Our Elk Herds?

sageadvice

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-31-15 AT 08:58PM (MST)[p]http://www.monstermuleys.info/photos/user_photos2/3121elk-8.jpg

I recently had a nice chat with Our local Game Warden at the fueling station at the edge of Town here in Westwood. He's a good one, loves to hunt himself and i see him as another one of the guys(with a job to do) that i'll help any way that i can.

Not talking to him for awhile, i mentioned that i dad drawn as a Alternate on last years Elk hunt and he said that he had drawn a Archery Elk hunt himself. Further discussions have lead me to believe that the Elk herds are expanding and moving closer to my location. Our vast Watershed holds abundant habitat that has been near void of Elk. It's said by some, that they are already here.

I believe most of you guys would consider more expanded Elk herds a good thing. So, what do you know about our Elk Herds? I'd like to hear or see some talk about our Elk herds and how they are doing. Thanks!

Joey


"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
The herds are definitely expanding. Probably won't be for long though now that the state is intent on making CA a haven for wolves. Recently, I saw elk xing highway signs on a highway that I used frequently 5 yrs ago and they weren't there then. You'd think that would mean more hunter opportunity and tags, but not in CA. There are units in CA that are full of bulls dying of old age and from fighting with other bulls and the state refuses to offer more than one tag. This is despite pleas from local landowners who are sustaining major damage to their properties from these herds.
 
Back in the early 2000's a friend of mine was the Superintdent of Golf at the Wildcreek Golf course in Sparks, Nv. They had a spike bull that had moved into a large tule patch on the 8th hole of the course. After about a week the Nevada Dept of Wildlife was called in and using a helo, herded the young bull into the mountains to the north. The NDOW sumised that the young bull had traveled down from the Susanville area, to the north.
I've also heard of reports of elk in the Antelope Reservoir area, west of Honey Lake. Also rumors of hunters having made elk sightings in the northern D-3 zone.
You are probably surrounded there at Westwood right now. Just not in large numbers.
 
Thanks Guys! It must have been 15-20 years ago, i was fly fishing a stretch of creek along the northern headwaters of Lake Almanor when i stopped to listen to what could have been little other than a Bull calling. It was a first for me in the area and the Bull was a ways away but it made me think how wonderful it would be if more were there/here.

Back in those days, i had a wood cutting business going and was always out looking, finding, and getting firewood for folks. My normal outdoor activities also had me out quite often, no elk sightings. I'm not out near as much these days but i still have contacts who are and i guess there are a few elk around.

Mallards, I'm with you, the more Elk hunts the better and to heck with those wolves. As long as the herd easily can sustain hunting pressure and the Landowners are willing to allow access, why not?

Nick, If that's what they said, ok i guess, but Susanville is not what a guy could call a Elk hot spot. lol

Overall, i believe the Elk Program in Calif to be a huge success.

Joey


"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
One of three Bulls from a heard of 15 just north of sierravalley. Started seeing and hearing them about 6 years ago. He is a little busted up and was running with one other bull just as nice.
201image.jpg
 
T1, Awesome!!! Is that the Sierra Valley over by Portola?

Thanks for posting up!!

Joey


"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
LAST EDITED ON Feb-01-15 AT 10:29PM (MST)[p]Yes. They were closer to antelope lake. I seen more elk and nice Bulls up there this year then I did in Colorado.
 
Thanks T1, that's really great to hear.

Who else is seeing Elk in places that they didn't used to be until here recently?

Joey


"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
The Roosevelt elk herds are expanding also. I haven't kept track of tag numbers in a long time, so I don't know about that part of it. One fellow I know has a herd on his property. The elk moved in and his blacktail deer herd all but vanished. He's not real happy about it either. He probably wouldn't mind so much if he could shoot one.

I personally haven't seen any while deer hunting but many have where there weren't any before. One fellow a few years ago shot a B&C Roosevelt bull near Pilot Rock which was unheard of not that long ago. He had his rack stolen, but that's another story.

Eel

It's written in the good Book that we'll never be asked to take more than we can. Sounds like a good plan, so bring it on!
 
I would defintely say our herds are slowly expanding and increasing. In general the Department has increased elk tags through time and established new hunts. It is a trade off with harvesting elk and still allow the herds to grow and expand. If you harvest to much of one herd you will never encourage a portion of the herd to break off and set up shop somehwere else. Elk on private land is a very hard thing to address. The Department does not pay for wildlife damage. We do have some programs with special tags that landowners can obtain and charge for tresspass. This is a trade off as well between the general public (high demand for elk tags) and landowner tolerance. Some landowners have higher tolerances and some have almost no tolerance. This situation will likely increase as our elk herds increase. The Department is trying to find some type of middle ground for landowner tolerance and demand by the general public for a public trust wildlife. Tags in northern California have been increased and hunt boundaries expanded in direct response to increases in elk numbers.

For what it is worth

Joe
 
A good friend of mine, who is a game warden that lives and patrols in and around C4, X6A/B, etc. has heard rumors of elk sightings in the last few years around Humbug Valley, Butt Valley Reservoir, Yellow creek and so on. I would love to see elk herds expand up I-80 and around Beckwourth/Portola area. There is prime habitat in the D3-5 zones that seem like they could support small populations also.

Jim

BTW, California spent millions to make the animals feel better and call them wildlife, not game! I believe our wardens are called Wildlife officers now!? ;-)
 
Tuleelk, Thanks for chipping in. I guess you know how we all feel about there being another unchecked major predator like Wolves running around, being hungry, and feeding off the game still left here in Cailf.? The people that want them, don't have to live with them.

As i said above, i think you guys been doing a great job, i thank you! If you hear of half to a Dozen or so unwanted Elk needing a new home, The upper causeway meadows just out the east side Chester would be, imo, a great place for a release. ;-)

Slayer, I've seen some of that group. There was a good many a couple miles up north and back west of that intersection as well. There was a huge Bull with his nice group a cows made home out in the nicest little fenced in creek bed flat you ever saw. The Elk loved to bed and relax up along the creek under the huge old shade Oaks that ringed the field. I heard tell that a decent guy with a Tag might get permission if he was a mind to a easy hunt...

HH, fight the good fight Harry! Hold em off, maybe they won't be here in numbers so fast after all...

Eel, it's a real tough choice on just what Elk to put in for. Between the Rosie's, Tule's, and Rockey Mountain varieties, i guess a guy would be happy with them all, or any one of. I know in the years that i've been putting in to have max points, i've at one time or another, put in for each kind of elk and may change my choice yet again next year.

More comments welcome. Been Ca elk hunting lately? chime in! :)

Joey


"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
Tuleelk,
When was the last time the dept increased tag numbers? I believe, last year, tag numbers actually decreased in some units! As for the landowner tags, I know of a landowner with significant damage to her pastures, fences, etc and has been pleading for help for years. A friend of mine who is a hunter looked into landowner tags for her and basically, they said "no way in hell." This particular unit has one bull tag and the bulls all die of old age and sometimes die younger because of all the fighting during the rut. The dept is extremely "proud" of this herd(s) and has shown no interest in increasing tags and opportunities for sportsmen.
 
Which hunt are you referring to as having only one tag? I may be able to give you more information if I know which area we are talking about. The total number of tags last year did go down, that was mainly do to a couple things. One, antlerless tags in teh Owens Valley were cut to almost none due to survey results which showed less elk. We have a mandated cap in the Owens Valley of 490 elk and can not go above it. We were at it for several years so we increased in the tags, harvested more elk, and hence are well below the cap now (so less tags). The timber companies that allowed hunters on their properties up north under the general hunts (such as Del Norte, Klamath, and Big Lagoon) are converting them to PLMs so we lost some tags there as well. The Northwestern zone increased from 20 to 30 tags last year. Grizzly Island went from about 17 tags to over 40. In 2012 we increased both bull and antlerless tags in the Siskiyou zone from 15 to 20. Added antlerless tags to the Northeast zone some years back.
Landowner tags work like this, 20% of the tags offered for a single hunt can be available to landowners. But it takes at least 5 tags for a single hunt to make a landowner tag available. Then landowners put in for a lottery for those available tags. They must also have 640 acres. Every landowner that has elk is not going to get an elk tag. If we did that then there would be no general tags for anyone to draw from in many areas. Tag quotas are changed (both up and down) in response to what we think the population is doing. The elk in many areas are not filled into available habitat and if you hunt them hard that will never happen. Other areas we have issues with elk and damage to private property. That is a real concern. There is a proposal this year to the Commission to have elk tags that are good on indivdidual pieces of property through the Departments SHARE program. The Department takes the liability and people can apply for those hunts, money generated would be used to compensate landowners. If adopted it will probably not take full effect until the following year because of getting agreements with landowners in places after adoption and having actual tag quotas for those hunts. I am still operating on the 2010 environmental document which is the analysis of impact from hunting, in that document are the tag ranges for all current zones. I have to stay within those tag ranges for anyting I do, including adding in the SHARE elk hnts (if adopted by the Commssion). The SHARE hunts may work for the landowner you are referring to or they may not. If it is the Santa Clara unit (which has 1 general bull tag) there are several other ranches enrolled in the PLM program that harvest elk from that same herd. Please give me a call and I can try to answer your questions 916-445-9992.

Joe
 
Joe, is this the same SHARE program that was used during the late Aleutian Goose season? The purpose was to help out the ranchers who were experiencing loss from geese over grazing on private property. I participated, and it worked quite well.

Eel

It's written in the good Book that we'll never be asked to take more than we can. Sounds like a good plan, so bring it on!
 
The tule elk herd must be doing fantastic. Saw a cow and calf probably 15 mies north of where the herd is. Thought it was a huge deer lol
 
My mistake--there are actually 2 tags available for the units in question. Still a paltry number for the number of elk in the unit. The units are those tule elk units in the foothills(i.e. Cache, East Park, etc) Elk seem to be expanding in those units substantially and yet the tag numbers remain the same.
 
I do not think the Cache Creek herd is increasing. We have relocated a lot of elk to that area over the years and the counts stay relatively the same. That is actually a tough place to make a living during the summer. It is very dry and not a lot of green groceries for most of the unit. It has invasive species such as star thistle, Bromus and some others. We did add an apprentice bull tag at Cache Creek some years back. Elk have increased outside of the boundary of Cache Creek, such as Bear Valley. I know there is one new landowner in Bear Valley who inquired about elk tags and I explained the regulations we have in place. I do think the tags could be increased there (but there is still a limt within the environmental document). I met with the Colusa County Fish and Game Commission last month about East Park. The number of elk there is definitely increasing, but I only have a very small amount of public land to hunt on (with a window of operation and a firearm restriction, accordig to our MOU) and the elk have stopped using it to the extent they were in the past. At one point I had 2 bull tags and 5 antlerless tags (trying to remember off the top of my head) for that zone. It was 2 and 2 the last year. I did not want to issue 4 cow tags and watch the hunters not have any elk on the public land they could hunt (happened several years ago). The Colusa County Fish and Game Commission indicated that they may be able to line up some private property owners who would allow hunters, I am all for that! This is an area where the SHARE elk hunts (same general program as the Aleutian Goose hunts on the coast years back, but these tags would be good on the individual properties only) may be something your friend would be interested in. To increase tags in a unit of almost entirely private property with a small chunk of public ground only forces people to hunt the public ground which then drives the elk further onto private. In addition to the SHARE hunts I am reviewing the possibility of private lands only tags. Tags which people know would not be valid on the public ground and they would need to secure permission on private ground. Somewhat similar to some of Oregons hunts and some zones in Montana (for certain seasons or types of tags). I by no means think we do everything perfect but I think the Elk Program tries to respond to the conditions on the ground and the limitations we operate under. In addition, the Department does not exactly set tag quotas, we submit recommendations to the Fish and Game Commission who adopts them. Occassionally they do change our tag quotas, suggest we look at a particular zone more closely, review tag distribution for methods of take, etc.

Thanks

Joe
 
LAST EDITED ON Feb-05-15 AT 09:40AM (MST)[p]Joe
We almost never agree on things here at MM, but I really do appreciate you coming on here and sharing your insights and providing info that many of us would never know about.
Thank you very much!!!
 
jgriffin82, Our Warden friend, i mean Wildlife Officer Bud, may well be the same guy as the Warden i referred to above shared similar reported sightings to me. Thanks!

Joe, Great stuff! Thanks again.

Mallards_, My old Hunting Pard from down below drew Cache Creek Elk back when that Elk draw first started. He finally found the Elk and camped on them in public super thick brush country out of his daybag for 3 days before he finally got a shot and closed the deal on a Dandy 6x6 with his Bow. Back then, i didn't realize what a remarkable accomplishment he had done.

NickW, +1

Thanks for all the comments and feedback guys. Good Stuff!!

Joey


"It's all about knowing what your firearms practical limitations are and combining that with your own personal limitations!"
 
The East Park herd is the main one that I was referring to. Sure seems like I see a lot more elk along Hwy 20 now into Clear Lake than I used to though. My experience with the landowners around East Park is that many(certainly not all) are receptive to allowing hunters access their property for elk, primarily because of the damage to fences, etc. No doubt there are more and more bunny-huggers moving there from the Bay Area but there are still quite a few that will allow access. I understand the public land issues but I think something like the SHARE program might be a viable option. That, or relocating elk to an area(s) where hunters can take advantage of this unique species to CA on units with more public land.
 
It would be great if the people you know would allow hunting. If they are serious please have them call me and I can include their contact information within the hunt package. It has become very difficult to find public land where we can relocate tule elk that meets the criteria. One of those criteria is the concerns of the neighboring landowners. The Department has looked at many different areas for relocation that fall within the historic range of tule elk. They typically do not meet the criteria (not big enough, not enough good habitat, neighbor concerns, etc). I am always open to new areas to start elk herds. The Sierra range comes up a lot but historically it was not considered elk range with tule elk coming up to the base of the foothills. One of the policies is not to relocate outside of historic range (owens valley was established prior to this policy).
There are several groups of tule elk that hang out along highway 20, some are within the Cache Creek zone and some are in the Bear Valley zone. Bear Valley is probably increasing but I really need to get a flight in to get a better handle on numbers. Our helicopter surveys have pretty much been shut down since the crash in 2010 that killed everyone. We hope to have a new contract in place soon. Some areas we survey with fixed-wing and some traditionally with helicopter. There have been some decent sized fires in the Cache Creek area and those are probably helping the elk. A lot of the acres was just grass the grass understory of oak woodland but some good acres of chamise burned as well. Hopefully that comes back as some better feed but most will come back to chamise.

Joe
 
I too think the herds are growing and would like to see more tags made available.
In our county(the La Panza herd)the number of elk have increased significantly and have moved from their points of origin (like FHL and Camp Roberts)onto adjoining private ranches. Most complain about the damage to the fences and crops by these elk, and some have begged me to come hunt them. BUT, I tell them without that important little tag that will never happen.
I have put in for the La Panza tag for decades, long before the current point system was created, and I have never been drawn. The majority of the La Panza herd is on private land with the best local habitat, water and food and the public land they sometimes inhabit aside from FHL and Camp Bob have by far less desirable habitat and public access.
IMHO, the elk herds will continue to grow and DFG needs to look at increasing tag numbers again...



Stop Global Whining
 
I don't mean to sound too pessimistic, but I imagine there is a faction in the Department (and certainly outside the Fish & Wildlife) who are planning on the elk increase to feed the wolves that are certainly in our future. I hope that's not the case, but I worry about that.

Eel

It's written in the good Book that we'll never be asked to take more than we can. Sounds like a good plan, so bring it on!
 
Wolves is a whole issue onto itself. It is probably going to be one of those things were options are limited due to its special status. I can say our deer and elk densities are probably not what the other areas that have them are at. The La Panza zone is another zone that I think could use some changes. I have been working with the Regional people to see what we can do. It has the issue of being mostly private ground, so maybe the SHARE elk tags would work there. I am always open to suggestions and life would be simple if I got to do exactly what I want to do and not listen to anybody or their concerns. It is difficult to get hunters, landowners, other agencies, etc to agree on the "best" course of action. I encourage anyone with questions or concerns to feel free to call and ask questions or throw out suggestions. It does not always mean I will take them and run with them but I also do not think I have all the answers (just ask my wife). I am willing to listen and explain things from my perspective as well and the processes I have to go through to implement changes. 916 445-9992.

Joe
 
The herds have definitely grown down your way, Joey. I saw three cows cross the Beckwourth/Janesville road not far from Antelope Lake several weeks ago.
 

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