I stumbled on this forum a couple days ago, so when I was tearing my hair out over Florida Fish and Game paperwork, I thought I'd see if anyone could smarten me up a little (I hope so!).
My husband and I moved to Tampa (from Minnesota) this summer. It was a military change of station, so we're residents for all wildlife law purposes. We don't have the luxury of living on a nice spread of land out in the sticks - we live in South Tampa.
So when this time of year rolled around, even though there wasn't any snow, we had that "it's time to go HUNTIN'" feeling. We figured we'd like to hunt hogs. Chased a lot of deer up north, thought we'd try something different.
And for the life of me, it sure seems (reading the paperwork the state puts out), like there is NOWHERE to just go hunt on the spur of the moment. Now, we're both hunter safety eligible and more than happy to buy licenses, but it looks to me like every piece of public land with anything larger than a goose on it is subject to some sort of "quota" system that would have required us to mail in applications in JUNE?!?
Now, beyond just irritating the heck out of us, this seems like a pretty dumb system when the sport of hunting desperately needs new hunters, and also needs to lure back those of us who used to hunt but now don't own our own property on which to do it.
So - does anyone know if I've read the rules right? Is there really nowhere south of the panhandle and north of the glades to hunt big game if you didn't make a reservation in the spring?
Thanks for any help, folks. I wouldn't have gone on so long if you all didn't seem so darn knowledgeable about your hunts and your favorite territories!
My husband and I moved to Tampa (from Minnesota) this summer. It was a military change of station, so we're residents for all wildlife law purposes. We don't have the luxury of living on a nice spread of land out in the sticks - we live in South Tampa.
So when this time of year rolled around, even though there wasn't any snow, we had that "it's time to go HUNTIN'" feeling. We figured we'd like to hunt hogs. Chased a lot of deer up north, thought we'd try something different.
And for the life of me, it sure seems (reading the paperwork the state puts out), like there is NOWHERE to just go hunt on the spur of the moment. Now, we're both hunter safety eligible and more than happy to buy licenses, but it looks to me like every piece of public land with anything larger than a goose on it is subject to some sort of "quota" system that would have required us to mail in applications in JUNE?!?
Now, beyond just irritating the heck out of us, this seems like a pretty dumb system when the sport of hunting desperately needs new hunters, and also needs to lure back those of us who used to hunt but now don't own our own property on which to do it.
So - does anyone know if I've read the rules right? Is there really nowhere south of the panhandle and north of the glades to hunt big game if you didn't make a reservation in the spring?
Thanks for any help, folks. I wouldn't have gone on so long if you all didn't seem so darn knowledgeable about your hunts and your favorite territories!