Gunnison Winter Info

I went to a local CPW meeting last night. The sub-zero temps of the past week have hit the fawns hard. Mortality is around 30% right now. The weather conditions for the next few weeks will determine how the herds fare. They showed a graph of mule deer mortality in the Gunnison basin since the big winter of 2007/2008. Survival rates peaked around 2012 and the numbers have been dropping since. If the trend continues the mortality for 16/17 would be high regardless of the winter conditions. I certainly hope this proves to be wrong.
 
>I went to a local CPW
>meeting last night. The
>sub-zero temps of the past
>week have hit the fawns
>hard. Mortality is around
>30% right now. The
>weather conditions for the next
>few weeks will determine how
>the herds fare. They
>showed a graph of mule
>deer mortality in the Gunnison
>basin since the big winter
>of 2007/2008. Survival rates
>peaked around 2012 and the
>numbers have been dropping since.
> If the trend continues
>the mortality for 16/17 would
>be high regardless of the
>winter conditions. I certainly
>hope this proves to be
>wrong.

This is the problem with some in the CPW. In the news release they claim 99% survival on mature doe and 84% survival on fawns. Then you hit a meeting and they claim 30%. But it is not that bad because data shows that since 2012 we are supposed to be loosing winter kill.
Luckily my area is missing the brunt of the weather and we are doing alright. I will never understand how they can so easily contradict themselves.

On the flip side, last year they incerased buck tags across my region by over 10% because of "buck to doe" rations. Then when asked if we actually had 10% more bucks than previous years they shrugged it off. The only reason why the buck to doe ratio was high was because of a bad winter die off late season that hit the doe and fawns hard.
 
I think the info in the posted link was from around Jan 19th. The sub-zero temps came after. CPW says the deer came into the winter in good shape with good fat reserves and are faring well. We've got a lot of winter to go before we see how it all plays out.
 
This year's crazy La Nina weather pattern is going to put a hurting on both deer & elk. Been snowshoeing with my wife and found two winter kills already... like someone else said there's still lots of winter yet to go!

2f350s: Hunt hard, hunt ethically.
 
Looks like they updated the info in the initial link I posted above. I agree it seems things are looking better, but we still have a couple months of potential winter weather. Let's hope it stays mild.
 
Looks like the next week or more is very mild with highs in 40s and maybe even 50. Let's hope this trend continues to spring so the deer and other critters get a break from the winter!

Anyone local have an update on what they are seeing in gunnison area now?
 
There is still some winter left... March is the month of death. IMO... The crust we have from the two rain cycles is the hardest of my life time.. My cows and horses are on top of it and my tractor just climbs on top and stays there.

The third and forth wire are showing now and the second has appeared in a few places. Deer are walking in to my corrals on drifts. The south slopes have bared off and since they can stay on top deer are now getting to feed they couldn't reach last month. We were 100% shed out by Valentines day. There was a glaze to the crust today 3-12-17. Red wing Black Birds showed up last week. Had my first Killdeer day before yesterday. Have heard of Robins in Gunny. I expect Sand Hills on my feed ground any morning now. Fawns and pregnancy rates are going to take a hit. Fawns that are alive at birth wont be with us by July. It will be easy to determine.. just count the 2 points per 100 does the next two Novembers... 15/17 is not a 07/08 by any comparison but our deer took a hit.
I have more then enough points to draw 4th this year.. I was guiding when it was good and applying for points after 07/08... I didn't put in last year as I thought the top end took a hit 15/16...I stand by that decision..Who did great after September? Any way I put in for a point on the 9th of February.. easy decision even with a 11-19 closing date for me. Road kill picked back up because of the crust... I shot 4 cripples on the yellow line last string of night shifts. They are still killing about four a day the first 10 miles East.. West is a lot better then East the worst snow conditions in the Basin has been Gunnison East to Parlin then up to Ohio City.

Picture's Note the deer tracks with my tractor. That's the crust conditions...Then the doe at my lounge chair. Look at her neck and hind quarters.. Do you think she can raise a fawn with that body condition? Another pic I'm going to try and post is a deer I didn't need the 15's for... now ill try and post them.
 
LAST EDITED ON Mar-12-17 AT 10:49PM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Mar-12-17 AT 10:40?PM (MST)

LAST EDITED ON Mar-12-17 AT 10:13?PM (MST)

LAST EDITED ON Mar-12-17 AT 09:58?PM (MST)

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I think coming out of this will be worse than 07/08, not 100% due to this weather, but just bc the age class representation and population wasn't there to begin with like in 07/08. It's unfortunate.
 
My tractor actually made tracks today...only four inches but that's a start...20 inches to go to dirt... cant ride my bike on top all over the meadow as of today. Sister and no brother good in law had to hire a loader today to bare off a patch to calve on....haven't done that since 83/84...07/08 our tractors could push it... not this year.
Any opinions out there on why deer keep dyeing after bare up? On years like this I find numbers that parish in April with a touch of green showing...
 
They still have to wait on weaning the metabolism over to what's becoming available. By then they should have depleted all fat and immune systems are at risk. (You also run into enterotoxemia if they are cleaning up after livestock). It's just a mixture of things. We run into the same issues down here, though not as extreme, despite not really having a Winter.
 
The CPW model predicted a big die off this winter, regardless of weather. Combined with the snow pack I think we're going to see a lot of deer mortality.
 
Thanks for the info Brad. Makes me sick to see those critters go through that. Not sure I'll live long enough to get past these cycles and get things back to where they were in the recent glory days.

Did anyone feed the deer and was it worthwhile? I know the big feeding was cancelled, but thought maybe some private group gave it a try.
 
They will likely be cutting tags back this year.Here is what I was told.

I would caution you that license numbers are likely going to be reduced this year. The last several years of below average survival paired with this winter make license reductions necessary to maintain our management objectives. The Gunnison climate has never been a friend of mule deer management.
 
License recommendation meeting yesterday had cuts from 50% to 79% for buck deer. 66 and 67 were right in the 50% cuts and 54 was around the middle 50's and 551 and 55 were high 70%s. 55 2nd season buck tags went from 210 to 45. These were the recommendations and not set in stone but they can only get worse from here.
 
What do you mean, "can only get worse from here"? The license distribution or the deer mortality for the remainder of the spring?
 
>What do you mean, "can only
>get worse from here"? The
>license distribution or the deer
>mortality for the remainder of
>the spring?


They reflect on one another.The deer are not yet out of the woods. If mortality rises they could drop their quota.
 
LAST EDITED ON Apr-02-17 AT 05:34PM (MST)[p]I see your point now. I am very happy with the CPW dropping license numbers* for deer in the Gunnison basin. The only way it could get worse is if they decide to raise the number of deer tags, in my opinion.
 
LAST EDITED ON Apr-03-17 AT 01:34PM (MST)[p]>Any idea on number of elk
>licenses in those zones?


Bull tags look to be unchanged. Slight decrease in Cow tags. If you want exact numbers on Cow I need your unit. Basically around a 60-70 fewer Cow tags per season for rifle tags.There is a few adjustments in Archery tags but are unit specific.
 

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