Potty, it is ingrained in university educated bios that statistics can be used to extrapolate any data they want based on small sample sets.  We as hunters seeing the game and pressure in our zones see it from a completely different perspective and probably a much more accurate one.  That is going to be a fight in itself.

As for the hidden agenda, you may be correct in that with a complete draw system they are in full control.  No doubt that is not desirable if it is not required.  Why they allowed a huge doe kill with stupid amounts of tags is beyond me.

I'll back you up on this one  the general mule deer zones are in rough shape where I live.

I definately think a seperate archery draw is needed for muley's. I'm not sure if agree with the general mule deer draw Idea. I wouldn't be surprised if a guy picked the right zone he would probably draw an archery tag every year. I also think there should be one choice for either rifle or an archery mule draw as I think it would reduce wait times for both bow and rifle hunters. Don't beat me up to bad on this one guys it's just an opinion.

I think the real fight is with the unlimited land owner tags and outfitter allocations.

What zone do you hunt?

I have the data to look up outfitter tags in your zone

I was serious about these general mule rifle zones.  There is no deer in them but zones with hundreds of deer we have to wait many many years.  As for archery numbers I don't buy in to there numbers.  If you hunt 305 you will hardly see another bow hunter ever but 270 archery kills. LMFAO. Heck they only give out 170 rifle tags.  Sorry that number at best IMO would maybe be 20-30. That IMO is even way high for residents. I bet if outfitter numbers were excluded just like in sheep numbers success would be way low.

So was I . I brought it up to the areas biologist at our local F&G meeting last year about low mule deer numbers and all he gave was some BS answere. He's coming up again this year and I don't know if I should waist my time going to that meeting.

I definately think a seperate archery draw is needed for muley's. I'm not sure if agree with the general mule deer draw Idea. I wouldn't be surprised if a guy picked the right zone he would probably draw an archery tag every year. I also think there should be one choice for either rifle or an archery mule draw as I think it would reduce wait times for both bow and rifle hunters.

I was on the fence on this one but I believe I am starting to agree with you on this.  It will reduce the number of bowhunters in the province as I believe most bowhunters are rifle hunters who start archery to get access to hunt our mule deer every year. (one of the biggest reasons I don't understand why so many are fighting to reduce hunting oppurtunity for ALL Alberta residents).  The seperate draw will help eliminate the weekend warrior archers who are only trying it for something to do in early season.  A hunter who chooses to go the archery route will practice properly, do their research and strive to be successful.  Right now, many of the bowhunters out there are not giving it the proper effort, dont understand the capabilities of their equipment and the dedication it takes to get successfully get into bow range on most animals on a regular basis. 

For myself. I work hard to do both successfully so its sad that I may have to choose one weapon over the other.  Its sad that fellow resident hunters want to reduce hunting oppurtunity for all Alberta resident hunters.  I always thought the AFGA, ABA and all hunting groups were mandated to help increase hunting oppurtunity for all residents of Alberta.

I thought it was SRD that was pushing for the draw. Their the ones pushing the BS data and skewed numbers.

Like you said in your last post the archery draw may have it's benefits eliminating the fly by nights. Sounded like the road warrior trend was starting in the archery zones last year near the Urban areas. If the die hard bow hunter does his home work which he usually does he should be able to find a quallity zone that he should be able to draw a tag every year and the high presssure zones can be controlled.

I think the real battle is with both the land owner tags and outfitter allocations.

In Lethbridge, The LFGA has been against the early season archery for years and managed to lobby SRD into reducing the Archery antlered Mule Deer season to just the month of October for the last 10 years in the 3 WMU around Lethbridge.  This was not a result of a decision by SRD, just a reaction to appease one of the local stakeholders.  With this in mind, I do not believe that the AFGA is fighting for the rights of all hunters in Alberta if they support this. This action does not support that.

As for SRD, I dont think they really care how the tags get divided up as long as their management goals are being met by the local hunting communities.  They could have easily reduced the number of draw antlered tags in each of the WMU's and allocated more to the "supposed success rates" of the bowhunters.  As a member of the SABA bowhunters for the last 17 years, I guarantee the success rates on antlered mule deer are well below 15%.  We have almost 300 members and usually get 10-20 bucks harvested a year (and 15 years ago it was hard to get 3 for the awards).  A succcess rate of 5-10%.  Heck, I still dont understand what is magical about the 15%.   A mandatory survey/hunter harvest is needed so that SRD can properly analyze the numbers and develop a strategy that is based on facts, not assumptions,