Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Colorado elk # way DOWN !!

Same happened in Pa with unlimited Doe tags, but the hunters kept pounding them. Then there were few and then most quit hunting with any enthusiasm. It essentially killed the Deer hunting tradition in Pa. Most hunt a couple days of the season and not all that enthusiastically. Bow and crossbow hunters get to a month of prime time while the rifle guys suck hind tit.

However, after about 10 years with the rifle hunting participation dwindling, the Doe numbers have picked up in a lot of areas. Posted land has become more and more of a problem with each year. Now they are throwing out the CWD scare and want to kill large numbers with night time snipers in certain areas. Something odd has been going on for years and I’m no longer sure of who is on whose side.

Odd that you are now seeing the same.

yep I was part of that fiasco in PA. People shooting 5-10 deer / year giving away the meat then bitching about not being able to even see a track of a deer, go figure.

Hunters are the same everywhere as are the CPW, whatever their call letters are. Hunters wanna shoot em and CPW wants to cash in. Personally I think it is largely because of the city life, most hunters have no connection to land or animals and if the tag is issued they believe the animals are there in appropriate numbers to allow them to fill it. When they see nothing they just assume that it was them being "unlucky".

College buddy of mine had a big lease in SC PA (somerset) and wasn't about to let gary ault tell him not to shoot small bucks, so they did. BUT when Gary Ault said shoot more does it was gospel, so they did, basically they shot anything brown and after 3-5 years there was no brown, and who did he blame?

$#^&% GARY AULT!!!

Hunters are mostly dumb as a rock, sad to say.

If game and fish would manage for the good of the animals and let money and politics be damned imagine what we could have.

never really was able to wrap my head around the "we need to kill them or they will die" philosophy.

So true! We have the same problem here in Indiana.

I was hunting in Hamilton last year, Units 12 and 13. I saw 58 elk, 50 cows on an alfalfa field bordering the Williams Fork in Unit 12, 5 cows across the street in Unit 13 and 3 bulls together in Unit 13, I killed one of those bulls. I hunted the same ranch in 2008 and saw 600 elk in one herd! The deer herd is also piss poor, I used to see between 20-40 deer a day, last year I hunted 4 days and only saw about a dozen scrawny deer. The outfitter wanted me to shoot a 4x4 that had about a 12" spread, I've shot bigger deer in New Jersey. Three guys in the group did shoot slammer deer.

When I went to the meat processor in Craig, I couldn't believe the number of forks, 3 points and small 4 points people were shooting (mostly non-residents) just to fill their tags, IMO, this is going to severely hurt the trophy potential. Colorado better start putting a point restriction on deer. I know some people like to shoot small deer for food, not sure how to fix this. For the record, I'm a non-resident. I love hunting Colorado, seems like things are going sideways.

I had the same observation as Sako76. I was hunting 3rd season a mile or two from the area he hunted. Deer were scarce except scrubs hanging around Craig in town. Processors were full of sub-trophy bucks so much so that they were not taking animals for several days. I killed a 5x7 bull opening day since I have learned not to hold out for “better” in this area. I did shoot a tall 4x3 which I mistook for a big 4x4 chasing does a few minutes earlier in the brush. He popped out, tall rack, chasing a scrub buck off his does, Weatherby boom, deer down...
Happy Trails

[quote=Sako76
When I went to the meat processor in Craig, I couldn't believe the number of forks, 3 points and small 4 points people were shooting (mostly non-residents) just to fill their tags, IMO, this is going to severely hurt the trophy potential. Colorado better start putting a point restriction on deer. I know some people like to shoot small deer for food, not sure how to fix this. For the record, I'm a non-resident. I love hunting Colorado, seems like things are going sideways.[/quote]

Although I agree with the deer herds being down,Colorado already tried the point restriction several years back as did several other states.I doesn't work.If more deer are wanted, CPW needs to stop selling as many deer licenses. Which is exactly why deer tags are draw only. Of you want big antlers, find an outfitter in Eastern Colorado. More big bucks are taken there than in the mountains

Point restrictions for bigger horns. Two and most three years olds don't carry big horns. Point restrictions have little to do with total numbers. Does throwing out 2 additional every year does....



Interesting thing about this thread, is that years ago some of the Pa crew were called whiners and told that they should really learn how to hunt when the same was mentioned.

Here's a link from the CP&W website. They've eliminated OTC archery tags for SW Colorado GMUs, and according to the article, reduced muzzleloader and rifle tags by 80%. Yep, that's right, 80%.

So it looks like lots of people who may have wanted to hunt there this year won't be drawing tags:

https://cpw.state.co.us/aboutus/Pages/News-Release-Details.aspx?NewsID=7244

Will take about 5-8 years with an 80% reduction of centerfire licensees and the numbers will be noticeably on the upswing....And so will the horn size....

I know what OTC means, but does the elimination of OTC tags mean the total number of tags will be reduced or that they will still be available. Instead of getting them OTC, will the same number still be available by mail in application?

I know you're joking but IME over the last 20 years the muzzleloader season (early September) has gotten noticeably warmer. Seems to me that 20 years ago we'd have snow during the season most years. Haven't had that the last several years, just rain. And last year for the first time in my memory, mosquitoes were still around and a problem during the season. It may be just normal short-term temperature variation, but things like that can have an effect.

I'd be interested to hear what saddlesore has to say about average temperatures, he's been hunting the ML season longer than I have.

It has warmed up here. February 22 and the Pittsburgh area has had two small snow falls. Which has pretty much been the new normal for the last 10 years. We used to have snow on the ground most of February and March, with much lower temps. Something has changed....I'm not with the the greenies who believe it is entirely man made or that it hasn't happened in the past. Ice ages coming and going prove different, but right now we are in a change....

https://weather.com/weather/tenday/...81ce5a1ee2d192a2041a263b1146647cb0e39d4c

Deer are dumb and hunters like to hear their gun go bang. The only way to increase deer is to quit killing them. We did it from 2000 till 2012 and it was amazing to watch- huge buck everywhere.

then Lyle showed up and "people just want to shoot two points" mgmt was installed. 4 yrs of print button biology and we have nothing, No does no bucks NOTHING. Where in 2012 3000+ deer wintered now there are 300'ish yet every year the counts go higher, and the hunters show up and fill them tags with spikes and forkies, and kill the hell outa the does on class B tags.

For the un-informed OTC is just that, no quota, no cap you have $ you are an elk slayer baby. If a couple million easterners show up they can all hunt in one unit or dau if they so desire. It is not possible to cut the tag numbers 80% because there is no starting number to use in the equation. Many limited entry units are still over hunted, they just arent the clown show which is otc, Even that isn't true in all cases clown shows are popular these days.

Elk are a lot smarter than deer but put enough orange and enough technology in the field and even they have their breaking point. 25 were in my yard this morning trying to relieve me of some hay, but I do love the thieving bastards, its a shame to watch what the results of govt wreck upon them. $96,000,000.00 last year and they seem to need just a bit more... then they can fix things.

That's true for second and third rifle season bulls but it looks like all other tags are now draw only in SW CO.

If I read it right , that 80% was reduced earlier. Showing, at least to me, ML don' t have significant impact on elk herds.

Quote from the article:

"Another factor in the decision was the growth of the number of archery hunters in the last decade. In these game management units, depending on location, the numbers have grown by 45 to 80 percent; and those archers could hunt bulls or cows. During the same period, in an attempt to halt the decline in the elk population, CPW reduced licenses for rifle and muzzleloader hunters by 80 percent[WB2] .

Despite those reductions, elk populations have not responded with the growth biologists were hoping to see."

It also says they have seen the decline for ten years now. Why in the hell did it take them ten years to figure it out and do something? Most answer is they didn't want to give up the revenue stream.

About warmer seasons/snow

I have been ML hunting since 1976.My memory isn't all that good, but I can remember only three times we had snow.Once was in the 79's and it was a real freak storm. Coming home, I had to drive a county road that was blown out because they could not get a plow thru.That snow was deeper than my horse trailer was tall. Another a few miles north of Vail. It covered the ground, then gone the next day. A few years ago we had about the same up in Unit 12 south of Craig. At times the rain changed to sleet, but it seemed to be dependent on the elevation. Here at 7650 ft elevation, I have 2+ft piled up and in town 15mile south, the ground is bare.

Now rain, t seems we had more of .I remember having a lot of misfires in my old TC side lock Hawkin from it being so wet.One year in the Flat Tops, we set up camp on the edge of a nice meadow with a little lake about 100yards away. By the end of the season the water was at our tent door. All thru the years, we usually lose two days of hunt because of the rain .To me this climate change is BS. firs they called it global warming and then that was debunked, so they changed it to climate change. It's known fact that weather patterns rotate about every ten years between drought and wet.

[quote=llamalover2 For the un-informed OTC is just that, no quota, no cap you have $ you are an elk slayer baby. If a couple million easterners show up they can all hunt in one unit or dau if they so desire. It is not possible to cut the tag numbers 80% because there is no starting number to use in the equation..[/quote]

Not true, ML tags have always been limited thru the draw in Colorado.Last year, at least because I have the brochure in front of me,all those units that went to draw for archery were draw only for rifle seasons and I suspect they were that way for quite awhile.

Makes one wonder, who is on whose side? Or do that want them killed, until the question becomes, should they be hunted at all. Hard to believe that would be the truth. However, then why do they allow them to be killed below obvious historic sustainable numbers. There is more in the the wind than climate change.

On the other hand,and outfitter I know that operates in Unit 12 and I hunt the same area ,I asked her the same question and her reply was that elk numbers were down.Most outfitters won't tell the numbers are down you because who is going to sign on when the numbers are down and your success rate will be less than desirebale.

If we are down 80-90% (where I know what is going on) and counts are still high/increasing think how bad it must be where they claim to have trouble. You cannot imagine to make a difference by trimming recreational tags, you have to limit where the real slaughtering takes place, and I believe they are still OTC? ( I have not picked apart the regs book yet this year, just got it)

Im guessing those guys in the helicopters making up imaginary animals to count are really hoping for the wolf thing to pass so as to have another straw dog to blame for there being no animals, the whole "antler hunters are killing them all " hasn't exactly led to an over abundance of actual flesh and blood targets. Sooner or later lead poisoning will be acknowledged, my fear is it will be later when there is nothing left to build from.

I am well aware of the regs for ML some above commented on 80% reductions of rifle otc, which is not possible.

Like it or not, however many private land owners have proven they know how to mange their property for numbers and quality. Yet the whole concept escapes what are supposedly educated wildlife biologists?

Those who want to believe there may not be another master plan are more trusting they I.

Constant pressure. Sheep. The license quota seems to be geared to how many applications come in.
Note that there is a second fee for second draw. Greedy. W everyone who knows Colorado parks could see this coming.
Between age and health I may have to live on memories, but do have a grandson who just turned 12