Good grief, I hope they do something about this. I'm a NR who has already plunked down the cash for the AZ OTC archery deer tag (for a January coues hunt). My resident cousin drew a Unit 8 bull tag that I'm planning to tag along on. Certainly would be fun to pack my bow since I've already got the tag, but I'd much rather help out with a kick a$$ elk hunt without the crowds even if that means I don't get to hunt myself.
I've never hunted those units up north in AZ...do the deer and elk generally occupy the same terrain? Here in WA, the best deer and elk areas generally do not overlap. I hunted the Gila in NM last year for elk. We saw tons of elk, a few bears, some pronghorns, some turkeys, even a wolf, but I didn't see a single deer. I saw the post above with the number of hunters and hunting days in the AZ units...are the deer hunters generally hunting the same spots within the units as the elk hunters? I suppose where water is scarce, maybe so. Just curious...would love to get the input from those guys that spend a lot of time in the sweet AZ elk units.
