After much self debate I decided I would weigh in on this topic.
The problem as I see it is that there are far too many hunters period. Let just play with some numbers here.
The estimated elk population in Utah is 68,000 head. That's from the DWR page so I'll claim nothing for the accuracy (
http://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/biggame/pdf/elk_plan.pdf). Their elk initiative states that they are trying to obtain a population of 80,000, but those numbers are statewide. They also make some blanket statements about maintaining elk populations based on areas or herd and not on wholes.
If you read through the document and if you crunch the numbers you find that just considering the "Any Bull", "Spike", and "Archery" hunts in 2008 the DWR issued 38,000 permits and 5,166 animals were harvested that is a success rate of 13.6% total. Let us just suppose that including the LE hunts there is an overall success rate of 12% for the entire population, that would be 8,160 total elk harvested every year. So we know that the population has to reproduce at a level slightly above that every year. Now there are several other factors such as winter loss, drive hunting (hit by a car), old age, disease, predators, etc. So including hunting and all of these factors lets consider that there is a total population impact of 20% every year, now the number is 13,600 elk retired annually. In order for the population to grow to 80,000 elk in 5 years (which is what the elk initiative calls for), 16,000 elk need to be born and 2,400 of those need to survive every year for 5 years.
These numbers are looking at things as a whole though. As we have seen demonstrated, some habitats are capable of sustaining much larger populations than others. Recently we've seen that they have had to change their philosophy on the mule deer "areas" because of a lack of healthy and sustainable populations, much less trophy bucks. I see the same thing coming for the elk populations as the amount of land for "Open Range" for cattle and the deer population increases, also with the encroachment of man. I like many dream of having the cabin in the mountains away from the city folk (for me people in general).
The reality is that we are decreasing the amount of sustainable habitat in the "General" hunting areas and therefore overpoplating the "Limited Entry" areas in the interest of showing the public that there is gain in the total numbers and achieving success on the "Elk Initiative." The way they make up for the overpopulating is by throwing spike and cow tags at people in the LE areas in order to not diminish the amount of trophy bulls.
In my honest opinion they need to start looking at things through the lens of small area or herd management and not total numbers management. Short of having to take a fish and game officer along with you to the field and him telling you what you can shoot; I would encourage us as hunters to contact the division wildlife biologists and ask where the populations need the most management, and maybe putting in for the cow or spike tag for that area. If you are hunting in an area that quite frankly doesn't need any herd management then perhaps it's more about you than the elk or the hunt (I am not speaking about Trophy hunting here, so don't get your knickers in a knot).
Back to my original statement about there being too many hunters; lets face it this is about money to manage the wildlife and then about wildlife. As I see it if there is only a 12% success rate yearly then we either have a whole bunch of hunters hunting in lowly populated open areas (and mostly from the truck I might add) with a fairly high harvest rate considering, or very few hunters on large populations in LE areas and private lands (Don't even get me started on the CWMU hunts!!) with a fairly low success rate, but I thinks it's both. I agree that there needs to be some difinitive changes on WHEN and WHERE the spike and cow hunts occur along with Archery, Muzzleloader, and Rifle but they still need to occur on the highly populated areas. In my opinion they need to decrease the total amount of tags and concentrate them on more specific areas, which will reduce the amount of pressure from people, which will reduce the stress on the animals and allow them to spread out more thus increasing the amount of sustainable habitat, at the same time increasing the amount of trophy bulls and improving the hunt success across the board. Regardless of the method you choose to hunt with the hunting seasons need to be concentrated around game management and not the two weeks they give you in the field. If they increased the amount of total time in the field and decreased the total tags but had say a 60% success rate I think you would see a total improvement in the trophy elk populations. You would get a decrease in the car hunters and more serious hunters in the field. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.