Heat Wave On The Pauns?

[nick2801]

So here is my question to you guys that know the Pauns a whole lot better then i do. With this heat wave coming through how is it going to affect the muzzle loader hunt? Should i stay high on the plateau? Common sense says to throw the migration routes out the window and focus on water. This weather is definitely not what i planned for all summer. guess that's what makes it fun. thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[dillon]

PM Sent.

 

[conch]

Treat it like an archery hunt and don't expect to much. The Pauns is in the toilet. If your expecting big bucks all around you will be seriously disapointed. However, one or two big boys will be there somewhere. Hunt hard and with a little luck, who knows...

 

[swbuckmaster]

LAST EDITED ON Sep-27-10 AT 10:27PM (MST)[p]the deer in the bookcliffs start migrating no matter what. Its the darnedest thing. lots of forage on top with water but the bucks always go down just after the bow hunt and during the muzzy hunt to BS forage and no water. maybe its the same on the pauns.

Ive been told the reason the pauns is in the toilet is forage and too many deer. They say you can go down in November in the winter and see starving deer or deer with their ribs showing. It has been caused by 10 years of drought and the winter range was hit pretty hard. So the only way to get it back on track is to kill a few more animals and let the winter range come back. Or pray for more rain in the lower elevations.

There are no big bucks in Utah! LOL

 

[conch]

LAST EDITED ON Sep-27-10 AT 10:47PM (MST)[p]Negative Buckmaster. No deer ever starved to death on the Pauns. Good old fashioned lead poisning is the likely problem. I think we could shut the hunt down for three to five years and be back to the pre "conservation" quality.
Your thoughts on migration are close. The Pauns deer do migrate during a two to three week window regardless of weather. And for the record, the unit had one of the best winters in twenty years. A Lot of moister and great feed everywhere. The problem is this herd is selectivley hunted for damned near six months. Not a chance anything good is going to make it through. Just my thoughts.

 

[2lumpy]

Conch knows the unit and the deer, take his advise. Others speculate, he doesn't.

The Alton unit guides tell me they finish their hunts prior to the first of October because their deer have by enlarge left the unit, headed south. Depending on the weather how fast they move. Some of those deer eventually go way south others stay close to the base of the pinks, on the reds and even on the whites for a long time, if the weather holds mild.

I hunted the unit last year, if it were me I'd put a good deal of my time as close to the bottom of the pinks as private property will allow.

Every year is a little different but generally things stay the same from year to year.

There are no guarantees so a trip to the Tropic Res. area and south should reveal very few deer on top after the 2 or 3 of October. It don't take long to tell, if you can't see deer everywhere south of the res., get off the top and find them under the rim.

DC

 

[swbuckmaster]

>Negative Buckmaster. No deer ever
>starved to death on the
>Pauns. Good old fashioned lead
>poisning is the likely problem.
>

The biologist ive talked to or heard speak all say the drought for the last 10+ years is the problem. They all say there are too many deer down there on the winter range. They all say the winter feed has been eaten to the point its damaged.

Its not the summer feed that is the problem!

One wet spring will not correct 10+ years of damage from over grazing on the winter range.

This is why they implemented the management tags. They did not implement the management tags for revenue. although they helped.

They did not implement the management tags to help the genetics out. cause you cannot control the genetics on a free ranging herd. unless you know exactly what buck bread which doe and you can cull the crap does. This is a proven fact.

They implemented the management tags to get rid of some of the bucks people don't want that are taking up space on the winter range so it can make room for more fawns/does/left over bucks to make it through the winter easier. Allowing the left over fawn/does/bucks to have a head start on the growing season. If an animal has pretty much lost most of his body weight over the winter it will replace the weight first and horns second.

I was at the meeting with the deer comity when the division present the facts. The deer comity all thought the management tags were needed. I was not on the comity I was just an observer.

you always run into problems when the deer herds are either at or exceeding caring capacity. You will start to see this in the elk if the elk are allowed to continue to grow out of control.

carrying capacity isn't always what the division says it is either. when you have a problem like we are having all over Utah with the deer numbers staying stagnant the deer are saying what the carrying capacity is.

I think your not seeing the buck numbers like you should because of all the private property down there. They have their hunts on different dates then the general public. They entice the deer to stay on their land with food crops, water, ect. A lot concentrate on those properties and they get first crack at the largest animals. We all get sloppy seconds and thirds.

again just my thoughts.

There are no big bucks in Utah! LOL

 

[BoneJunkie]

Slump or no slump I would love to have a muzzy tag for it. I would be slappin it around a nice 200 inchers antlers. Good luck! Conch is right the CWMU is a joke! They hunt and kill alot of great bucks before the seasons start for the rest of us. Not to mention all the jerks that are feeding the deer so the wont migrate until after the hunts on the general and pauns units! Not real fair or sportsman like to us tag holders on those units.

 

[ktg]

A couple D8 cats and a chain would help greatly, there an lots of other places.