by Larry S. Moore

The world is full of acronyms. What is a WOCRMS and why is it important to Ohio’s sportsmen and women?

WOCRMS stands for Wild Ohio Customer Relationship Management System. It’s the state of the art way for sportsmen to interact with the Division of Wildlife. It’s been several years from concept, to the pilot program and now to the roll-out starting March 1. I met with Kathy Garza-Behr, District 5 Wildlife Communications Specialist, for an overview and demonstration of the new system.

She explains, “The system includes all normal purchases of hunting and fishing licenses, plus deer and turkey permits. The user can access hunter education class, sign up for Division publications, purchase the wildlife legacy stamps and gift certificates. The special hunting and fishing lotteries will also be done online. It is one-stop shopping for everything for the Ohio outdoors person.”

Garza-Behr continues, “The system will collect information for each customer. It is much more efficient for the hunter and the Division. The system includes online and telephone check-in options for checking harvested game. When the hunter checks a harvest, the number on the permit is immediately tied to the hunting license number. The Wildlife Officer will know in real-time if the hunter attempts to use the tag a second time. It gives the hunter the option to check game at a station, via the telephone or through the internet.”

All the legal requirements for licenses, signatures, temporary tagging and checking game remain the same. The hunter will have the temporary tag to attach to the harvested animal. The only change is the options to check by phone or internet. When checking the harvest there are boxes on the tag to record the harvest identification number which is generated by the system. This number must be retained by the hunter. Each package of processed meat must contain this number. It becomes the responsibility of the hunter to record the number and keep it to identify the harvest and any processed meat. The Ohio game check is a mandatory system. Compliance remains a matter of hunter ethics.

The 2011-12 hunting and trapping regulations proposals were presented January 19 to the Ohio Wildlife Council by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Wildlife. September 1 is again proposed…

by Larry S. Moore

The current Ohio deer season is winding down with the archery season concluding February 6. It is the time when hunters remember the season, celebrate the harvest or perhaps lament about the lack of success. It’s often a busy time of year for the official scorers of the Buckeye Big Bucks Club (BBBC). Perhaps no one in Ohio has scored more animals than Ron E. Perrine, Sr, of Xenia.

Perrine notes, “This is my thirty-seventh year scoring mounts. All totaled I’ve scored over 3,500 animals of all types. Most are deer but I’ve done lots of others. Someone once said if they had a category for Black Widow Spiders, then I’d probably score it! I will go where ever I am needed to score. There are a lot of BBBC authorized scorer’s in Ohio. A list of scorers is on our website.” Perrine, who scored 111 animals in 2010, keeps a personal book of all the animals he has scored. I’ve had the pleasure of watching as he scored some of Ohio’s record bucks, including the Greene County “Beatty Buck.”

The first part of the process is to examine the deer and layout the rack. Perrine uses tape to mark the rack for laying out the various measurement points noting, “We once had a guy accidently mark a rack with permanent ink marker. Needless to say the owner was not happy. I start with the main beam going straight up from the eye and get square. Good taxidermists that take the correct skull cap to fit the mold really help by getting everything set correctly.” He moves around the deer quickly and carefully with the hands and eyes of an expert as the number of animals he’s scored attest.