Hey Everybody

I have been getting a ton of calls regarding the sheep lo tags so I called the Dept to see if I could get some answers regarding the restrictions.

Below is a quote from the Proclamation…
*Culebra Mountains, Fra Cristobal Bighorn Sheep Hunts These hunts occur only on private land. Landowners have placed certain restrictions on these hunts. Please call the Department at (505) 476-8038 for more information about these restrictions

This number goes to a guy named Aaron…  I asked him what the restrictions were… and he had no idea… SOOOOO… He made an internal transfer of my call to Darrel Weybright…  From the way Darrel answered the call I think he thought I was Erin… He answered very casually.  I guess Darrel is in charge of this entire thing…  SOOO… Bullet points of our long call…

1) It will be a 50/50 split… LO to draw

2) THERE WILL BE NO SCOUTING prior to your hunt

3) You will be allowed to camp in designated areas

4) You will need to be chaperoned by a ranch designee

5) Your party can be a max of 4 people

6) He brought up the Leo Sims deal and I called him on it… He refused to even talk about it or even address it then he said that he had to go… IMO, kind of strange and I didn’t get a good feeling about it AT ALL…

7) This hunt will happen unless the commission opposes it but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen

8) There is a potential contract between the Game and Fish and the LO but he wouldn’t share it with me and he said the commissioners don’t have a copy of it so I am not sure how they could review the topic if they don’t know what they are agreeing to.

9) I want to stress that I am glad that these LO have helped the residents on NM with Conservation BUT I just wish all of this was on the table… I don’t like the precedent that is being created.  We all agree the that LO system is messed up and now we are adding one more species to the list…  I don’t like the fact that there is this contract but it hasn’t had any public input…

10) I JUST ADDED THIS… BUT Darrel said that there would be 2 hunters on the mountain at a time… Because the the hunt codes indicate two draw hunters at a time this implies that the LO Tag Holders will have a different season….

Jason