Idaho Hunt Planner

So the time is drawing near and it is time to put in for your Elk, Deer, Pronghorn, and Bear controlled hunts here in Idaho. You have from May 1st - June 5th to put in for these hunts. So what happens when you draw out on a hunt that you put in for? The Idaho Fish and Game Website has a great feature called Idaho Hunt Planner. This is a great interactive tool to help search through the hunting regulations and help plan your hunt in Idaho. But they do preface the tool as not being the official printed rules and to refer to the printed regulations for the current rules. 

This is a great tool to help search for a hunt and find out the harvest statistics as well as the drawing odds for the hunt. You can also create your own maps and overlay layers including hunt boundaries, topography, aerial photos, and land management. Here is some of the information I pulled from the Fish and Game Website:

The Idaho Hunt Planner is an interactive search and mapping engine for our Hunting Regulations, but not the official printed rules available in pdf format online and and at local stores and license vendors.

Search For A Hunt 

• Hunt Planner
  Answer what, where, when and how to display matching hunts. Use advanced options to refine your results using harvest statistics and drawing odds.
• Trip Planner
  Your tool to search for multiple game animals and weapons.
• Search Drawing Odds*
  Find current hunts that have historically had the drawing odds you desire.
• Search Harvest Statistics*
  Current regulations tied to past harvest statistics.
• Browse Harvest Statistics
  View tables of harvest statistics by Species, Weapon, Season and Year
  * Note that Hunt Planner will also search Drawing Odds and Harvest Statistics while limiting your results for a specific area and time period.

Review Hunt Area Maps

• Map Center
  Make your own maps. Pan, zoom and overlay layers including hunt boundaries, topography, aerial photos and land management.
• 2012 Hunt Area Map Index
  Find the hunt boundary you are looking for and jump directly to maps and information.
• Download Shapefiles or Google Earth Layers
  Game Management Units, Elk Zones, Controlled Hunt Areas, Access Yes Properties and other layers from the Map Center.

Browse by Fish & Game Region

• Region 1 - Panhandle
• Region 2 - Clearwater
• Region 3 - Southwest
• Region 4 - Magic Valley
• Region 5 - Southeast
• Region 6 - Upper Snake
• Region 7 - Salmon

Apps Built on the Huntplanner!

Screen Shot of the Huntplanner

Now available for Android and iPhone Big Game Regs is a location-based hunting regulation application, Big Game Regs.

Drop a pin and it will display all the hunts that occur for an animal at that location. The app is ideal for a sportsman planning a hunt, checking compliance while in the field using your GPS, or simply learning more about specific regulations. The app is free and comes with a sample demo-season to play with and learn the functionality. Seasons are available to purchase by state and year using in-app purchases.

• iPhone or iPad available on the iTunes Store
• Android version available on Google Play

View Hunts by Species

• Mule & White-Tailed Deer
• Rocky Mountain Elk
• Pronghorn Antelope
• Black Bear
• Mountain Lion
• Gray Wolf
• Moose
• California & Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep
• Mountain Goat

The information above was found at the Idaho Fish and Game website.

I have been playing around with the app and have found it very useful and extremely helpful. It uses your GPS on your phone for you to see which unit you are in, and from there you can see the regulations for that area. You can see the species that are available and the season. All in all this is a great app and best of all it is FREE but only comes with the demo-season to get familiar with the program. They do have seasons available for purchase in the iTunes store and are reasonably priced at $5.99 and the app currently has data for the following states:

Idaho 2011-2012 Season $5.99
Colorado 2012-2013 Season $5.99
Montana 2012-2013 Season $5.99
Washington 2011-2012 Season $5.99
Pennsylvania 2011-2012 Season $1.99
 
Information and prices were found in the app from the iTunes store on 5/14/2012 

Six Years

I was looking at the calendar and realized that this Saturday is Cinco de Mayo which is very special to my wife and me. This day will mark 6 years of being married. I have been truly blessed to marry my best friend and her putting up with me. I wanted to give her a shout out and how awesome she is. When we were dating she knew nothing about hunting and she couldn't stand to watch any hunting shows. I'll admit that I was nervous. But she made it clear that it was fine that I hunted because she related it to shopping. She is a bargain hunter, she will seek out and find the best deal possible and has a strategy before she enters the store. I hunt for food, she hunts for clothes.

My wife knew little about hunting, I slowly had to break her in. Each Sunday we have the opportunity to enjoy Sunday dinner with my family where the hunting channel is usually on. This meant that she was "forced" to watch hunting. When she started out watching she couldn't stand to watch the animal get shot, but now she will watch and let me know if it was a good shot or not. She's has learned how to tell the difference between a mule deer and a whitetail. She definitely has made me proud.

She Loves to Fish

My family usually makes a trip to Henry's Lake and my wife had never been so I decided that it was time. I took her on the fishing trip back in 2008 and let's just say that she knows how to fish. She's still a little weary with putting the worm on the hook so I baited the hook for her and let her do the rest. As she was reeling in the fish I caught a glimpse of the fish and let everyone on the boat know that it was a BIG fish. It got closer and closer and it kept on getting bigger. We finally landed the monster and my wife was extremely excited.

My wife and her 15 pound hybrid trout

15 lbs of fish

We also go to a little creek up in the mountains every year for memorial day weekend to camp out and go fishing. This is one of our trips of the year because we camp for 3 days and get to go fishing for the little brook trout in the creek. Needless to say we make a great pair.

Fishing at Fish Creek

Our batch of fish

 

 

 

 

 

Camping at Fish Creek

 She Loves to Shoot

I also bought her a bow so she could get into archery. She told me that she would never hunt which I am never going to force her to do. But she does enjoy hunting targets. She loves to visit the 3D archery range with me and she is great company as well as some great competition! We love to go out in the evenings when it is nice and have a friendly competition out at the range. I am perfectly content with my wife being interested in hunting just targets. She did mention that she would be willing to try bowfishing this year so this summer we will be visiting the reservoir in search of some carp.

My wife's first time shooting a .22

My wife out shooting her Bow

So in short I wanted to give a shout out to my beautiful wife and say thanks for being supportive of me. She's a great woman and an amazing mother and I am truly blessed to have her in my life. Happy Anniversary! Love ya babe!

Archery Shoot, Rides, and Bears.. Oh My

Well I haven't been posting as often as I want or should be. But have no fear I am alive and well still living the dream. I figured I would consolidate some posts into one post. I know how much people enjoy reading long pointless posts so no worries, I'll keep it short.

Upper Snake River Bowmen

The USRB Club had their Annual Beaver Dick Shoot out at Beaver Dick Park on the 21st. This is one of my favorite shoots to participate in. There were 2 separate ranges of 3D targets and lots of challenging  shots to push you. Unfortunately they set up all the 3D targets on the Friday before the shoot and camped out in the park, then woke up to find that someone had stolen two of the targets. That was very frustrating knowing that someone would stoop that low. But here are some pictures that I snapped while we were at the shoot.

My brother Travis shooting the Glendel Buck

My brother Kevin shooting the Glendel Buck

My Dad shooting the Glendel Buck

My sister-in-law Sara

Yellowstone Bear World

After the shoot, I spent the rest of the day with my wife and son. We went to Yellowstone Bear World for their Easter egg hunt. It was of course well after Easter but they just had some baby bear cubs and so we went to spend some time around some bears, ride some rides, and enjoy the sunny day.

Baby Cub

Bear Cub

Baby Deer Loving Fynch's Shirt

That's his mean Bear Face

My wife and son enjoying the train ride

This was his first "amusement park" ride

Albino Elk

Gobble Gobble

Bears staring down the cars

Grizzly Bear

That's a big bear

Wolf taking a nap

Fynch staring down the bear

Bear licking the front of our car

He decided he wanted a ride

I'm trying to back up at this point

I don't always stand on top of cars, but when I do....

Just checking your wiper blade

Hmmm... Looks like they need changed

High Five

Luckily it wasn't this big guy

Big ole bear

This was how we spent our Saturday. It was a lot of fun to be able to spend time with my family and get out and enjoy the wildlife. I know it was in a park but to see my son's face with all the rides and the animals was priceless. I wouldn't have had it any other way, spending the day with my wife and son. I'll even take the scratches on my hood for the memories that we will have.