[pilot teacher]

Anybody ever see, hunt or know of woodchucks in Florida?

[Shawnee]

Lived there a long time and never saw nor heard of any. Plenty of armadillos though (aka "woodchucks on the half shell").

:D

[ZeSpectre]

Seems to me that you wouldn't have too many burrowing animals in Florida for the same reason folks don't have basements.

I could certainly be wrong though.

[Sunray]

Florida is out of the woodchuck/ground hog's living range. Alabama/Georgia and north. http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=109#sid14

[qajaq59]

Nope, but I sure wish there were some. I hunted them for years on a buddy's horse ranch up in Massachusetts, and it's a ball. Down here in Florida I hunt hogs. At least I can eat them.

[pilot teacher]

Yeah! Hunted them in upstate NY every summer. Each year did pretty good with between twenties and sixties annual totals. When moved to FL. that all stopped. Used Savage 340 30-30 most of the time with 125 or 130 gr. bullets. Turned them inside out most of the time. Club I was in leased a 300 acre farm up near Margariteville. Plenty of deer, small game and everything else. Florida is not that great at all.
Gonna see about Northern Georgia private lands if at all possible. Non resident license is 30 bucks for 3 days.

[qajaq59]

Pilot Teacher, if you are a Florida resident, and over 65, you can go to your county office and get a free "Senior Complimentary hunting and Fishing license" It's good in Florida AND Georgia. Florida and Georgia have a deal so us old dudes can hunt and fish for free.
Qajaq

[pilot teacher]

Hey there Qajag59. Oh yeah! I got the senior 65+ license. Didn't know they had a recip agreement. Couldn't find it on the GA site. Sent them an e-mail asking for senior info but they never answered it.
Thanks alot for the info.:D

Maybe take a drive up to N.Ga and reconnoiter farm lands.

[qajaq59]

Yeah, you have to go to the county office and sort of pry the info out of them because they just don't think to tell you.

[pilot teacher]

Hi Qajag.
Found out the agreement was discontinued July 1st. Even though the article below states it was Georgia that wanted to discontinue it, I would not not doubt that Florida FWC got someone in the Georgia wildlife management group teed off. Gotta say it. The FWC is sometimes not known for intelligence. It's typical political bickering that messes things up.

Florida Senior License Exemptions in Georgia end June 30
Senior citizens need a license to hunt or freshwater fish in Georgia starting July 1.


Back in 1981, Georgia and Florida agreed to exempt senior citizens from purchasing a license to freshwater fish or hunt in either state. In early April, the FWC voted to end the reciprocal agreement.



Starting in July, senior citizens in Florida must buy a license to hunt or fish in fresh water in Georgia. Vice-versa applies for Georgia senior citizens in Florida.



Georgia officials announced last year that “economic realities have rendered the agreement no longer feasible for hunting” reported Henry Cabbage, spokesperson for the FWC. The agreement between the two states required Florida to follow suit, and after discussions back and forth between state agencies, the FWC voted to end the agreement.

[Shawnee]

"The FWC is sometimes not known for intelligence"


That's a major 10-4 !

And the Water Gestapo Districts are as bad. :fire:


:cool:

[pilot teacher]

Yeah Shawnee! The morons do not take into consideration that Georgians hunting in Florida and Floridians hunting Georgia are also spending their money for hotels food and so on, thus adding to the economic health in those areas.
The non resident license is $30 for 3 days. But I would spend between 300 and 360 bucks for motels and food.

The FWC sucks and has caused interminable damage to wildlife control.
Their "SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY HUNTS" are a great way for them to sucker hunters out of their money with high hopes and come home with nothing

In Citrus County for example, where 4 deer are allowed per season, the season is only a couple of days long. Where I've hunted coyotes in the Chassahowitzka WMA, I haven't seen one. Never saw a deer, no rabbits only one armadillo. Much of it is impenetrable swamp land. God forbid turkey hunting. Went 2 years ago, there were 3 small toms taken from 40,000 acres. The only thing I went home with was 134 mosquito bites.

[qajaq59]

And so the seniors get it in the neck again.

[pilot teacher]

Georgia has agreements with a few other states.
It's the FWC's blantant stupidity that caused this. I think we should bombard the FWC with e-mail, faxes and calls to try and get them to reverse this.

The FWC is anti-hunting no matter what they say. Fishing is ok.
I had a conversation one time where I asked someone a question about yote hunting. I made two more calls 2 days apart and a total of 3 different answers. The 4th call brought me the correct answer. That's why I'm disgusted with them. Civil servants who are ignorant, can not or will not provide objective responses that are correct.

[qajaq59]

It's really a bad deal for a lot of Florida guys that have bought land up in GA to hunt on because they didn't need to buy a out of state license.

[Shawnee]

Speaking of Florida's usual "genius" with wildlife....

from the St. Pete Times today...


BROOKSVILLE, Fla. - While normally effective on people, a Hernando deputy learned the hard way that Taser stun guns do not work very well on wild boars.

The sheriff's office reported that Deputy Joseph Tibor responded to complaints of an "extremely large pig" tearing up a resident's yard in a Brooksville neighborhood Tuesday morning. He quickly found a 450-pound boar rooting up shrubbery and threatening a water fountain.
The animal then flashed his tusks toward onlookers. Tibor tried to stop it with his Taser, but the 50,000 volts had no effect on the animal.
The boar was eventually corralled into a neighbor's trailer.
______________________________________________________________


Doo-Dah .., Doo-Dah :rolleyes:

[Mike U.]

Speaking of Florida's usual "genius" with wildlife....

from the St. Pete Times today...


BROOKSVILLE, Fla. - While normally effective on people, a Hernando deputy learned the hard way that Taser stun guns do not work very well on wild boars.

The sheriff's office reported that Deputy Joseph Tibor responded to complaints of an "extremely large pig" tearing up a resident's yard in a Brooksville neighborhood Tuesday morning. He quickly found a 450-pound boar rooting up shrubbery and threatening a water fountain.
The animal then flashed his tusks toward onlookers. Tibor tried to stop it with his Taser, but the 50,000 volts had no effect on the animal.
The boar was eventually corralled into a neighbor's trailer.


Hey! Ain't life grand? I love it when I learn new stuff!(Really :) )

Who knew a 50,000 volt stun gun wouldn't work on a 450 lb. porcine tusker?

Deputy Tibor was very fortunate shocking it didn't piss that pig off good. :eek:
I guess if it did get good'n'pissed we'd have gotten to see how well .40 S&W JHP's work on big 450 lb. Boars (providing he was fast enough on the draw).
This brings to mind a few very important questions. Well, important to me anyways. :rolleyes: That being, what's the effective firing range of those Tasers anyway? 15 feet? :what: What was he thinking?
I think I would have gone with the shotgun and slugs. That's a tried and true hog harvester. Tasing a 450 lb. hog... :scrutiny: JEEZ!

Seriously though, I'm glad no one got hurt. That deputy could have gotten torn up pretty badly pretty damn fast. :uhoh: And that would have sucked big time.
He'd have a helluva good story for the grandkids though. :D

[qajaq59]

I would imagine that the boar probably had a 1/4 inch of dried mud on him.They do love rolling in that muck out there.