Special hunts offered at Tex Creek
Idaho Fish and Game is offering special controlled hunts in the Tex Creek area on a first-come-first-serve basis beginning at 10 a.m. October 13.
In response to the Henry’s Creek wildfire, which burned about 75 percent of the 34,000 acre Tex Creek Wildlife Management Area, the department will offer 500 antlerless deer tags and 500 antlerless elk tags.
The special deer season will run November 10 through November 30, and the elk season will run November 17 through November 30 in units 69-1X and 66-1X. Tags for the hunts are considered “extra” tags, so hunters who have already bought a tag can purchase one.
The tags will only be available at Fish and Game offices, businesses that sell licenses and tags, and by phone at 1-800-554-8685. There will be no tags sold online.
The fire burned about 53,000 acres and most of the crucial range for 3,500 elk, 5,000 mule deer, and 100 moose than winter on the wildlife management area.
“There was public support for a multifaceted approach, including increasing the harvest of deer and elk before winter,” Fish and Game’s Upper Snake Region Supervisor Jim White said.
The Department is also prepared to start emergency winter feeding following the hunting seasons. Officials felt a combination of emergency feeding and hunting would be the best way to reduce mortality over the winter months. It would also allow winter range vegetation to recover and reduce damage to nearby private land.
The hunts will partly overlap the last 20 days of an existing high-quality controlled buck hunt (Hunt No. 1052) that runs Oct. 10 through Nov. 30).
Hunters with those 20 tags for hunt 1052 may request rain checks that will be useable for the 2017 season because of additional hunters participating in the new antlerless hunts. Any request for those rain checks must be made to the Director’s Office at P.O. Box 25, Boise, ID, 83707. Requests must be received or postmarked no later than Oct. 24, 2016 and the applicant must show they have not hunted with the tag.
