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I have read some about the harsh winter this year near Gunnison, Co., any of you local residents care to say how bad the winter kill might be. I have booked a hunt near Durango for Nov 2009 so I am just curious about the potential availability for trophy size deer.

I can't speak for the Durango area. We are finally having some warm weather and the snow has consolidated at least 18 inches in the past several days. Still a foot or more on the ground. On the hillsides some brush have become visible again, so browse is opening up. Around here the going comment is that for fall hunting, just drive up in the truck and shake a feed bag and get ready to shoot. There has been considerable mortality around here but who knows which part of the population has been effected. I am sure some trophys are left...

Dad frequents the Gunnison and Montrose areas for work and based on what he has seen he thinks the mortality predictions for the "record" winter are excessive. In fact, he and I are putting up a good bit of preference points for the coming hunt to test his theory in a trophy deer unit.

I live in the Uncompahgre Valley, and travel over the Continental Divide and back 2-3 times a month.

The deer went into the winter in pretty good shape, the winter came late, it was not brutally cold for any length of time, and we are seeing green-up in the lower elevations already. Those are three very important components in how well they winter.

I have seen much worse winters than this one. The high country got a lot of snow, and it was the high valleys where the critters can't get down out of that I'm thinking they took the brunt of it.

There will be a higher than normal mortality in some areas, but it may be difficult to see a difference in hunting in all but a few very localized areas.

The problem is there is an entire generation of folks--including willife managers in some cases--who haven't seen a bigtime Rocky Mountain winter now.


Casey

Casey,

Thanks for the headsup... dad lives in Grand Junction and travels a bit in maintaining FAA radar sites. He echoed some of what you said but not in such detail.

Mark

Some of the estimates were announced. Deer tag numbers in the Gunnison Valley have been cut in half for the next season. Fawn mortality is predicted as very high (up to 70%) and adult mortality has been estimated between 5 and 30%. Gunnison was the coldest place in the CONUS 7 times in January alone. Just some of the road kill is impressive now that the snow has melted down a bit. The local antelope herd was especially hard hit. Not having left the road yet (backcountry is still closed) there are bodies scattered everywhere.

The real tale will be told over the next 5 years. The elk have fared pretty well.

Gunnison is ALWAYS the coldest!--they just don't want to admit it

When we fed deer and elk on our ranch for the CDOW in the harsh winter of 1984, the mortality rate for fawns in the 300-500 head on our place was estimated at 80%+ --and they were being fed deer pellets from late December through April. And I had been feeding them apple pulp since Thanksgiving weekend. But the deer had gone into the winter in bad shape to begin with.

The roadkill deer along Hwy 50 reminds of how it used to be in the 60's and 70's--and there was a lot less traffic back then.

A deer went into the windshield of a SUV last week in South Park, the State Patrol was trying to help the towtruck driver dig it out of the windshield as I was driving by..........


Casey