Colorado seasons and preference points

martinc · Apr 1, 2005

Hi guys
I'm studying the Colorado elk seasons and trying to figure it out. I understand that OTC tags are good for most units, for a bull, during 2nd or 3rd season. Drawing a tag would allowed you to hunt the 1st season in most units, for bull or cow, or to get a cow tag in other seasons, or to get a tag in some limited units.

Am I right ?
Are limited units mostly public land and especially good ?
What limited units are the most coveted ? How many points would you need to get a tag ?
How big an advantage is it to hunt the first season in unlimited units ?

Thanks for your help

martinc

bowedark · Apr 1, 2005

Hunt the first if you can the elk have not be shot at you will have to hunt high.

If you don't have points START

There are lots of hunter in Colorado when you crowd everyone into a 5,7 or 10 day season everyone is out hunting at the same time.

There's lots of public lands to hunt. I think there are better choices than Colorado and I have 11 points.

Bowedark

txhunter58 · Apr 1, 2005

Here is the link on the Colorado DOW website that can tell you how many points it takes to get picked for any particular hunt. I suggest that you read the explanation of the charts before trying to decifer them as they are somewhat hard to read without guideance.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/huntrecap/

They also have a section that you can look up individual GMU (game management units) with a map that you can overlay public and private land and game maps (elk summer areas, production areas, migrations routes, etc)

Once you get the hang of it, it is interesting to look around and explore the site.

txhunter58

venor, ergo sum (I hunt, therefore I am)

sniper101 · Aug 2, 2005

hunt the 2nd season if usally snows during this time and the elk come down from the high country.

cohntr6 · Aug 2, 2005

OTC tags are good in some units, check for specifics in the regs. book. Decent bulls can be had in any unit it just depends on how hard you hunt. Yes some units are better than others but most OTC units are simply raghorn factories. They are units with good numbers of elk that are hunted by a million people and have decent harvest success but few branch antlered bulls. Colorado caters to the nonresident by putting out a unlimited number of bull tags in OTC areas which equates to a crapload of raghorns getting wacked.
Unit 441, 214, 741, and few others had 50-79% harvest success for hunters on bulls last year for all the rifle seasons combined. I have a email at home that had all those units listed.
Jeff

sjhgraysage · Aug 2, 2005

all of the above is pretty good info. Also the magazine "Colorado Outdoors" prints a preference point insert in the March/April issue I think, that gives a good idea of how many points it will take to draw a tag in any unit or hunt that is limited entry. You can get that same info from CDOW's website but it is in pdf files and is harder to read on the computer IMO. Also it will show you the premier units that take lots of points to draw. There are limited entry units that don't take lots of points as well, say 1 - 3 points, these have elk and probably a mix of public and private land. If you had the time to do the research, you might do quite well in one of those units. My .02, and I have 13 elk points