You are correct, and I apologize for getting off topic. However I was asked to enlighten everyone on topics that were brought up in the thread. If I missed anything or if anyone would like to continue this discussion you may PM me.

In regards to the original topic, I would be hard set to side with any one side without additional information. I don't necessarily trust what the AP writes and news tends to be exaggerated to make for better stories. Should a writer have freedom of speech and be able to write what they want? Yes that is what our country is built on. However, if the article is about one of the board members of the organization that employs you I don't imagine he was shocked by the outcome. If I write in a public forum and insulted my boss, I don't imagine I would have a job come Monday either.

I'm not sure what Frog Blocker is but I'm sure this is a poor attempt at a joke. Let me start off by simply saying. Conservation is not raising money for more free public hunting area for a bunch of Top Waters to tear up all year. Conservation is conserving, preserving, and building habitat so that a species can survive and flourish.

To answer the Delta debate. Both DU and Delta are great organizations and go towards Conservation. Delta does promise to put money back into the county that the funds are raised in. Well Dallas is one of their largest events and last time I checked Delta wasn't building any public waterfowl hunting areas in Dallas County. Going to back to my point above conservation is not providing public hunting areas.

Yes DU CEO makes over $400K a year. In order to have the knowledge and expertise to operate a multi hundred million dollar company you deserve to be paid. I doubt anyone in this thread has the knowledge or experience to manage a company of this size that spans across three countries and to do so for any cheaper. If you are going to boycott DU on the fact that a non-profit CEO makes that kind of money. I would suggest you stop watch football also cause the NFL is a non-profit and Roger Goodell makes over $1Million/year, along with the CEO of United Way, and Wishes for Warriors to name a couple.

Ducks Unlimited was originally a grass roots organization and operated on the same basis as WRP and CRP. Landowner would sign 30 year easements on private property to allow DU to come in and build wetland. So yes the big spenders that donated their land to build wetlands on get to hunt their own property. If you owned property that would make good wetlands you would have been able to do the same thing to your property. But for the next 30 years you wouldn't be able to put cattle on it, plant it, cultivate it, or develop it.

Does DU take big donors on hunting trips? Yes absolutely. Are they on the private secret lease that DU funds paid for? Absolutely not. All these hunts take place on privately owned land or with outfitters that DU pays for the hunt. These individuals and sponsors pledge hundreds of thousands of dollars in fund raising. Same reason business customers take their big clients out to games and hunting trips, or the reason why you put big spenders at the front of the room in an auction. The extra expense on giving special treatment to this large contributor is greatly out weighed by the amount of money they donate each year. If you are upset and think that it is rigged because you got drunk off free beer one night and spent $100 on raffle tickets, but the sponsor with a table that spent $5k on raffle tickets won a gun and you didn't. Maybe its just best that you stay at home next time.

Lastly DU turns over the management and monitoring of their projects back over to the state departments such as TPWD after construction is complete. DU does not have the man power to monitor the 1.5 million acres of preservations. TPWD decides which properties will be open for public hunting and which will be preservation, not DU. There are numerous DU projects that TPWD and Army Corp now manages that do have public hunting across Texas. However they are not Type II so you won't find them listed in your public hunting permit book. You will have to get out and do some scouting and talk to some of the departments to find them. And there are large Type II DU projects open to public but I won't name any lakes.

If you want to have a mature conversation or have some additional question feel free to PM me but I'm not going to get in a long drawn out debate with the trolls.

You are correct, and I apologize for getting off topic. However I was asked to enlighten everyone on topics that were brought up in the thread. If I missed anything or if anyone would like to continue this discussion you may PM me.

In regards to the original topic, I would be hard set to side with any one side without additional information. I don't necessarily trust what the AP writes and news tends to be exaggerated to make for better stories. Should a writer have freedom of speech and be able to write what they want? Yes that is what our country is built on. However, if the article is about one of the board members of the organization that employs you I don't imagine he was shocked by the outcome. If I write in a public forum and insulted my boss, I don't imagine I would have a job come Monday either.

Come on Jepsen...this is no place to interject logic

I'm not gonna PM you but for what it's worth, I hate agreeing with you.

You are correct, and I apologize for getting off topic. However I was asked to enlighten everyone on topics that were brought up in the thread. If I missed anything or if anyone would like to continue this discussion you may PM me.

In regards to the original topic, I would be hard set to side with any one side without additional information. I don't necessarily trust what the AP writes and news tends to be exaggerated to make for better stories. Should a writer have freedom of speech and be able to write what they want? Yes that is what our country is built on. However, if the article is about one of the board members of the organization that employs you I don't imagine he was shocked by the outcome. If I write in a public forum and insulted my boss, I don't imagine I would have a job come Monday either.

Are you surprised by this?
This is a flagrant example of what is wrong with DU and his been for decades.
DU for many is a high society fraternity of "LL Bean" wearing Doctors and Lawyers.
All you have to do is attend one of the bigger DU banquets and you will witness it first hand.
The cost of a table, the winning bids, the amount of booze consumed.
Sure, some portion of the funds raised do go to good use but for the majority of the high rollers it serves as blood money for their "above the law" actions when in the field and justification for favors to be received later.

You wouldn't have to dig to deep to find favoritism to levels beyond belief.
DU refuge land purchases next to Dr. Bob's private ranch.
DU sponsored hunts where only "special" people are invited.
Approvals for habitat improvement $$s on Dr. Bill's ranch while not being approved on his neighbors ranch (the one who isn't in the good ole boys club.)
I've seen pictures of pickup truck beds literally overflowing with mallards with local DU executives posing, grinning from ear to ear.

The levels of corruption within DU may not reach the Hillary Clinton level but it's certainly bad enough that they wont be getting any of my dollars.

2014 DU Audit (It's very interesting to see where their lands are . . and are not!! Very little holding in Texas. Can you say: Short Stopping?)