by jntwlsn » Mon Nov 08, 2010 2:51 pm
I have hunted Cibola for 30 years. The hunting is been getting progessively worse year after year.
The managment is poor. At a time when Canada goose numbers are at an all time high, the numbers are at an all time low. Cibola used to religiously get 20,000 geese year after year. Perhaps now 5,000-8,000 if lucky. You won't see that many, that is what the managment reports they see on the closed area of the refuge.
The public fields are planted with a winter rye which the geese not the grain of choice plainted on the closed areas.
The draw. I have not been drawn for 7 years. Mean while, in years past, the local hunters get drawn several times per year. Go figure! You can, however, get drawn on a walk up lottery, which is what the non-locals have to do.
The rules: If you shoot a bird that is not touching the ground, the hunt coordinator, who is not a hunter, will threaten you with not allowing you to hunt the next day. As most of us know, shooting birds on the ground raise safety issues. This is the case here being that the blinds at Cibola are placed so close together; within a few hundred yards. Once you get yelled at or peppered a few times you'll lose interest in this refuge.
We used to shoot limits of geese. Not anymore. Not in a long time!