Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Are things getting crowded out west?

I always hear that Hunter numbers are dwindling and that is what I see when I go out. Fewer trucks,agin* hunters and a lot less gun shots on opening day. I’m comparing it to what I remember when I started out in the early 80s. I’ve been hearing that things out west are different. I hear that trail heads are getting crowded and a lot of folks pointing their fingers at social media, the 3R’s movement and BHA. I have yet to get out west hunting with my buddy in Wyoming but I’m curious how things are.

OTC units are a pumpkin patch. You almost have to take your own parking space.Yea it is getting crowded

JMHO- I think too many hunters and fishermen
sat on their thumbs too long and criticized the
other guy too much and too long.
Many don't like meat hunting or people that keep
fish to eat instead of minding their own store.
If hunters and fishermen don't get together,
there's not going to be any hunting or fishing or
trapping for the average guy. ( maybe not in my
time) I've seen some crazy regulations come
about in the last couple of decades, stuff I never
thought I'd see

Big game hunter numbers are controlled by having to draw a tag here, but application numbers for all species are way up from a few years ago, much harder to draw a tag now.

Kent

Yep, apps are up in Wyoming and with the Wildlife Task Force barking about set aside licenses for outfitters you better get up here sooner than later.
Wyoming limits NR licenses so our hunting is fine, not at all like the orange crowds in Colorado OTC.
Elk numbers are still very high, get some PPs and come hunt.

Yes, and for plenty of reasons.

One part is the attention whores trying to make a living hosting their own hunting shows. They get a couple of sponsors, they find a good spot, and they film a show there hoping to get more sponsors. Next thing you know, every knucklehead for miles around knows about that spot and it's ruined. Then the attention whore moves on to wreck the next place.

But I think that the biggest part is COVID. People couldn't do the stuff they normally did, so a lot of them took up outdoor recreation: RVing, camping, snowshoeing, hunting, fishing, etc. For a couple of years, outdoor gear and spare parts were sold out and the price of RVs went through the roof. Maybe once we all get used to COVID, those people will go back to hanging out in malls or bar hopping or whatever they did before.


Okie John

Hopefully it’s just a fad and it will go away and take all the hipster man bun, beard wearing, cheap old navy flannel fruitcakes with it. It will be nice to go into a bar again with a three day growth wearing my old woolrich flannel, crack open a cold PBR and not be “trendy.”

My oldest kid took his hunters Ed class in march. About 2/3rds of the class were adults who’d never hunted before but were already planning their first western hunt

Of course it is. From when I started hunting, in Northern Idaho, the population has quadrupled and there is less land available to hunt. It's the way of the world. GD

Yes.

Yep, quit huntin. This state sucks in terms of hunting pubic unless you have pre-planned and scouted for months. then its a crap shoot. Too many people from higly taxed counties are moving in OR buying property here just to recreate. They destroy everything us locals have enjoyed for years. KINDA PISSES YA OFF!! NO REALLY PISSES ME OFF!!!!

It's extremely crowded in the north portion of Idaho where I live. Our rural county population hasn't increased but neighboring counties have and I see more folks from Washington state hunting here than locals. I actually see very few people local to the county.

I really wish the state would limit the non res hunting to a draw only and with no non res OTC tags. To make up the shortfall I'd like to see Idaho actually reduce the cost of hunting and fish licenses to residents but to cover costs for revenue I'm in favor of dramatically increasing resident permits for our game species of elk and deer. It would cost residents more for those tags but we'd be able to fund the dept while reducing overcrowding and might put lengths on seasons they way they were back when I was growing up.

When I lived in Montana it was much the same. An ocean of non res and pumpkin patch.

These states really do a poor job of game management.

Colorado is a money pit CPW loves that NonResident $700 per and will never give it up.They could not fund that bureaucracy with just resident tags and residents would not put up with a $700 elk tag.

There have been some OTC units changed to draw units, but the OTC units have unlimited tags and Colorado is the dumping ground for all that did not draw a tag in other states.

The other thing is this POS governor and his first husband are not fond of hunters and are spending more money on parks with wildlife funds

Idaho is ridiculous.



Pretty much all the bad things mentioned above apply to central and southern Idaho. Every fall and winter the highway will have a steady stream of trucks and trailers from somewhere else hauling ATVs and UTVs heading to the mountains and desert to go ripping all over the place. The trespassing (a huge problem), dumping trash and general Asshattery is hard to describe. In fact I just saw a blurb on the news about recreational area in eastern ID that just closed due to trash, human waste and people tearing up the land with their off roading. Plus a friend who works over there said they have off road vehicle accidents constantly and the life flight helicopter is very busy.

The days of hunting and enjoying the quiet and solitude of the mountains are gone.

Utah ?

Although I too quit hunting

The good LE game units are tough to draw..........no matter what

OTC tags....spike elk....yep pumpkin patch.....on sale in July

Antlerless draws are in June

My location...we have more deer around town & in irrigated fields than on the mountain

Non resident hunters like other states get beat up on license fees

Lots of ATV/UTV access......maybe too much for some

Nothing pisses me off more than people who shlt right next to campsites or even pull offs on the highway and don't bury it all, burn the shlt tickets and then take a shovel and throw it in the bushes or whatever....god it drives me nuts to see it.

As much as I despise new laws I actually like to see requirements by state or fed land agencies to pack it out of certain areas. I generally don't camp or hunt where others are but I often hike past those areas to get to where I want to go and when I see that shlt I want to club baby seals.

People are so damn lazy it is absolutely ridicolous and quite often it is those who "care" about the environment who are the worst offenders.

Funny side story pertaining to this.
We have a pretty big camp, 8-12 of us in a big wall tent. We’ve been going to the same area since Grandad started it all in 1955 and we have our camp pretty well sorted. We have carpet cut to fit the bunk area of the tent, bolt together bunks an uncle built, dining table for 10, gas range and lights with a 100lb bottle, etc.

We also have an old tent vestibule that’s been cut and stitched to make a 3 sided outhouse. We long ago built a frame out of logs and spikes and cut a piece of plywood that fits over and gets screwed on after the hole gets dug, said plywood has a padded toilet seat mounted on it. The outhouse is always in the same spot and at the end of season we always put some lime down the hole before burying it. Next year when you dig it out everything is gone, can’t tell there was a giant pile of crap in there 11 months prior.

Anyway, a couple years ago my Grandad was lounging around camp reading a book while we were all up the mountain. A Forest Service pickup comes tearing down the trail and screeches to a stop in front of the tent. Dude in FS uniform hops out and introduces himself as “Mark Smith US Forest Service latrine inspector”. “Where is the outhouse for this camp sir?” Thinking for a second it was a joke Grandad eventually escorted him back to the schit palace. Dude whips out a tape and measures the hole for width as well as depth! It’s day 5 of the trip mind you. He wrote in his notebook his findings after asking how many guys were there and how long we planned to stay, said we were doing everything absolutely perfectly and jumped in his truck and left.

We’ve drank a few beers around the stove discussing whether he knocked up his boss’s daughter or backed over the boss’s dog or what, but it was a funny deal either way.