Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Quality Units / Point Creep

I am fortunate to have gotten in the CO game 20 yrs ago. But like others in at that time, I am a bit weary of "elk point purgatory" and and am frustrated by the notion that some hunts, you know which ones of course, despite decades spent, are more or less mathmatically off limits due to the shortcomings of the human life span and my lack of knowledge as a toddler that I needed to be banking points earlier. But the point of this is not to complain - life is good! I would rather like to ask people's thoughts on just how certain LE units came to be that way, was it basically through wildlife managenent policy? Or is it agricultural / grazing related. Or more about genetics. I wonder whether it would make sense for states to seek alternatives to or even suspend the pref point game and "create" to the extent they could, even temporarily, similar circumstances in other units from a quality perspective to soak up some of the accumulated pref point demand for such hunts. I understand that there are tradeoffs at stake regarding opportunity-revenue, etc. But is this current system leading down a good path? Do we really want to all land our most coveted dream hunts when we are elderly, if we do at all? What would actually "happen" if they more or less found a way to "call the whole thing off" and just evolve (devolve) back to a random draw? It seems that might anger some ppl in the short term but might provide a shot in the arm for younger generation's enthusiasm and get back to "all you need is a dollar (or hundreds, ha!) and a dream" mentality that makes the powerball lotto so fun and popular. I for one am OK having a teeny tiny small chance in a draw (hey, supply/demand, right?) but hate the door slammed shut anywhere really - that seems un American! Are these things ever discussed at a high / policy level?? What's the feeling here? Everything good as is? Minor tweaks needed (and what?) or Burn It Down?

Whether you have points/no points or don't care - It's here so good luck and enjoy all your hunts this season!!

I'm a resident of Washington with 16 elk points and can't draw a mediocre tag. I gave up and went idaho otc.

I’m at max in Wyoming, the units I want are 8 and 15% with the expensive tag....

Yep, our socialist utopia ain’t much with sorry hunting and worse fishing management. OTC Colorado for me. Deer tag at least every other year. Happy Trails

Management policy? No. Sport hunters demanded Colorado offer something better than run-of-the-mill OTC deer and elk tags (especially elk tags). An opportunity for a "quality" hunt by limiting the number of hunters. I was there at the meetings in the late 70's and thought it was a GREAT idea. I was there at the meetings in the mid 80's and thought antler point restrictions and limited licenses were a great idea (antler point restrictions on bulls did and does help). I was there in the late 90's when we demanded something to be done about mule deer declines and the number of NR competing for limited licenses. There was a citizen committee appointed by the state legislature that toured Colorado and wherever they went mule deer declines and NR hunters were the main concern. In other words, we sport hunters demanded limited licenses and a point system with deer and elk, and the state responded to our desires. Pronghorns, sheep. moose, etc have always been limited license.

It's important to remember; in the late 70's there were a little over a million people residing in Colorado--today there are 5 million. And most of those people are moving here--and the the rest of the rocky Mountain west to live the "lifestyle"--whether it is hunting, skiing, or in the case of Colorado, locoweeed. Although Colorado has always entertained a LOT of NR hunters, the number of NR clamoring to hunt in the Rocky Mountain west has continued to increase. There is a finite amount of habitat--consequently a finite number of game animals--and that habitat is slowly but steadily decreasing thanks to development on both private and public land. As a federal biologist friend of mine says "all we are doing is fighting a retreating action". Meanwhile, the human population continues to boom........

I do often shake my head at how short of memory we humans have. Hunters in Colorado demanded limited licenses, but we are now willing to blame "the government".

And yes, the preference point system is unsustainable. There almost certainly will be changes in the future.

Our best hope is Al Gore is wrong, and we see a series of winters like 1969 through 1979, or the mid 50's, or the early/mid 40's. Where it snowed and was COLD--where snow stayed on the ground for weeks or months at a time even in the valleys and out on the yuppie Front Range flatlands. That will change a lot of the "lifestyle immigrants" minds about the winters here in the Rocky Mountains..........

Supply and demand.

Was at the DOW office the other day regarding a tag and heard a guy at the counter bitchin about never drawing a sheep tag. Seriously? We have a declining sheep herd and the number of applicants just tripled. Quit bitchin, save money, and hunt dall sheep in Canada. Told him that and he mumbled about his dream of hunting sheep in his home state. Can't fix stupid.

Another fix? Make elk tags for non-residents $5,000 in units taking more than 10 points, make them $1,000 for residents. That'll start leaning things up a little. If it doesn't, make them $10,000 for non-residents and $5,000 for residents. Helluva deal to hunt big elk really.

Why Chase the revenue to Montana? Am I the only one that has noticed leftover Montana license are almost a thing of the past? The more this Colorado quandary rages on,the more people have looked to Montanna. Everyone knows the license fees are negligible. It's the cost of travel,lodging,food that line the pockets of everyone throughout the places that elk and deer reside. Chit,Ill probably drop a couple hundred on souvenirs at the trading post in Gunnison this fall. It's all part of the industry of cash cropping wildlife.

I drew my long awaited deer tag this year. I'm coming out of the system. My daughter and I will finish off our Colorado points in 2019. I've already started moving my business to Wyoming. It use to be the only folks that made regular pilgrimages to the Rockies to hunt were fairly wealthy,or someone with connections on the other end. Now everyone has all this unattached revenue around the house. Two income families are the norm. Combined with the information super highway making it stupid simple to orchestrate then execute a hunt. There was no other possible course of action. Things needed regulated. Reigned in if you will. My guess is it will get far worse before it gets better.

As far as astronomically high tag fees goes. Good luck with that. As long as there are credit cards and the "live now,pay later mentality". Not only will they all sell,there will be lines forming to get them. Everyone knows the more something costs,the better it must be.

I had heard that the idea had been floated to make some of the premium elk units similar to the moose and sheep draws, i.e. hybrid lottery.

We've got some awesome elk areas that your points could be used in, we're hunting a great LQ area this fall that gets little attention right now.

For this season Colorado charged only the application fee to apply instead of the entire cost of license plus the application fee.
Evidently it made a big difference.
Some units saw a 4x increase in applicants.
Short term result is that we see a tsunami of applicants coming into the system with 1 preference point next year.

As a resident it took me 17 preference points to draw a unit 2 elk tag back in 2014. Well worth the wait. Took a huge bull. I'm in favor of preference points. Reason being I have seen years ago before PP where some hunters would draw multiple years in a row & others never drew. PP are just like standing in line . It levels the playing field out . Over the years I have seen demand far out strip supply. Also have a problem with developers coming in from other states & buying up large ranches. They then split them into smaller parcels , make their their money., then leave. One suggestion is to make sure when a ranch is split up is has to be a minimum size like 100 acres or more. Elk need large areas. The most important land for big game is where they spend the winter & that is where most of the development is going on. . Heard a non resident say some years back, well they ( elk & deer ) have all these mountains. Can't survive in the mountains with several feet of snow on the ground. There has to be education on these matters. That is the only way that shrinking habituate can be maintained. Then you have those moving here that let their dogs run loose & harass game. It goes on & on.

I started in my late thirtys accumulating elk points . I was fortunate to draw two sheep tags in the early days and one goat tag.I filled sheep tag with a nice sheep and a so so goat tag. That was in the early eighties.Two years ago, at 73, I knew I could not do those hunts so I quit putting in for them I had 16-17 weighted points for each. In 2009 I drew a CO 201 elk tag after 21years and in 2014 , maybe it was 2015, I drew cow moose tag on a RFW draw. After 17 years and getting too old, I knew my chances were slim of ever drawing a bull moose tag , and the RFW foreman told me he would get my moose out for me.

That was about a 15-20 minute hunt.Toughest chewing animal I ever killed.The sad thing about it was the taxidermist made off with the hide I wanted tanned and all I have left is the beard or what ever you call.I had to take the taxidermist to small claims court to at least get my deposit back, expenses of filing, and a little bit for the worth of the hide.

Now I don't build points. I put in for a ML cow elk tag that I am sure to draw, a doe deer ML tag and a late season antelope tag.Then I buy an OTC bull tag,if I feel like going elk hunting again. Which at 75 is less and less.I have killed enough horns, I don't need to do more, but these lets me get out and keep at it on a easier/slower scale.

At CPW meetings there is always talk about changing the point system, but they still don't have a clue as to how to do it. It will change though and I bet in the next 5 years

Saddlesore, you put forth many good points. Be glad Colorado doesn't have the goofydick Bonus Point system where every stick in the drawing has a grunch of bonus points and the same opportunity as a first time applicant if you really weigh the odds. I only keep applying for a couple of choice mule deer hunts where I own property in hopes of drawing a rut hunt. These WA commie bastids aren't getting any more of my draw money. I'll keep hunting the CO private land I have access to and if CO prices me out or I'm not feeling up for the road trip, oh well. I'm soon to be 69 yo and lived 54 years without hunting CO so it ain't like the end of the world for me if they make it too hard. I have a leftover cow tag this year and plenty of time to hopefully find one! Good Hunting and Happy Trails, sir!

To get back to the original part of the discussion, why did certain units become limited and why aren't more areas limited? I can't remember the %,but there is minimum and maximum number of elk units as expressed by population. I've spent the last twenty minutes trying to find what those numbers are, but can't. Anyway, the policy is to have some available populations in limited draw, and a larger amount over the counter. Now why did some units become the limited entry units? And why did 61 get separated from 62? I don't really know and don't have the history on it. I'm going to take a stab at it to think that the access in some places like 2, 10, 201, etc allowed for higher harvests than OTC could handle, so they became limited, and with limitation increased the quality of the elk. Has next to nothing to do with genetics.
But you have to understand the wildlife is managed for the people of the state. Limited entry units, in order to have the quality that is in such high demand, by definition has to exclude people, and that will primarily be the residents. Residents want to hunt every year. Yes they want quality, but they can't have both. Many families have a place they go back to year after year after year, harvest or not. When all deer hunting became limited 1999, something like 40,000 deer hunters were lost, never to return to deer hunting because they couldn't or wouldn't get on board with drawing a deer license. I personally think GMU 62 needs to be limited, at least in archery season, but it is the highest demand archery unit in the state. If we went OTC there in order to improve the quality and balance out the Uncompahgre Plateau, you'd have a lot of very upset people with 40 plus years of hunting the same spot. When 61 went limited in 1983, it pissed off lots of folks, but they could still hunt the plateau from their normal camp. I guess it was a compromise, but 35 years of learning about hunter behavior has taught the elk where they are safest, screwing the 62 side up further. A DAU should not have split management in my opinion, but we have it.


Point creep is a known problem and allowing people to have a license through OTC, plus a point doesn't help the situation. I agree that there's probably room to add a little more limited hunting, or maybe limiting more archery licenses to force more people into using points instead of generating 20 plus, in addition to hunting every year, but realize in order to limited a unit, you are taking away opportunity and forcing more crowding into other places. I don't see the whole system being blown up and robbing guys who have spent 20 plus years waiting for a limited tag, but I do think the days of OTC elk hunting are numbered. Certainly not in this next 5 year season structure, but at some point, the elk populations will not be able to withstand the growing numbers of archers(screwing up the rut, low pregnancy rates, longer calving seasons = more vulnerable and therefore fewer calves, also more general recreation pressures from population growth and development forcing elk into less desirable habitats, etc. ) I don't see a real problem with unlimited rifle hunting for now, but some places, especially in southwest Colorado are struggling to grow enough elk to stay within management objectives. And at some point, you'll have to drop OTC there too. Cow licenses are getting cut all over the southwest and there's a push to drop the either sex archery in favor of bull only. In fact, in many DAUs, archery cow harvest exceeds each of rifle season which have always been limited.

I think the golden age of elk hunting in Colorado is now behind us and more limitation will have to come, but it won't necessarily equal quality, it will just be a necessity due to dwindling herds. Then again, hunters are getting older and those with 20 plus points are almost always over 60. At age 70, hunter numbers drop off dramatically, so maybe the situation will correct itself, but not if we are dropping elk licenses and therefore further exacerbating point creep.

As for the above mention of increasing the tag price for quality units like Utah and New Mexico do, that's been talked about but never seriously proposed, but it may come back on the table. It would certainly have to be drastic to have an affect, well above $100 for residents and into the thousands for non residents. It could also be done with application fees, greatly increasing them for things like sheep, goats and moose. Also, once in a lifetime licenses for sheep, goat and all moose, but I think the quality elk, deer and antelope licenses need to be once in a lifetime too.

In Oregon we have two trophy elk units. Mt Emily and Wenaha with only 50 or so branch antler bull tags each year. Being quality and rugged habitat, there is plenty of escapement with great bulls to be had. All I need to do is apply, and I will score a tag. I have more preference points than anyone that has drawn in the last two years. In Oregon the highest point holders will draw. Then 25% of the available tags go into a draw including all applicants. High point holders score for sure, but everyone has a chance regardless of points in the 25% bin.

Was going to do it this season, but the guides and outfitters were not checking e-mails and messages until after our tag drawings. I wanted up front communications before the application deadline, as I did not want to score the tag and then have no options on the guide side.

2019 = Watch out Big Eddy.

About 4 years back 2 friends and I burned our mule deer points for a trophy rut hunt. Turned out to be a down year and we all had tag soup. Cookie, my wife, now has enough points for such an opportunity, but there's not a unit in the state with a decent number of trophy deer.

Years back one had to front tag money to apply and odds were reasonable even for our once in a lifetime sheep/goat tags being like 1 in 25. We do not do preference points for those two species, don't have to front tag fees anymore, and the odds are now about 1 out of 5 or 600. Will probably never do sheep and goats here, and I can't see popping 15+ grand to do one elsewhere. Frustrating when some 12 year old from one of my Hunter Ed classes scores a tag with his/her first application.

Thoughtful replies everyone.. Thanks. Exbiologist I appreciate your perspectivev on the history of LE units. I hope that some changes come about that tackle the underlying issues more effectively. But I do fear the only one that will get much serious support however, is charging NRs extra hundreds or thousands in fees. Sadly, that will just kick the can further until one day that burden falls on the residents too. I think fees charged should defensibly reflect the management costs and recognize the secondary benefits of the hunting economy. All it will take are a few politicians to see NRs spending huge increased tag fees while residents fees increase much more slowly and it won't be long before they move to "harvest" all that untapped potential from residents too. I mean, if the tag is "worth" $2,000 to a NR, it must be "worth" that or at least represent that "value" to a resident hunter too. I understand that residents pay their taxes and shouldn't be charged twice for managing their own wildlife but no matter the state, hunters make up a minority of the population, and pretty soon even resident hunters could stand accused of benefitting or gaining a "subsidy" at the expense of their resident non-hunting neighbors' claims to those same game animals (photogs, hikers, elderly, young children, even anti-hunters are all legally residents too). Best we stick together (even loosely together) on fees or the rich-man's game it will truly become if it has not already.

As a SW Colorado ( unit 741 ) resident I have definitely seen hunter numbers increase over the years. Elk #'s have dropped. Don't see the #'s on my land as in past years. This year deer #'s on my place is a disaster. I always use to have 8 to 12 good size bucks hanging around, & many does with fawns, every year.. This year I have seen two small immature bucks, & one doe with a fawn. I now see hunters in more hard to get to areas where in past years you never saw another hunter. I also believe OTC elk tags are coming to an end. The hunter pressure on OTC hunts gets greater every tear.

As long as state legislatures continue to regard their fish and wildlife departments as cash cows, as opposed to accepting their responsibility to fund the management of resident fish and wildlife resources for which the state is responsible, it will just get worse.