Solution B

[feduptwo]

This is the second part of the ?Wyoming general Deer hunt? fix thread. Constructive non-name calling comments are appreciated. We want to keep this constructive.
Solution B would be to have a zone 1, zone 2 system that allowed residents to choose one opening day. This would be accompanied by the following stipulations.
-Zone 1 would make up the hunt areas currently known as region G, and H and would start on the 09/15 and end on 09/25. You could also hunt 15 days of archery in zone 1 if you possessed a zone 1 tag.
-Due to overcrowding issues that currently exist in these regions we would need to cap license sales to 1000 hunters under what is currently hunting these areas. This would not be limited quota it would just be a Zone 1 permit cap.
- Zone 2 would be the remainder of the state and would start Oct 1st and run for 14 days. This would again exclude the whitetail areas, nor one?s ability to hunt whitetails with a leftover deer tag.
- Zone 2 would not have a cap on the amount of tags that could be sold. The only difference would be that everyone would have to hunt for 14 days and we would roll the Oct 15th areas (not many) into zone 1. If areas were severely over objective for multiple years the G&F could extend seasons as needed.

 

[PleaseDear]

So I could have both Zone tags and hunt both Zones thruout the year------I would just have different opening day type restrictions?

Thanks

Robb

 

[feduptwo]

No you would have to hunt the zone that you declared when you bought your permit,except you could hunt whitetails with either zone license.
The idea of this is to take the resident rifle mule deer season from 41 days to around a month and then split the resident hunters over two seasons. This is to help alleviate hunter overcrowding and improve hunt quality.
You would probably have to have 3 zones with the whitetail areas making up the third zone.

 

[TOPGUN]

feduptwo---Nice to see a couple threads like you started and I hope everything does remain calm, LOL! The question I have is that your two threads are addressing overcrowding by resident hunters. Being a nonresident who hunts Wyoming every year, what would you do for our hunting? Would you leave the nonresident map like it is with Regions and some Limited Quota units and stay with the PP system the way it is or change it to what you are suggesating for residents and keep our PP system intact? Also, would the dates for our hunts be the dates you are suggesting for residents and do those "not to exceed" totals include both residents and nonresidents that would hunt an area? What,if any,thought have you given as to whether the nonresidents are also causing this overcrowding problem? From what I've gleaned on this and other BBs, Regions G & H that you are mentioning are a zoo because of too many residents hunting them on a general tag. However, one person stated in a post somewhere in the last few days that all he ran into were nonresidents when he got back in 5 or 6 miles off the roads. I did make the comment recently that I felt a common opener for residents would be one way to spread out everybody and also mentioned more limited quotas as an alternative. After reading the response by BuzzH on the latter, I think I have come to understand where he is coming from and agree with him that easy access to a lot of the areas is what is doing the harm. Maybe besides your line of thinking we should also be asking for more road closures where there are so many that it's too easy to get into what used to be the "prime" areas. Does anyone know why seasons open on 10/1 on the east side of the state, except for region A, compared to the dates on the west side? Sorry for the rambling, but these are just a few thoughts and questions from a nonresident.

 

[SouthernWyo]

Again, we would be looking at "one-size-fits-all" for the entire state based on hunter management problems in the western portion of the state. I think that I like your 1st proposal better, but I think we could add some additional management actions:

- Run the early limited quota and general season opening dates as you proposed in Solution A but limit this to Regions G and H. Much of the remainder of the state would open up on the 1st of October as it does now. Leave the "late" general season openers as-is. I'm not convinced that the majority of resident hunters travel all over the state hitting staggered opening days. I know I don't. Maybe I'm just not "hard core."

- MANDATORY REPORTING, not just of harvest, but also areas hunted, days hunted, opening day hunted, etc. Across the board, you have to report what you did or you are not eligible to get a permit next year. How about making it part of the electronic application process to kill 2 birds w/one stone?

- Seasonal road restrictions. If 50% if the two-tracks and ATV trails that have been pioneered in the last 10-20 years were unavailable during the general deer and elk seasons, the quality of bucks and bulls, not to mention the overall hunt quality would go through the roof. Of course, we'd also be looking at reduced success, specifically on the late season cow/calf elk hunts. How could we resolve this?

- Raise resident license fees to a realistic level. This way, you wouldn't be restricting anyone's opportunity, you'd just be forcing folks to look long and hard at what they really want to hunt, it may be either elk OR deer, but if you really really want to hunt both, you're going to have to shell out for the privilege. Think outside the box. Cow/calf and doe/fawn tags should remain CHEAP. Youth tags, veteran?s preference, etc should remain CHEAP.

- Reasonable relatively late season limited quota permits for a few more transition type areas, similar to those in regions D and W. Highly limited tags (5 to 10 to 20) with restrictions on how many (or even if) governor's or commisioner's tags can join in the limited season. Although hunting the second half of October isn't really "late" compared to some of our neighboring states, it does provide some additional opportunity to get at some of the older age class bucks that have held up in the dark timber prior to the true rut when it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. This should only be considered if it can be supported by good sound science and biology. If it negatively impacts the overall herd in question, it should be canned like they did to the limited tags in area 100 several years back.

Thanks for throwing this out there. I hope this can stay civil.

 

[SouthernWyo]

Topgun,

I belive that the earlier opening date in regions G and H could be justified (at one time at least) by the fact that the terrain self-limits the hunting pressure. i.e. you can run a longer season and provide more overall opportunity because the rough mountains and lack of vehicle access (not to mention the wilderness restriction on non-residents) self-regulate the pressure on the critters. Apparently it can be argued that this is no longer the case?

Also I'd like to mention that state-wide, the numbers do not support the theory that there is more resident pressure. Historically, the highest resident hunter pressure came in the early 1980s, and since then has been steadily falling, to the point that it is now about a third of what it was. Non-resident permits, however, have stayed pretty constant, and now proportionally make up almost half of the overall statewide numbers, when historically, they made up around a third. This of course does not address specific units or regions.

I think it could be very validly argued that the overall PUBLIC LANDS pressure may be increasing, due to the statewide loss of private land opportunities that we enjoyed even 10 years ago.

 

[feduptwo]

I also love the idea of seasonal road closures. Especially in areas that have high road density. I talked to the Evanston game warden the other night and he said it has made a world of difference in hunt quality and quaility of animals in the HMA'S around Evanston.
I'd pay $100 for a deer tag if we could restore quality. I don't think that will do anything to reduce hunters, and the state will never go for it. The real shame in permit prices is resident moose, and sheep but thats another post. We'll just say its about 1/4 of market value and about 75% less than the other Western states

I am in favor of a very limited "late tags" after we can restore some quality but it would have to be super limited, like 5 permits for hunt area. The Commis and Gov tags wouldn't be an issue if every area in Wyoming could have a season like this with just a few permits for each area. This would also help draw odds without going to a dreaded point system.

You still need something to like solution a or b to really thin the hunters out and we have to reduce the 41 day rifle hunt we currently have in Wyoming.

 

[feduptwo]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-11 AT 11:56AM (MST)[p]Topgun,

I don't know how the Non Resident thing would play but I guarentee you it would be fair, like it is now. Wyoming has one of the largest allocation of permits to non Residents, and as general rule of thumb non residents get 25% of the permits for the unit. I would imagine this wouldn't change. Non residents get more permits than any other state except maybe Colorado.
Easy access is def a issue but I'm backpacking 3-8 miles in and still running into multiple groups of hunters. There are more guys penetrating the highcountry as the demand for quality deer grows. Not to mention that every town in Wyo has horse rentals and plus a bunch of guys are hiring people to do spike camps.
The first solution is to lower the number of hunters in the field and spread them out.

 

[TOPGUN]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-11 AT 12:10PM (MST)[p]Even at 63 years old, I really like that road closure idea. I hunt where ATVs aren't allowed and will not hunt where there are a lot of quads and vehicles running all over the place! I have also always been in favor of mandatory reporting. I get a card in the mail almost every year from G&F that gives me an access code to go in and answer a bunch of questions similar to what was just mentioned that an independent group runs for the G&F. There is no reason that couldn't be mandatory for everybody and if you don't comply you don't get any more tags. I had to do a mandatory survey for a mulie hunt down in New Mexico last October under penalty of not drawing again and it's an easy way for G&F to tabulate statistics. It only took two or three minutes online to complete! I'm not sure about Wyoming residents, but nonresidents also have a landowner coupon attached to our license/kill tags that you are supposed to send to G&F if you take an animal on public land or give to the landowner so he can send it in for a monetary reward for allowing access. That could also be mandatory with penalties for not reporting, rather than the way it is now, but the online reporting would be easiset with a lot more data collected easily by computer.

 

[feduptwo]

Its silly Wyoming does not require Mandatory reporting. It could help the game and fish manage hunt areas so much better.
Still probably not the smoking gun solution.

 

[piper]

What on earth would mandatory reporting accomplish? They do that in Nevada, but every area has a management quota thats partially tied to the age structure and harvest number of the previous season. Wyoming manages nothing like that, the check stations work fine for general otc type management. Not to sound overly pessimistic but none of this stuff will accomplish much, what little changes that come will be quickly negated by harder core hunters modern technology and declining habitat conditions. Its been proven throughout the west that the only thing that really makes a difference is fully limited hunt quotas, tied to the age structure,desires of the hunters and landowners, harvest rates,percent of public land, and other types of mortality, (weather, ect). Its also interesting to note that Antelope in Wyoming are managed that way and with great success, in my opinion anyway.

 

[walkercreek]

Great discussion guys. Heres my 2cents. Im a resident and a landowner, I have often found myself being totally disgusted paying 44 dollars a mule deer tag. Im my oppinion the residents tags should be the same as the out of state guys. 44$ for one of wyo's greatest species availible to hunt is a travesty. We have pushed for limited quota for years in my area, but it has been a uphill battle. Its a bascic example of supply and demand, the demand for deer is high but the supply is dwindeling, as the wyoming population risen the past 10 years so has the the number of hunters... we simply cant sustain the general deer tags for much longer.

 

[TOPGUN]

That does sound overly pessimistic, but it's your right to have that opinion. It would seem like the G&F should know exactly how many animals were taken from each area and what weapon was used, along with the general stats of the animal (width and number/length of points, doe, fawn, etc.). I have never felt that the few animals they look at in those check stations here in Michigan or in Wyoming are enough to extend the stats out as a whole the way they do. Maybe I'm wrong, but it would seem like mandatory reporting would be an inexpensive way to add to their data and they wouldn't even have to have the person doing it leave the office! However, that would just be one small tool in the toolbox! I'm sure declining habitat is a big thing in the overall demise of mule deer along with human encroachment, extensive road systems created by the search for fossil fuels, etc., but managing them like antelope must not be the way to go or it would seem like the G&F would have jumped right on that. Then again, maybe not! For some reason mulies just seem to be a lot more fragile than other critters when it comes to the environment needed to keep them prospering. For instance, a friggin whitetail will live right in the urban backyards and thrive, but most mulies sure can't, although they are trying! I know where we hunt whitetails are exploding in the lowland agricultural areas and are starting to work their way to the higher elevations. That, in and of itself, can't be good for the mulies!!! It does seem like reducing numbers of hunters allows an increase in herd size and probably quality after a few years if other factors stay steady. Landowners are limiting hunter numbers themselves or through leases to outfitters and that seems to show one way to better quality and quantity of the various game animals when compared to the open public lands where the only way is for the G&F to cut tag numbers. One way or another as BuzzH has mentioned, it appears a main strategy is to somehow limit access, especially to the key areas that are having problems. Now all that needs to be done is figure out the best way to do it and keep the majority of hunters half way happy while doing it!

 

[piper]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-11 AT 02:45PM (MST)[p]I agree with you walkercreek, while nonresident fees are bit much for my blood, I think we should pay more, and mule deer should be thought of as much more valuable for sure. Again I need to ask about the limiting of access in areas that are already roadless? and what good is mandatory reporting when the seasons stay the same year after year? its not like they cut the tags way back because of a bad winter or anything. True, they might shorten the season, and cut a few nonresident tags, but some studys have shown that harvests can actually increase after seasons are shortened.

 

[bucklover]

I think a large percent of hunters are what I call "lazy hunters". They just plain don't get too far away from the road. Weather they are afraid of getting lost, don't have the desire or ability to get the animal back to the truck?? Maybe they just use buying a tag to go camping with family or friends. Whatever the reason, their money counts just as much as my money. Like it or not, that is the way the Game and Fish get most of the revenue. I think with proper road management during the hunts, and habitat improvement projects such as control burns, along with protecting winter range at critical times of the year, we can improve the deer herd and continue over the counter tags in many areas of the state. One other thing, and I haven't seen this talked about. It seems to me that the deer herd really started to decline about the time they made those explosive poisons sites illegal. I'm not saying they should come back, but they really helped control the coyotes. Remember food source controls the coyote numbers, not the other way around. Predator population peaks and crashes always follow food source peaks and crashes. The fewer the numbers of deer, the harder they are going to get hit.

 

[feduptwo]

Lazy hunters are not the problem here. I'm talking about running into multiple groups of hunters while I'm backpacking in 3-6 miles in and driving out of the Greys in disquist and seeing 4-6 horse trailers, and outfits at every trailhead.

Limited quota is over kill. A small change like Option A or B would be much better than straight LE. Spread the hunters across the state and make residents start making tough choices. Do we want a quality experience, or do we want lots of opportunity with cruddy quality and overcrowding.

Mandatory harvest data would help figure out age of harvest and whether or not things are getting better or worse but not a strategy for improving anything.

 

[piper]

you will never have wide spread quality experiences without doing what Colorado did, its just the way it is. Ask Idaho hunters how the zone thing works. Don't worry, limited draw is not going to happen, and to tell you the truth, it would be surprising if even menial changes came about.

 

[walkercreek]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-11 AT 08:36PM (MST)[p]Well The peak of the deer here definitely coincided with the use of the infamous 10-80. this product made mule deer populations explode, even today on my ranch a coyote wont touch a dead carcass of a cow,this product was extremly effective on coyotes, i have always enjoyed the old timers storys about the 50s and 60s even up the 70s about a seeing a coyote was a rare sight indeed. The point im trying to make is that preditation is a major factor in why the mule deer population sucks in wyo right now. Without this mass amount of coyotes and lions i think a general system might still be feasible. I have trapped 60 coyotes this winter and there never seems to be an end to them, you kill one and two takes its place. But for now myself and my neighbors think that the only way we can stop the down hill slide is limited quota in every area. Excellent thread feduptwo

 

[bucklover]

We can all thank the magazines we all love to read for putting the pressure on places like the Grey's River. It probably would have eventually happened without the magazines, but some of these articles practically drew people a map. Now everyone thinks they can go up there, preseason scout, hike all over the place and expect big buck results. These old deer know what's up long before opening day. One or two minutes of bounce time and they are safe. Some will always be killed but many still know how to play the game. There is definitely not as many big bucks out there, but when a person gets up on one of those high peaks and looks around, there is so much country to hide in! As long as the hunts are early, so bad weather doesn't work against the deer, there will always be some big old bucks.

 

[losthuntr]

I can't figure out your thinking, you want to change the resident seasons? have you looked at the numbers for licencing and harvest reports? In 2009 36% of the licenses were non-resident and 50% of the harvest went to non-resident on the Grey's area 144. I'll agree that you don't see the big bucks, and the winter range is just a jumbled mess of house's and wells anymore I hunt it every year for elk only made the mistake of taking the rifle one time for deer and the elk bugled all opening morning but I have never seen a shortage of deer I can't imagine someone not shooting a big buck when the years are dry and the animals timber up early in september because the feed up high is dry not to mention that over the last 5 years I've seen an extreme increase in high basin hunters on the greys, I like my extended seasons it allows me to be extremely picky and I don't have to miss work. Why change it? Zone's? that would be something since the game and fish depend on people who hunt multiple area's to increase the harvest, and a statewide opening day would never fly due to the heavy burden it would put on the fish & game to cover the entire state. The worst season's for harvest in the state over the last 20 years were 1996 and 97 with roughly the same amount of tags with a harvest of 33000 deer statewide, in 2009 the harvest was over 53000 deer statewide and most of the area's have increased slowly over the last decade in harvest percentage the toughest area's to hunt almost always have the lower harvest percentage because most hunters won't shoot a lesser deer when they have to work hard for it and most hunters who just want to shoot a deer have no problem getting one without working to hard for it just my opinion

 

[piper]

I don't think there are as many as you think, I live right where some of them winter, seen some nice bucks but no smokers, I know there are a few, but there is a lot of summer country for them to spread out in later. One guy on here said he photographs them every winter, he claims that the population has really declined. I also wonder if the intense early pressure hurts them as far as wintering tough weather goes? they get run off the summer grounds several weeks early every year, thats when the bucks should be in protective groups, fattening up for the rut and coming bad weather.

 

[feduptwo]

Here are some exact numbers off the harvest report for 2009
4729 resident hunters killed 1863 bucks
900 Nres killed 546 bucks.
77% of the bucks killled in Reg g were from Residents while
23% were killed by non residents.

On the hunter over crowding issue.
resident hunters accounted for 25477 hunter days in the Wyoming range while non residents racked up 5373.
Unfortunatly this isn't a non resident problem, it would be a lot easier to fix.

 

[PleaseDear]

I do not know if ya need to go to such extreme changes with all these regions/units and now zones.

I think if we flip-flop the elk/deer hunt dates---have the rifle elk start BEFORE the rifle deer hunts that would give the deer a heads-up as to what is coming.

Currently the deer are the first to get rifle hunted and that is a couple days of lots of shooting/harvest.

Granted----any time one of these Boy Scout Biologist management threads comes along-----alot of guys put their thoughts and some good brainstorming comes from it.

Robb

 

[ICMDEER]

Good post and thanks to everyone for keeping it decent. I appreciate the comments feduptwo has made about crowding in the remote areas. That's what I have seen as well. It's gotten steadily worse for 20+ years and I do not see an end in sight. I always hiked 7-8 miles from the end of the road and was by myself for years. Last time I went, I saw 14 other hunters by 9am opening day.

Good use of actual data, too. The problem is still one of pressure and dead serious hunters. Many of those high country hunters are good hunters with good gear and will spend quite a bit of time to find and take a good buck.

I'm still a proponent of setting aside a couple of limited quota areas. I'd do it just for curiosity sake - just to see how much difference it would really make. And I would do it like Colorado. VERY LIMITED, with quotas for archery and maybe a couple of short rifle seasons.

I also agree with closing off roads. Limiting access would really help in some instances. But as has been said and is documented, there are lots of people as far as you can get from roads. That's where I always hunt and it has gotten really crowded in lots of remote places.

Lumping the mostly private eastern half of the state with the mostly public western half of Wyoming does not make much sense to me. The issues are just too different.

And I agree wholeheartedly about controlling predators. First thing I would like to see is Wyoming allow trapping of lions (as is done in NM and Texas). We need to kill lots more of them. Longer, more liberal seasons on them would also help. Maybe we should give a lion license to anyone who buys a deer license, but "bump" the price of the deer license. Not sure how we could fund it, but a bounty on coyotes might help. There are not as many people killing coyotes since the fur prices have dropped. Maybe a checkoff on the licenses like the hunter access or the search and rescue that would fund predator control might help. I'd give to that cause.

As I have written before, this is a complicated matter. Thanks for the good post and for the thoughtful comments. Good stuff!

 

[nontypical]

Excellent post,guys.Piper,I think the mandatory reporting would take "guesswork" out of the equation.G&F presently uses a computer model to generate herd numbers based on the limited deer surveys they send out(like TOPGUN referred to).This is also based on many years of estimates.I think this science is flawed at best,and this is why:If your computer model is off a couple of years(and it has been on occasion),it could throw the whole thing out of whack.Some very good ideas on here;this is no easy fix.G&F has been known to lower objective levels if herd health cannot be restored.They actually are discussing many habitat related projects,as well as more underpasses in winter range country(these have saved many lives in Nugget Canyon).I would also like to see the increase in predator hunting.All these things would help the overall herd health(IMO),but wouldn't really do anything to prevent hunter overcrowding.You guys would literally gag at the bucks I have on video(as well as the numbers of deer)from 10-15 years ago on the winter range.I wouldn't even get the camera out for a 180 class.Somewhere down the line,we residents are going to have some tough choices to make.We can either let our hunting slide(like Utah did),or be pro-active and do something before it gets that bad.

 

[TreeEM]

So I am confused here after reading all of the posts. What the bigger picture? Increasing fees, limited quota areas, and a zone a and b? or the deer?
I am going to add that I DO NOT APPROVE of the increase in fees, someone on here made it seem that if fees were higher than hunters would think twice about putting in and thus make it a rich mans sport. Not too good since things at the whitehouse are not fixed yet(economy). The limited quota thing I am kind of on the fence about. Not sure what I think of that.
I would venture to say try not to think about your little corner down there too much becuase the dynamics of the state are different. Some areas the deer are ok, some are not like you guys are stating. It would be best to consider the deer before we go saying "increase tag fees", "go limited quota" etc...
The idea of closing roads off is good. But when it comes down to it the management of deer have to come first. Winter range, predators, summer range, etc.... The problem with lions is the state has the quota sytem and in some areas has a small number or a female quota. So our local outfitters go and fill it faster than we can shake a stick at. When that female quota is filled thats when we set ourselves up for failure. Think of how many more males that could be harvested later rather than females. And then there are some areas in Wyoming where the season is open year round. Good luck killing cats then guys. Lots of private property. I was fortunate to hunt shoshoni one year becuase I hunted with someone who new someone. Oh and get rid of them dam coyotes. I hate them things.
But then there is the wolf and grizzly discussion.
There is so much to cover and I feel that there are others that are quick to fix something just becuase we are being selfish about our wants instead of our needs. The rocky mountain mule deer are our future not the limited quota hunts talked about.

WARNING: THIS COMMENT WAS INTENDED FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF DISCUSSION. IT WAS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND OR DISRESEPCT ANYONES IDEAS OR COMMENTS. IT ALSO DOES NOT CONTAIN SARCASIM.