated with these programs.”

On Jan. 1, the fee for a backcountry permit will rise from $25 to $35. Add $10 for advanced registration and the total will be $45.

In 2014, when Teton Park initiated a $25 fee for a backcountry permit, there was no “adverse effect on the number of people camping in the backcountry,” White said.

More than 40,000 people spent a night in the park’s backcountry this year, the Jackson Hole News & Guide reported .

Wedding permits will increase from $100 to $125, special event permits will rise from $175 to $200, and non-motorized boat permits will increase by $2 to $12. The cost to operate each program differs, White said.

Backcountry permit fees cover the cost of free bear-canister use, an educational video, trail use and site maintenance. But the big driver of the cost is the use of the Recreation.gov website.

The website is used by the park to manage reservations. It’s operated by a private contractor, White said, and it recently changed hands. The fees the park pays increased after that.

“That fee increased rather significantly this year,” White said, “from $2 to $10 a permit.”

Permits for special events and weddings require extra site monitoring and cleanup, White said.

___

Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A relatively new $13.5 million hatchery intended to save Snake River sockeye salmon from extinction is instead killing thousands of fish before they ever get to the ocean, and fisheries biologists in Idaho think they know why.

The Department of Fish and Game in information released this week says water chemistry at the Springfield Hatchery in eastern Idaho is so different from that in the central region that the young fish can’t adjust when released into the wild.

“It’s not a disaster, it’s part of what you experience when you open a new hatchery,” Paul Kline, Fish and Game’s assistant fisheries chief, said in a post on the agency’s website.

Idaho Rivers United, an environmental group, blasted the report as more reason for removing four dams on the lower Snake River that impede salmon.

“Until we address main-stem survival we’re missing the biggest opportunity for these amazing fish,” Kevin Lewis, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

Sockeye salmon are a prized sport fish and the Idaho run is culturally important to the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. An estimated 150,000 sockeye returned annually to central Idaho, and Redfish Lake was named for the abundant red-colored salmon that spawned there.

Federal officials say the run began to decline in the early 1900s due to overfishing, irrigation diversions, dams and poisoning, teetering on the brink of extinction in the early 1990s.

The fish have been the focus of an intense recovery program centered at Fish and Game’s Eagle Fish Hatchery in southwestern Idaho after being listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1991.

The Springfield hatchery was completed in 2013. Salmon eggs from the Eagle hatchery and the federally operated Burley Creek Hatchery in Washington state are transported to Springfield where they are raised until they are ready for release as young fish, called smolts, into the Salmon River.

The goal has been to release 1 million smolts with the hope that up to 5,000 of them could survive the ocean odyssey to return annually as adults to Redfish Lake. This year, 162 adults returned, none from the Springfield Hatchery.

Fish and Game officials say smolts from the hatchery released in central Idaho are not surviving.

The main theory, officials say, is that water at the Springfield Hatchery has a high amount of dissolved minerals, called hard water, while the water at Redfish Lake and the Salmon River does not, making it soft water.

Young fish headed for the ocean transition from living in fresh water to salt water. Biologists say the additional stress of trying to also adjust from hard water to soft water could be killing the salmon.

Idaho officials say they plan on trying various solutions, including releasing fish directly into Redfish Lake in the fall as pre-smolts, raising more sockeye at the Sawtooth Hatchery in central Idaho, and gradually softening water as fish are transported from the Springfield Hatchery in trucks to central Idaho.

The Bonneville Power Administration paid for the Springfield Hatchery as part of federally required mitigation to replace fish killed by hydroelectric projects that provide power to the region.

“We are confident that this hatchery is still viable and that our partners will find a solution,” said David Wilson, spokesman for the agency.

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming Game and Fish Department public meeting on how to manage grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem drew comments and ideas from hunting guides who perceive there are too many grizzly bears and environmentalists insistent that Jackson Hole should remain a hunting-free sanctuary.

About 100 people attended the meeting Wednesday night when they were asked their thoughts on population monitoring, research, conflict management, information and education and grizzly bear hunting.

The comments and ideas voiced included prohibiting grizzly bear hunting until the Yellowstone region’s bears are connected with the grizzly bear population in northwest Montana; requiring wildlife managers to tell the public where tracked grizzlies are in real time when the bears venture into well-used areas; and requiring that meat from a hunted grizzly bear can’t be wasted, the Jackson Hole News & Guide reported.

“I would recommend that the regulations say you can’t shoot a bear within a mile of a road,” said Maury Jones, a local ranch manager.

Such a buffer, Jones said, could ensure that wildlife watchers enjoy their viewing experiences without worrying about seeing a grizzly bear die.

Dan Thompson, the state’s large carnivore supervisor, said hunting grizzly bears would be “biologically sustainable” because there are an estimated 695 bears in the Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently determined that the Yellowstone grizzly population no longer needed federal protection and turned management of the species over to the three states.

Conflicts between humans and grizzly bears are increasing as the bear population expands. State game managers consider hunting as one of the tools needed to help control the situation. Other tools include capturing and relocating bears.

Conservation groups generally oppose hunting of grizzly bears and several are suing to restore the federal protections, contending the bears are still threatened by a warming climate that limits their traditional food sources such as whitebark pine nuts and by increasing conflicts with humans.

It was a cold, blustery morning when 10-year-old Wade Kotter embarked on his first hunting expedition.

It was Oct. 14 at 3:30 a.m., and Wade and his dad, Kevin Kotter, had just left their home in Blackfoot. The temperatures were low. The snow was falling. When the pair arrived at their hunting spot nearly two hours later, the fierce, biting wind made it hard to maneuver.

But by noon, everything turned around. The wind had died down. The snow had ceased. The sun had come out.

And Wade — on his very first outing — had bagged his first buck.

“It started out to be the nastiest day you’d ever seen,” Kevin said. “And it turned out to be a beautiful day.”

Wade’s adventure began back in the summer when he went through an Idaho Fish and Game hunting education program that included a day course and two tests. On his own time, Wade practiced at the gun range and made sure to ask his dad, who has been hunting since he was 12 years old, plenty of questions.

By mid-October, Wade was ready. He and his dad were joined by his grandparents, Doug and Shelly Sayer, his uncle, Jim Warner, cousins Wyatt Warner and Kinley Wright, and his hunting guide and family friend, Toad.

Near Malta, the group traversed up a trail via four-wheelers into the backcountry. They initially were unsuccessful — stopping at a spot without seeing anything and stopping at another spot only to have a buck smell them and scurry away.

After hiking down a ridge, they spotted a group of aspen trees in the distance. It didn’t take long for a light brown, four-point buck to burst from the trees and come darting toward them.

“My dad yells, ‘Buck!’” Wade said. “And this buck just comes running out of the bottom.”

“He came straight toward us,” Kevin said. “He was pretty much on a full run. He turned and went broadside to us and ran for another 200 yards, and the whole time Wade was just very focused and determined. He was looking through his scope, never panicked. … The deer was just getting ready to crest the ridgeline, and he would’ve been gone, but he stopped for a split second. And Wade was just on him just like that. It really was pretty amazing.”

Wade took the shot, and the buck dropped.

After the group took photos, they gutted and skinned Wade’s kill, loaded it onto a four-wheeler and took it back down the mountain. The harvested meat is in the trusted hands of Del Monte Meats in Pocatello, and Wade already has a spot picked out on his bedroom wall to hang the mount.

“I had so many things going through my mind,” Wade said. “I’m like, ‘This is awesome. I got my first buck. I can’t wait to get my meat back.’”

With Wade’s kill, he achieved something that was tough to do this past hunting season. According to Jennifer Jackson, regional conservation educator for Idaho Fish and Game, data collected from check stations in the southeast region indicated a hunter success rate of about 12 percent in 2017. The last four years saw hunter success rates around 20 percent, with 2016 showing a 23 percent hunter success rate.

A harsh winter with more snowfall than past winters was a major factor in hunters being less successful this past hunting season.

“We’ve had four winters in a row that were mild,” Jackson said. “We had high fawn survival, and our adults did really well. Last year saw significant impact to our fawns.”

Whether this upcoming winter impacts hunting in 2018 or not, Wade is excited to get back out there next season.

“I’m really thankful for my grandma and grandpa, Doug and Shelly,” he said. “They’re the ones who bought my tag and got this hunt for me. … I wouldn’t be doing this right now if they hadn’t done that for me.”

I became acquainted with Bri Stacklie, the Minnesota Deer Hunter Association event and publication coordinator, through writing articles for her. She invited me to attend their 2017 Minnesota Governor’s Deer Opener, which sounded like a great event. Who hasn’t heard about the legendary “deer camps” in Minnesota.

I thought it might be fun for the readers out west to hear about a hunting organization/event that took place back east. One thing that I noticed is the excitement in the air the day before deer season.

Here’s what I think is the difference. In Idaho, we have deer, elk, antelope, bear, wolf, bighorn, rocky mountain goat and moose hunting all going on at once so our hunters are all fragmented every which way. In Minnesota, the whole team is on the field at once.

It surprised me but there’s a good bit of public land, too, which opens it up to the common Joe. That’s a good thing. Of course, they don’t have as much as we do out here, but it’s enough so people can go hunting.

But let’s back up and cover the event. I flew into Hibbing, Minnesota, at noon, jumped in a rental car and ran over to Grand Rapids. Then I checked into the Timberlake Lodge where the event was being held.

I got there early, which is the norm for me. They were just getting everything set up so I was able to get the lay of the land. I met Bri in person for the first time and got signed in. They had a big event tent set up outside that housed numerous booths. Cabela’s had a youth archery range set up in there.

Outside, there was a trailer set up by Fish and Game and a cowboy giving horse-drawn rides. Inside they were giving seminars on various topics, such as chronic wasting disease and other topics. Then at 6:30 the banquet started.

Wow, it was a lot bigger than I thought it’d be. I don’t know how many people were there, but it was packed. They had a lot of interesting speakers lined up on up to, including the governor. Most of them began their talk by recalling fond memories as a kid growing up in a deer camp.

The night soon drew to a close, and at 5 a.m. the next morning they served us breakfast and had a room set up for radio interviews. I didn’t count, but there had to have been seven to eight outdoor radio stations interviewing outdoor writers, game wardens, etc. I had five interviews scheduled.

It was a fun event. They were a lively bunch and it sounded like all of the radio hosts were raised in a deer camp. Most of the interviews were live. I was surprised at how many outdoor radio stations Minnesota had. I’m sure there’s more, but I only knew of one here in Idaho and it went under years ago. So the radio interviews were fast and furious and then they scattered.

I then jumped into my rig and headed for the woods to experience a Minnesota deer camp. I was going to hunt with Ed Schmidt, one of the founders of the Minnesota Deer Hunter Association and editor at the MDHA Magazine. His sidekick, Roger Grosslein, was in camp helping out, as well as Javier Serna, editor at the Outdoor News.

I hit camp right at lunch, and Ed whipped us up something to eat right fast, and then we went out to check out our blinds. Roger and I went to check out ours and Ed and Javier went to theirs. My blind was in the woods with about a 40- to 50-yard view. There was 6 inches of snow and tracks seemingly everywhere. It looked promising. We hung a little more cloth on the outside and then headed back to the cabin.

A big limb had fallen off and punctured through the roof of the porch on the cabin. It was stuck pretty good but I was able to whack on it for a bit with a chainsaw and get it out. We then had a big dinner and sat around telling stories. I’ve always heard how cool it was to canoe in northern Minnesota. Javier does it quite a bit and was telling me about it.

The next morning we got up early and hit the blinds. About 10:30 we all met at the cabin for breakfast. Ed makes his own maple syrup. Wow, that stuff is worth dying for. We shot the bull a minute and headed back out to the blinds. It spit either snow, sleet or rain most of the day, and the deer just weren’t moving too much. I knew the weather would be bad so I’d taken my Mossberg Patriot rifle with a Leupold scope and was using Nosler Trophy Grade 250-grain ammo. I knew all three would hold up to the weather.

It soon got dark and we headed back to the cabin. We had a big dinner and then sat around shooting the bull and listening to a Minnesota radio station called The Green Cheese. Great time experiencing Minnesota.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

Yellowstone National Park has surpassed 4 million visits for the third consecutive year. 

Visitation numbers released Thursday show that the park counted 4.08 million visits through the end of October. Total visits have surpassed 4 million by the end of October each year since 2015.

This year is still lagging behind 2016, when Yellowstone set a visitation record with 4.2 million visits for the entire year. But visitation is nearly 20 percent higher than it was in 2012. 

October saw 211,987 visits, the third highest total on record for the month.

Visitation totals typically drop off dramatically in November as roads and entrances close for the winter. The only entrances currently open are at Gardiner and Cooke City. The road from Mammoth Hot Springs to Cooke City stays open year-round.

Snowmobile and snowcoach tours will begin Dec. 15. 

SPOKANE — An environmental group is suing the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for access to some public records on wolf deaths in the state.

The Center for Biological Diversity is seeking records about the killing of a wolf from the Smackout Pack this summer and the killing of nearly the entire Profanity Peak pack in 2016.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Thurston County Superior Court.

“The public has every right to know how and why wolves are being killed in Washington,” said Amaroq Weiss, wolf advocate for the center. “It’s frustrating that state wildlife officials won’t come clean with the full details on these lethal operations.”

Bruce Botka, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Wildlife in Olympia, said the agency did not comment on the filing of legal complaints and had not yet reviewed the lawsuit with attorneys.

Wolves are listed as endangered by the state in the eastern third of Washington, where they are relatively abundant, and have federal endangered species protection in the western two-thirds of the state.

Gray wolves were hunted to extinction in Washington early in the past century. But the animals started migrating into the state in the early 2000s from Idaho and Canada.

At the end of 2016, the state estimated there were a minimum of 115 wolves, 20 packs and 10 successful breeding pairs in the state. All of the documented wolf packs are east of the Cascade Range.

The state has killed 18 wolves since 2012, the center said.

This summer, the state issued new rules that allow the Department of Fish and Wildlife to move more quickly when a wolf pack begins preying on livestock.

Under the new rules, a hunt can be initiated if there are at least three attacks by wolves on livestock within 30 days, or four events within 10 months, including one that was not confirmed to be caused by wolves. The previous rules allowed a hunt only after at least four confirmed attacks by wolves over a year or six over two years.

The state rules also require the expectation that attacks will continue, and that the killing of problem wolves is not expected to harm the animals’ ability to reach statewide recovery goals.

On June 30, a wolf from the Smackout Pack was killed by a ranch hand, the center said. The Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that the wolf was caught in the act of attacking livestock and that the killing complied with state law.

But the department has so far refused to release documents related to the killing or subsequent investigation, the center said.

Last week, the agency announced that another wolf was killed on Oct. 27, again allegedly while caught in the act of attacking livestock, the center said.

“Each gray wolf killed in Washington makes state wildlife officials’ lack of transparency all the more troubling,” Weiss said.

The agency has also failed to turn over records sought by the center about the 2016 killing of the Profanity Peak Pack in response to livestock depredations, the center said.

‘Tis the season! And for those looking for an outdoor experience as they begin celebrating the holidays, the Bureau of Land Management will begin issuing Christmas tree permits starting today through Dec. 24.

The permits, which are specifically for Christmas trees on public lands managed by the BLM in Southeast Idaho, are $15 each with a limit of one per family. Note that tag prices and restrictions are different for trees cut on Forest Service lands.

While most of our public lands are available for Christmas tree permits, a few areas are closed because of their unique ecology or wildlife value.

Christmas tree cutting is closed in the following areas in the Pocatello Field Office (but not limited to): Petticoat Peak and Worm Creek Wilderness Study Areas and Wolverine Canyon.

Closed Areas in Upper Snake Field Office boundary include (but are not limited to) the following wilderness study areas: Sand Mountain, Black Canyon, Appendicitis Hill, Snake River Islands, Henrys Lake, White Knob Mountain, Hawley Mountain, China Cup, Cedar Butte, Hell’s Half Acre and Burnt Creek.

The public may purchase the BLM Christmas tree permits at the following locations:

• Upper Snake Field Office, 1405 Hollipark Drive, Idaho Falls.
• Pocatello Field Office, 4350 S. Cliffs Drive, Pocatello.
• Westside Ranger District, 193 South 300 East, Malad.

You must have a valid permit to cut or remove trees from public lands. Further questions regarding Christmas tree cutting on public lands may be directed to Channing Swan of the BLM Pocatello Field Office at 208-478-6340.