Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Colorado DOW released their wildlife study today...

The DOW released their 2020 status report today. Seems like more of the same. Elk herd is 10% bigger than it should be in the northern part of the state and 10% smaller than it should be in the southern part of the state. Ok...and habit loss is hurting the wildlife. Like really?

We hunt the northern part of the state and last year we saw three elk the entire season, the year before that maybe 100. And it wasn't just us not seeing anything. I'm sure one year is just an anomaly, well I'm hoping so. Everywhere we go in the state, hiking, fishing, camping, we see less elk than in prior years. What do I know.


https://coloradooutdoorsmag.com/2020/05/05/2020-report-big-game/

Got a question for you on this year's draw. Not able to make it out this year but saw they now use a secondary draw after the primary draw. Question is do they still have 4 rounds during the primary draw ?

I hunted Unit 12 and 13 east of Hamilton, I saw 58 elk, 55 cows, 50 in one herd and 3 bulls and I killed one of the bulls. I saw maybe 15 mule deer. In 2006 and 2008 I saw over 600 elk and 100 deer hunting the same ranch each year. Times have changed and not for the better.

Same ole same ole. Pay more get less. Way back in the winter of 2007-2008 many hunters attended meetings and reported the winter kill.(mentioned in this report) DOW denied it .Two years later their only comment was " we sure missed that one"

I don't believe herd counts in the NW. Talking to outfitters I know around Craig, they claim the herd is definitely down.This stems from OTC cow licenses they issued about ten years ago for a few years, The herd was shot to hell. Anything left,drifted over the divide to the White River drainage.
Same thing for the herd in the Gunnison country.They cut that herd from about 6000 to 3500 with 500 OTC Either Sex tags and then bull tags with caps. Now Unit 54 is OTC bulls, cows are "A" tags, but if they jump the fence on to private land,they become "B" tags. Figure that one out. Now they are trying to build the herd back up because the locals complained that CPW ruined their hunting season economy.

Any one that thinks CPW is doing a great job needs to look at the bios of the commissioners that Polis appointed to the CPW commission. Darn few have any wildlife background.

This is what your price increased bought you. More reports with more studies.

I hunt Unit 13 adjacent to where Sako76 hunts since 2005 with one year exception. Deer are far less numerous since 2008-2009 and elk numbers are not what they were either. Other than the 4 bulls we killed, I saw only a handful of elk. Not many deer either although I got mine which was nothing spectacular. Happy Trails

I grew up in CO. I was a CO resident for more than 50 years. I am sitting on 23 preference points for elk. I will never hunt CO again. That's how badly they have screwed it up.

My wife’s cousins is an investigator for a police department on the west slope! He has a few CPW pals and they talk hunting regularly. CPW guy told him that big game applications are 45% of normal this year! Blames this Covid crap and the screwed up application process, making everyone buy qualifying licenses and price increases. CPW is fully funded buy license sales and claims there will be some cutback of staff and wildlife programs if most of the leftover licenses aren’t sold in the leftover draw.

They have no one to blame except the idiots in Denver making the decisions in their own agency! Merging parks with wildlife was a horrible idea!

We will have to see how this all plays out in the coming months! The good news is there is less competition for my moose tag!!! My luck I still won’t draw the damn thing!!

Elk Country

At some point fee increases, application hassles, and reduction of success rates will cause a decline in sales. Just keep punching the goose that lays the golden egg and see how that works out. Happy Trails

UPDATE!

Got an email for CPW....NO moose tag!

Figures.

Elk Country