Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Cant say enough bad about Damg colorado parks

I just read several. I see no indication of what you say though many of them wouldn’t be my recommendations. Despite always being in the parks division Heather Dugan has a degree in wildlife biology. That isn’t to say she knows squat about the subject and may very well have been “hand picked” for an agenda but it does show you haven’t exactly done your homework either.

I stand by my thoughts that you’re responding based on preconceived notions. There are a lot of discussions and disagreements that go on behind closed doors that folks like us are not privy to. More higher ups in both state and federal agencies fight for “our” side than meets the eye, in my experience at least.

You will have every sheep org. threatening to pull all auction tags and stop leveraging project money. It got ugly here when the “hunt codes” started getting challenged.

Fight for the LO tags to the death. If “unit wide” tags ever start it is a black hole and you’ll have 2 acre “ranches” getting tags worth $15,000.

Idaho and Wyoming have the unit wide deal for landowner tags, and I know of many, many people who bought ranchettes specifically to get in on the landowner tag deal. Many are in the premier deer and elk units. It sucks but I guess I have the right to buy a postage stamp sized pasture in Sweetwater County, WY too.........God some big deer and elk come out of those units but usually for a price. I get it, it is money but it sure is frustrating.

Like anything, it started with good intentions, but morphed into something it never should have.

NMDGF issues between 2,500 and 3,000 unit wide authorizations a year, that’s on top of the ranch only authorizations.

Alpinecrick. Although the 2007-2009 applies to Hybrid draw, it also applies to all draws. See page 4 of the Big Game Brochure . Lower right corner. "Nonresident License Allocations". First paragraph.

I agree with most of the proposals, except:

Requirement of having at least one point for any male species.That cuts anyone from last year drawing for a bull. The puts it back to the hunt every 3-4 years scenario which I disagree with.

If you look at the total number of preference points for elk alone, I don't think they can all be used in a five year period. Example Unit 201 awards 25 bull tags each year. In five years that is 125 tags .There are more hunters with 20 points than that. So every one else is screwed. I can see any hunter with zero points will be out of the ball game for 5 years. Eliminating the PP hunt code will stop the future, but what happens to the thousands of hunters with points. As long as they put in for the draw each year, they are not inactive hunters. It is going to take more than five years to award tags to anyone with points no matter if it is 1-2 or 15-20. I don't have clue as to how to fix all that, but I don't think CPW does either.

I highly doubt they will eliminate all OTC tags . At most,they will put a cap on them.

Probably the best we can hope for is a split of 80% res and 20% non res. This is what other western states have I believe, and CPW will follow that. They are too worried about lawsuits if they go further.

Presently 2nd draw gives 100% priority to youths, if an adult has 3-4 points, will it stop that if points are required?

Well, there’s one bull tag available tomorrow wish me well

Shawn

I looked up the requirement for landowner tags in CO, it sounds more restrictive than other states. To get one tag, the land must be:

Be a minimum of 160 contiguous acres of private agricultural land; AND;
Be inhabited by the species being applied for in significant numbers throughout the year or in substantial numbers for shorter times; AND;
Provide for the species being applied for: wintering habitat, transitional habitat, calving areas, solitude areas, migration corridors, or provide a forage source; AND;
Have a history of game damage or a huntable population of the species being applied for; AND;
Be within a Game Management Unit (GMU) for which all rifle licenses are totally limited for the species (deer, elk, or pronghorn) being applied for.

So, you can get one tag if you have 160 contiguous acres that fit the description above. If you have between 160 and 1240 acres you can get an additional tag that's good on private land only. To get a second tag good for public land, you need to have at least 1,240 acres and for each additional tag you need an additional 600 acres per tag.

And they cap the number of landowner tags at 10% or the total. Not ideal but it solves the 2 acre ranchette problem.

I hope you guys are able to keep it limited like that.

We started out with pretty strict guidelines and like I mentioned we now have “ranchers” getting authorizations for as little as 2 acres. NM issues ~24,000 tags in the public draw and ~15,000 LO authorizations.

Well today was our lucky day! As the clock hit 11 I hit submit. Sorry, hunt code is not available, dang not again! On the tenth submit or so we struck gold! Only one reissue bull tag for our unit today and we got it.

Shawn

4 bull tags and 4 B cow tags for our unit tomorrow, after last week I am feeling lucky and I am going to try to get that girl a B cow tag

Shawn

They won't use all of their PP's if somebody continues to apply for the very high demand hunts. Either use them in 5 years period, or lose them after 5 years. It's the applicant's choice.

Personally I'm not in favor of a straight lottery. Not even sure about the split draw with 50% lottery/50% PP draw.

I'd like to hear why you are not in favor of a straight lottery? I get it that is screws those with points. Any other reasons?

My daughter went from no tags and just tagging along as a pack mule, to a bonafide mountain safari. She was lucky enough to get one of those B cow tags for our unit. She has a bear tag, bull tag and a cow tag. The reissue process worked out for her this year

Shawn

An applicant might never draw a license.

With the points system in CO, as it currently stands, there are some units a new person in the draw pool would never draw. Not a 'maybe' in sight...

There are tags in some point states that anyone without max points possibly (likely?) will never draw, at least with their current point systems. Doubly so with many areas and species having fewer and fewer tags being given out for some of the real high profile tags.

It isn’t just those getting into the points game now that have little to no chance…

I think South Dakota has the worst Game Fish and Parks Department.
Extremely short seasons. When I got a tag (only once) for my county the season was so short and deer had left my land that I didn’t fill. I had to pay extra for that one chance by being a land owner.
They Limit how many places you can apply deer tags for.
Extremely unlikely to get elk tags unless you want to use your “points” for a cow tag.
I applied for Sheep and Goat tags each year. So far no licenses. I’ve applied for bull elk in the Hills and in Custer State park almost every year I could. So far one tag and I’ve been applying ever since they were available.

The only tags I got this year were for does and half way a cross the state at that.

I applied for elk in the Hills and Elk in Custer State Park, I applied for East river deer, West River deer, pronghorn and since I applied for east and west river deer I couldn’t apply for black powder deer. I applied for black hills deer. And maybe one or two other. They take money for each of the applications but all I got was west river doe tags.

You don’t know how bad trying to hunt big game is until you live the South Dakota.

True. Well, actually it depends on how long a guy can live……

We may see a weighted system for high demand hunts same as sheep and goat. That way once somebody has 3 PP’s they are in the game.

Exactly. 'Twer I in charge, it'd be a straight lottery every year, no points of any kind. About the only restriction I can get behind is a waiting period after a successful draw.

Just wondering out loud if the proposed elk draw would follow the same protocol as deer licenses for private land hunt codes; I.e. no cap on NR licenses in the draw for PL hunt codes? This might be my last year anyway. The long drive is killing me and my clock is running out anyway.