As soon as you start to hear the Paunsaugunt is coming back, you might as well forget it. Everyone in the country starts showing up to get their piece of it. Then the fish and game starts giving more tags and bingo it's all over again.
Just for kicks, I'll give you a few ideas about the animals I know about.
My taxidermy shop is located in Glendale, which is on the western border of the Pauns. I've been in business since '95. My shop takes in between 90-150 mule deer per year, depending on the year. The biggest bucks consistently come from the general units in Utah, and in the last 3 years from Colorado. I will take in around 20 Pauns bucks, and this year the average buck was a 24" 170 class buck. The smallest was a 18" 4x4, 145, and the largest was a 33" 4x4, 183"
The best Utah general buck was a 37" 196, and a 30" 208" .
Several Colorado bucks over 30, and over 190"
Sonora bucks were smaller this year too! Only one over 30" and none over 190".
When I started my business we would mount 20-25 bucks per year that were over 190" and of those 4-6 would be 200-220" bucks. Now I very seldom even hear of a buck that approaches 220" from the Paunsaugunt.
The Alton CWMU consistently takes good bucks, and I would guess from the ones I see that they average in the low 190's now. With the largest one to come here this year about 214" and 30".
In the 90's they were averaging right at 200" for almost 10 years running.
I don't see it as that great, but maybe I don't see enough of the bucks to really get a true idea of the situation. If I had to rate it on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being how it was from 1985-1995, I would have to give it a 5.75.
