utah management, worth the read

[cabinfever]

I would just like to say congrats to all the hunters who have wrapped their tag around horn for the 04 hunting season, be it big or small.This has been a good year, for some states at least, for producing some truly heavy horned monsters. I to got to wrap my tag around a nice buck in Colorado this year as a non resident from Utah. My hat is off to Colorado, in my opinion, your state seems to be headed in the right direction as far as game management. I wish the same could be said for Utah. Yes, we have some of the best trophy elk hunting in the west, if your willing to wait 10-20 years to draw a tag, however, the way Utah manages our mule deer herds is disgraceful. I consider myself to be a pretty dedicated hunter, in fact I'm on my fourth enrollment year of the dedicated hunter program. I hunted very hard this year and put in a combined 20 days in the field scouting and hunting here in southern Utah and only turned up one buck worthy to shoot, and he was only a 175ish buck. A trophy in my book, but the sheer number of bucks like these and bigger are just not there. The problem is, is they could and should be. In my 20 some odd days in the field in utah this year I did see a pretty healthy number of yearling bucks, a fair number of small three and four points (probably 2 and 3 year old bucks), but just very few mature bucks. So whats are problem here in Utah? The problem is poor management, but can be broken down into specific areas. Now, it is a well known fact, that southern Utah is the premier place to hunt deer in Utah, and so if this region is hurting imagine what the rest of the state is like. This is why I will be using Southern Utah as an example. As we all know, there are many issues affecting our deer herds like predators,and drought to name a few. However I want to adress issues that I believe are an even bigger factor.

1)Macro Management. The state of utah manages their herd on too large of a scale. Most states have well over 100 units when utah only has 5. For example, when the word gets out that tons of nice bucks are being seen and killed on East Zion, you have 2000 hunters hunting East Zion, when the unit should only have about 500. And than once the herd is wiped out on east Zion, hunters start looking for a more productive area, and hear that Enterprise is sure producing some nice bucks, so than you have 2000 hunters, or more, hunting a unit that should have a fourth of that number, in order to maintain a healthy number of bucks, with more mature bucks as well.I'm positive, this trend is similar state wide.

2)97,000 is way to many tags. If were in a major drought and our deer herd is in trouble, does it make since to continue to issue the same amount of tags? Of course not, but they still do. You know the DWR puts a lot of focus on stopping poaching, but what do you think they are doing to our herds year in and year out with the issuing of 97,000 tags. The DWR will kill far more trophy animals than poachers will. My point is, if they are over issuing tags, and all the yearling bucks are being killed, you will never have the oppurtunity to kill a 4 point or better because 95% of those bucks will never have the oppurtunity to grow a set of mature antlers. One only needs to look at several of the private rances that micro manage their ranchs, and limit the number of hunters, to see the quality of animals they take off these ranches every year.
I also wanted to point out that southern utah is especially in trouble, because over 75% percent of the Dedicated hunters are hunting southern Utah, and so on top of the people who draw their Southern Utah Tags, you have the Dedicated hunter army. So not only are their to many people hunting southern Utah, but you have the dedicated hunters putting all the pressure on the mature bucks, and you have the people who drew a tag killing all the yearling bucks.

THE BOTTOM LINE: We Have got to start to micro manage our herds or we are in serious trouble. I know a lot of hunters like the freedom of hunting several areas but think about why hunters are hunting multiple areas. It's because they aren't seeing anything in one area, so they move to a different area. If we micro managed and cut tags, you wouldn't have to pick up and move to a new area.

 

[DallanC]

Step 1) Allocate ARCHERY tags based on units just like the Muzzleloader and rifle people have to do.

Step 2) irrelvant until step 1 is implemented with the 12,000 (or is it 18,000 now?) archery hunters that can go anywhere and throw out of wack, the micro management plans you correctly suggest.


-DallanC

 

[Founder]

I agree cabinfever that Utah deer hunting could be better. However, there were sure a good number of great bucks seen and shot this year.
I found a good number of bucks this year, and a couple better than average.

I personally would like to see the management style of mule deer in this state changed. I liked the idea of the 20 something units. Makes sense to me.
Cutting tags is also an option, but who will be the one to sit out next year? Who wants to be forced to sit out?
Most hunters in this state don't care enough about increasing quality to end a family tradition of going deer hunting. I can't blame them.

So, what can be done that will please everyone? That's the Million Dollar question!
Cutting tags is probably out of the question right now. I would be surprised to see that happen anytime in the next few years.

The goal of many is to work hard to increase the deer herd. More deer=More deer surviving the hunt=better quality.

Brian Latturner
MonsterMuleys.com

 

[Packout]

Good Post Brian.

Last year we listened to the same complaints about no bucks, but yet this year's fawn crop is extremely good. Interesting that there were no bucks to shoot, yet all the doe got bred. It sounds like you need to find a new place to hunt or hunt smarter. I know that sounds harsh, but there were some great deer killed this year across the state of Utah. I have seen better post season bucks already than I had last year at this time. The doe : fawn ratio is way up this year. Looking a couple years down the road, we will have it good here in Utah. That is if Mother Nature will give us a break and continue to help our herds like She did this year. It will take a couple years for those fawns and yearlings to become mature bucks.

97,000 is too many? The permits sold 10 years ago topped 250,000. Hunter numbers have been cut by 60%+ already. Colorado's deer are doing great, but they have had better Help from Mother Nature than we have had here in Utah.

 

[BrianID]

Good post cabin fever, here?s another long winded post for those of you to read that are interested. For all of the good bucks killed in Utah this year and I'm surprised at the amount of complaining you Utah guys do. I don't hunt Utah but here in Idaho we have the same problem of not having very many mature bucks in our general season units. I would say the Idaho F&G do a slightly better job of micro managing than Utah but the only real way to micro manage is to have small units and have better control of the number of bucks killed in that unit. I don't like the idea of being restricted to just one area ever year but I think a state wide controlled hunt system is better than what Idaho has currently. I don't like the controlled hunt system mostly because it limits who I will get to hunt with that year. It limits who I hunt with because I would have to choose who I put in for a tag with and I don't like having to choose between putting in for a unit with my family or a different unit with my friends. I also like to hunt several different units and would hate to have to choose just one every year.

If you want to increase the number of mature bucks you can increase the total number of deer or decrease the number of bucks hunters kill. States have been trying to increase the total number of deer but that hasn't been working as well as we would like so what needs to be done is decrease the number of bucks killed.

If you want to decrease the number of bucks killed you can either limit the number of hunters or limit the success of the hunters. A short season length can help reduce the number of deer killed but other factors like weather and dates of the season have a larger impact. The number of days a hunter spends out hunting doesn't significantly increase the number of days hunters take off from work if the season is 3 weeks long or only 5 days long. You are just going to have everyone taking the same 5 days off work. The 3 week season is going to see a few more bucks killed because of weekend warrior but lets be honest the weekend warriors aren't killing as many deer as the guys that take a week of work every year. If the weather changes the 3 week season will also have an impact on the number of deer killed. A good example of this in Idaho this year are the units that closed October 19th compared to the units that stayed open until the 24th or 31st.

Another way to decrease the number of bucks hunter kill is to have point restriction. Idaho had a couple of units restricting hunters to bucks with at least 4 points on one side not counting brow tines. In my opinion this did a very good job of increasing buck to doe ratios in these units but I don't think this is the best long-term option.

Personally I liked Founders (aka Brian Latturner) proposal better than anything else that I have seen so far. It would certainly decrease the number of bucks hunters kill but I think his proposal could be improved.

Instead of only being able to kill one deer every two years I think it would be better if you killed a deer one year you don't get to hunt next year. That way hunters aren't shooting ?last day/meat bucks? every other year like what would happen the second year Founders plan. Founders plan of having one tag that is good for one deer during a two year period at twice the price of a regular tag does a good job of still raising money for the State and prevents hunters from trying to cheat the system into allowing them to kill a deer every year. I think the same think could be accomplished by increasing the price of the tag slightly and requiring hunters to turn in there unused tag to the F&G (or DWR) or they wouldn't be allowed to hunt the following year. Sure there would be a few idiots that would get mad at the F&G because they weren't allowed to hunt one year because they didn't turn in their unused tag but you could bet that the next time they had an unused tag they wouldn't forget to turn it in.

I think my plan would work because the more committed hunters kill most of the deer. Most committed hunters wouldn't shoot smaller buck (aka I better shoot this one or I won't get one this year) if that meant they wouldn't get to hunt the following year. Many of the regulars on MM that killed what they consider smaller bucks this year would be a good example of these committed hunters that shot a buck just to fill there tag. If I wasn't allowed to hunt the following year after shooting a deer I know that I wouldn't have shot my 03 and 04 bucks (both shot on the last day I was able to hunt) and may have not even shot my 02 buck. I would bet that Founder wouldn't have shot his 27? Utah buck and many other MM members wouldn't have killed a deer this year if it meant that they wouldn't get to hunt that state next year. At very least this plan would cut the number of deer killed by committed hunters in half. It wouldn't discourage new hunters or decrease the interest in hunting. Most guys that I know that don't hunt anymore because it is to hard to find a buck or good buck not because they want to kill a deer every year.

There are still a few flaws in this idea but I still think it is better than the other options. This system obviously wouldn't work if there were 10 hunters for every deer in the woods. It also wouldn't work for nonresidents that don't hunt that state every year. For nonresidents I think the best solution would be to set up a controlled hunt system like Wyoming has. The state could also consider giving the nonresidents that are regulars a chance to hunt every year as long as they didn't kill a buck the previous year.

There would be some people that say they need to shoot a deer for meat every year. As most of us know that isn't true and with a controlled hunt system they wouldn't be able to shoot a deer every year anyway. Deer meat from a western states is more expensive than the best cuts of beef if you considering the cost of buying a tag, gas, hunting equipment and money that could have been earned by working instead of hunting. Even if you get paid minimum wage you would get more meat for the freezer by going to work instead of going hunting.

 

[BrianID]

LAST EDITED ON Nov-20-04 AT 02:06PM (MST)[p]Founder,

I wrote my post (#4) before I read your post (#2). What do you think the chances of a state implementing something like the idea you mentioned a couple months ago about hunters that killed a deer one year having to site the next year out?
I never thought a Idaho would ever have a 4 point rule but look what happend this last year. Even several F&G guys that I know never thought a 4 point rule would happen in Idaho. So maybe there is a chance for something like this happening in the next couple of years.

 

[cabinfever]

Brian

I agree there were some nice bucks taken this year. I know one area here in southern utah where they killed some very nice bucks during the rifle season.But the pre rifle snowstorms contributed a lot to many of the bigger bucks being killed. A friend of mine is a taxidermist here in Southern Utah and when we got back from our Colorado hunt he had some pretty nice bucks that had come into his shop, however, the taxidermist we visited almost daily while on our hunt in Colorado had three times the trophy bucks come in while we were in Colorado. I have pictures of many of them and have never seen so many truly nice bucks in my life. As for breaking up family traditions, they did that a long time ago when they went to the draw system. Guys say, "I hunt for the meat." We all Know you could buy twice the beef for the price you spend on a deer hunt, but that isn't the issue. The real issue is, if an area can only support 500 hunters than if half of these hunters shoot two points thats their progitive.Our herd will still stay in good shape. At least you don't have 2000 hunters with half of them willing to shoot anything. I don't want people thinking I'm against killing yearling bucks, because if thats what is fulfilling to you, than all the power to you.I don't believe if they cut tags people would have to sit out for a year. There are always over the counter oppurtunities in our state and other states if you don't draw your desired tag.At least we agree their needs to be change and as long as we as hunters realize it and are willing to make our voices heard we can facilitate changes.

cabinfever
p.s. congrats on your two nice bucks. Thats the kind of deer we need to see more of.

 

[cabinfever]

packout

Its refreshing to here that you have seen good numbers of post season bucks, but I think we'd all be kidding ourselves if we settled for medocrity and said our herds are ok. We can do better. The problem with Macro Managment is you will always have the masses hunting the more productive areas and many of these areas can't support the pressure they are getting and still maintain a healthy herd. If you are seeing good bucks in a particular area give it a year or two and it will be over run by hunters. All a guy has to do is see a couple of good bucks in a area, and mentioned it to a couple of friends and, boom that area is over run and over hunted.People in Utah talk! In contrast if that area was alotted the appropriate number of tags, than if good bucks were rumored to be in the unit it may cause the draw odds to jump some, (but remember their would be several units and they would all be managed the same so it wouldn't affect it to much)but at least their wouldn't be an over harvest. If you don't believe that micro management works, one only need to take a trip to a state that micro manages to see the difference.

 

[groundshrink]

I can't resist saying that in my opinion there are way too many predators -lions, coyotes... Just doing a quick count, tallys eleven mule deer carcasses that I'm positive were lion kills that I've personally found this year. Not saying it's THE answer, just perhaps a part of A answer. Drastically (can't spell worth a dam) reduce lion numbers, come up with a way drastically reduce coyotes. Consider this: When the Government trappers were directed to exterminate them starting about 1964 to the time that program was cut way back, even they never came close to succeeding in what they set out to do! I hear a lion will eat about a deer a week -ouch!! I saw 47 head of deer in one draw out on the winter range today, it would of taken all of them plus 5 more to feed one lion for one year! Does that put what I'm trying to say into perspective?

 

[BrianID]

groundshrink,

I think more needs to be done about lions in some areas but coyotes are just as big of a problem if not a bigger problem in some areas. Even though a coyote won't kill as many deer in a year as a lion the shear number of coyotes and coyotes chassing deer up and down on the winter range doesn't help.

Here's a copy of something from another post I wrote about lions in what the Idaho F&G call SE Region.

If you look at the harvest data you may think that lion numbers in the SE region have decreased but the quotas control the number of lions killed every year. When there is an abundance of lions the harvest data just reflects what the quota was that year. In 1998 the F&G had no quota on lions in the SE region and about 3 times as many lions were killed. This put a good dent in the SE region lion population. The next few years the number of deer increased in the SE region. I'm not saying that the reduced number of lions is the only reason deer numbers increased, but there is a good reason to believe that the reduced number of lion significantly helped the deer population increase. After the lion quota in the SE region was put back in place in 1999 the lion population was able to rebound within 3 years. I think the lion population is one of the reasons the deer numbers in SE region are currently lower than they were in 2000 and 2001.

What I would like to see the F&G do is strictly limit the number of Toms killed because big Toms help keep the lion population in check. I would also like to see no quota on females and the females with young still being protected. This would keep the lion population relatively low and prevent the cycle where the lion population increases when the deer population increases and lions eventually suppressing the deer population after a bad winterkill or drought.

I don't think I have all the answers or can do a better job than the F&G but still have an opinion on how things should be done.

 

[tylercreek2]

i hunted utah 3 times before the tag cap was put in place ,,, man what an awful circus it was ,,, went back in 2001 & each year since then and in my opinion the tag cap has helped big time ,,, my dad & i go & have both got our bucks each year since we started going back ,,, this year we got a 25" wide 20" high 3 x3 with some heavy mass & 4" eyeguards ,,, weighed in around 230 lbs ,,, will post a pic soon ,,, so for us the tag cap has worked out really well ,,, i still remember the circus it used to be ,,,, by the way am from ca ,,, and the hunting is wayyyyy better in utah ,,, anyway thats my 2 cents worth,,, is way cool site ,,,,

 

[tylercreek2]

Packout i agree utah has been pretty good to me the last few years ,,, and by the way guys calif "manages" the crap out of everything and the deer hunting just seems to get worse every year ,,, ca fish and game "cfg" management practices is at least partially to blame for the lousy hunting here ,,, is why we go to utah

 

[_droptine_]

The scenario that cabinfever describes took place exactly as described this year. My friends who live near the area have been telling me of the big bucks that they have been seeing in one particular area and last year there were some nice ones killed there. I knew that word would get out and the hordes would descend on the area. I hunted there with them this year during the muzzleloader hunt. It was almost a circus then. Later during the rifle hunt, the big bucks were dropping like flies. My friends have scouted that area a lot and are very familiar with the bucks. Just about every single buck worth watching was killed. There were 35+ bucks killed within just a couple of square miles. Cabinfever hit the nail on the head, the word got out and people came, even me from Colorado. I think micro managing the deer heards works.

 

[BrianID]

cabinfever,

I won't pretend to understand deer management in Utah as well as you do but still have an opinion about general management ideas. I would argue that micro management could be done without going to a controlled hunts with some exceptions.

Like I said early a controlled hunt is the only option if you have to many hunters wanting to hunt an area. I don't think you can micro manage an area with a general hunt if you have 2000 hunters hunting an area that only has 250 bucks. If a general hunt took place in an area like this and it didn't take place during the rut and there was enough cover for the deer to hide in it would be reasonable to assume that about 11% of the hunters tag a buck which would leave about 25 bucks after the season closes. Having only 11% of the hunters sit out every year isn't going to help. If this is the case in the area your talking about the only way to fix it is to limit the number of hunters. If you make a controlled hunt out of an area that has 2000 hunters wanting to hunt it and issue only 200 tags you are going to be drawing a tag once in every 10 years or possible longer with a bonus point system where everyone is putting in every friend and family member. Even if there are 2000 hunters wanting to hunt an area and 500 tags are available you are going to only draw a tag 1 out of 4 years but probably longer considering more hunters wanting to hunt the area after it becomes a controlled hunt. Like I said earlier a state wide controlled hunt would be better than what we have now but I think turning just a couple of the general season would only create more pressure on the remaining general units and make more controlled hunt units that you would be lucky to hunt more than a couple of times during your life.

In my opinion the units that I hunt in SE Idaho can effectively be micromanaged with a general season. I think the Idaho F&G do a fairly good job of micromanaging many of the general season units by adjusting the season or implementing antler restrictions in certain units when the buck/doe ratios get to low. I really think that it could cut the number of bucks hunters tag in Southern Idaho by at least a 1/3. Even 1/3 more bucks surviving every year would make a big difference.

I'll agree with you that controlled hunts do a better job of prevent hunters from flocking to one area that has been hot and killing all of the bucks but still think my idea is better when you don't have too many hunters to manage.

 

[cabinfever]

Brian ID

I think you misunderstood me in one respect. My numbers were purley hypothectical, and I apologize for not making that clear. I'm not suggesting that I know exactly what areas should have "X" amount of tags. That is for the DWR to determine (scary I know) after examining post season herd conditions. The bottom line is: if a herd is doing well on one mountain range, and a herd on another mountain range is doing poorly, and their both in the same region (i.e. southern region) how do you seperate out the area that is doing poorly and limit tags. You can't do this under the current Utah management guidelines. Take for example the Southern Region in Utah. This region extends from the Nevada border east to lake powell and than north all the way to I70. I think you get the picture. This region is several hundred square miles in size. The problem is:you have multiple herds and mountain ranges within one area that can't be managed based on a herds individual needs. Colorado manages herds, not vast areas. And most states at least have some form of micro management. As far as 11% of the hunters harvesting, that may be the case in northern utah, but in southern utah on the general rifle season its almost 50% harvest. I agree with the predator problem. Always have! But if everyone thinks predators kill more deer than hunters they got another thing coming. If we want to see more mature bucks, we can't have 2000 hunters hunting an area that can only support 500 (numbers are hypothetical). If a guy wants to kill a two point there is plenty for the taking, but if he wants to kill a real trophy, now thats a real undertaking under Utah's current management plan. Thanks for the post, and atleast we agree that something needs to be done.

cabinfever.

 

[BrianID]

I knew that the numbers you gave were hypothetical; I just used the same ones to make it easier to understand. 50% of the hunters using there tag on a general season hunt isn't that bad if you consider that half of the hunters aren't normally that serious about getting a deer. If the people that hunted the Southern Region this year were the only people interested in hunting the Southern Region next year I think the idea of hunters sitting out a year after tagging a deer would work very well. Like I said early I don't understand the wildlife management well enough to have an opinion on exactly how it should be managed. As long as it keeps Utah hunters happy enough to stay in their own state to hunt I don't really care how it is managed. (I hope you can take a joke)

I agree with your complaint about the way the Utah DWR manages the whole region the same. In Idaho we have 7 regions with about 10 or 20 units in each region. Most of the units in each region are managed with the same season but sometimes the F&G will cut the season or put restrictions on a couple units in a region when the buck/doe ratios aren't very good.

Controlled hunting units to have some major advantages like better control of the number of deer killed in an area and generally you won't see as many hunters compared to a general hunt. If Utah doesn't have too many hunters to manage then I still think the "sitting a year out after you tag a deer" would be the best option but the way it sounds it might be better for Utah to go to statewide controlled hunts.

 

[cabinfever]

BrianID

Yea I agree. Sitting a year out or controlled hunts, either way the deer herd wins. The one nice thing about controlled hunts is you can isolate an area and focus on the individual needs of that specific area. In my opinion, controlled hunts are micro management at its best. I believe if they went to multiple units state wide, you could still draw a good tag every other year and a premium one every 7 years. I know units in Colorado where they are killing some smoker bucks and it only takes 1 or 2 points to draw.

cabinfever