Colo new 5 year plan UGLY UGLY UGLY!!!!

[rocketman]

Today March 31 I just received in the mail DOW recommendations
to the Wildlife comm. It will be finalized in Grand Junction
early May. I could not be more disappointed that what I read.
Deer,sheep,goat,antelope and moose I have no problem with the
management. The only changes
over the current policy is limited units MAY be increased
UP TO 30% from the current 17%.The key words are may and up.
It is possible no new units will be added to limited with
that wording. Also no reduction % in those units is specified.
A newly created draw unit may have a 1% reduction in tags and
fit the definition of a limited unit. MONEY rules again in
this new policy. I see almost no revenue loss to DOW under
this plan. Wildlife management is money management.No changes
in pref point system. 47 years now to draw the 3 Rangely units
in 2 years 10 for unit61 and my hunting unit 76 will hit 8 in
2 years for res. For non res you can add to those numbers.
60-40 split for res and non res stays.I am so mad that almost
nothing changed. Our bull elk management is a disgrace and
I am ashamed to live in Colorado(44 years as a res).I leave you with a broken heart in Montrose and salute the last bull standing in Colo which is getting very close. Forget wildlife
MONEYRULES.

 

[searcher]

Look at the posts on the Mule Deer Forum about opening doe season in Wyoming. Wyoming is just as bad.

Searchin' for a 4 X 4

 

[txhunter58]

Here is the link to read the proposal for yourself: http://wildlife.state.co.us/hunt/BigGame/pdf/DraftPolicyRecommendations_3-26-04.pdf

I would have to agree that this is not great even for us nonresidents. Yes, they didn't limit our numbers, but as stated, no improvement in quality and no help for the extremely hard to draw units. Why did they even have the meetings?

They even lowered the expectations of male to female ratio from 20-30 males/female to 15-30 males/female statewide. That makes no sense.

As far as "up to" 30%, I at least believe that they will icrease this some, hopefully most of the way to 30%. They do make a good argument that local economies, landowners etc need to be consulted before arbitrarily limiting a unit. However, it does give them an easy out.

I suspect that you are correct that money rules and can blame the lack of change on the legislature's killing of raising resident prices.

txhunter58

venor, ergo sum (I hunt, therefore I am)

 

[COHunter]

I went to one of their BGSS meetings and my buddy next to me said it best

"We can tell them what we want, but they're still gonna do what the F*ck they want"

So true

 

[graybeard]

I totally agree with TXhuntr, If the legislature would've raised the resident fees they would have more money to play with. Then they could afford to cut the non-resident tags and possibly do some more limited bull elk hunts. I told my friends, when I herd they weren't going to raise the resident fees that they wouldn't cut the non-resident tags. Looks like I was right. I figured they would hardly change what existed but it's a shame they didn't have the balls to make the bull elk statewide limited.

 

[chambero]

I would definitely like to see more limits on bull hunting. If they don't limit licenses, why not increase the minimum legal antler requirements? They would probably still get most of their money.

It's easy to condemn a state agency for worrying only about money, but it is a very real problem right now. In Texas, all of our state agencies are hurting pretty bad due to decreases in tax revenues and cuts in federal funding since the heydey in the late 90s. When you combine the DOW's own money problems with getting lots of concern from towns about loss of hunting dollars, I think it is understandable (although probably short-sighted) to think economics is more important that if a hunter can only kill a 4 pt bull instead of 5 pt. We are getting a little too worried about size instead of just being thankful for the opportunity to get out and hunt.

I also still get my hackles up a little bit when residents want to further limit the number of licenses available to nonresidents AND raise our prices AND change our preference points. How many different ways are you going to penalize us? I think paying the higher fees alone should make up for the fact that we are "foreigners".

On the preference point issue, I think it is silly that people are willing to wait a decade+ for the chance to hunt one small area. Frankly, those units in NW Colorado and others should probably be treated like bighorn sheep hunts where there is a cap on the number of points available.

I hope they do make more units limited for bulls. But I think they gave themselves at least some latitude to do that without hammering the local economies too hard.

 

[rocketman]

I certainly agree we give the rural economies some
consideration but it appears we give them total consideration.
The rural economies in Western Colo aree not hurting. Durango,Montrose, Grand Junction,Eagle,Glenwood,Gunnison
etc ARE NOT struggling. Thse towns are booming.The San Luis
Valley is the only area in the Mts that are and have been in the past in need.With the 60-40 split we are far more generous
than aany other state in the West plus if you dont draw you
can buy OTC.No state comes close to us in fairness to non res.
Almost no concessions were made for QUALITY. I talked to a friend
in Gunnison today and the Gun basin 5 units are most likely
to go draw in the state. But he mentioned with ONLY a 10%
reduction in tags. Wow that will improve the quality in about
a 100 years. If you want QUALITY and some change to pref points
go to the May meeting in Grand Junction and beg beg beg for
some quality and less greed. The license fee increase still
has some hope for next year from what I heard today.MANY of
us Colo res WILL pay more for even a little more quality.

 

[chambero]

I don't think the larger western towns are the ones they are worried about. I think it is probably the Nucla, Naturita, Meeker, and similar sized towns that are probably digging in. A significant loss in hunters would probably hammer the small businesses in those towns. Your larger towns get lots of general tourist traffic. Hunting probably isn't that big of a deal for them.

I would love to see the Gunnison units go limited for bulls. That is some spectacular country. I was extremely impressed with the bucks I saw in 54 last fall after just a few years of being limited.

I also think the White River NF units would be a good candidate. Since access is easier there, success rates are usually pretty high. Cutting back on bull harvest in those units would probably help a lot. In my opinion, the units where most of the hunting is done in wilderness probably don't need the limited designation as bad as units with lots of BLM or easy access USFS land.

 

[rocketman]

I fully agree with you it is the smaller more isolated
towns that will feel the impact of limited lic. But as I
sais are we going to direct wildlife policy primarily
from local economics. This argument can go on forever. Nothing
would ever change. I agree the deer are back in Gunnison
because of the draw.

 

[DougW]

In reading the nonresident posts on this thread, I have to laugh. If you guys think you are getting screwed on the number of bull tags you get in CO, you must be REALLY mad at:

1. Wyoming
2. Nevada
3. Utah
4. Arizona
5. Oregon
6. North Dakota
7. Montana
8. Idaho

That is subtract the one state where you live, in the above list, because all of these states are MUCH more friendly to residents than CO is.

If you think 40/60 is bad (CO), what do you think about 20/80, 10/90, 5/95 ? That is what you're getting in these states. Yes, we have more bulls in CO, but very few 325+ bulls except in units that take 10+ years to draw. So...how is giving more tags to nonresidents going to address THAT problem? Consider yourself lucky at 40%...in a few years it will probably be 20% or less.

 

[DougW]

Chambero-there are no limits on # of weighted pref. points you can accumulate for sheep in CO.

 

[smalls]

WOE IS COLORADO, WOE IS COLORADO!!

Soon there will be no elk left, men in orange vests will end up just looking at eachother. GMAB!

It will be a race to shoot that last, lonely, solitary raghorn left in the big CO! Maybe if you guys are lucky you could camp out in a unit that borders utah or NM and catch one of them unsuspecting buggers as the cross the state line!

 

[rocketman]

To "smalls" I of course was just trying to illustrate theppoint that are bull percentages and mature bulls are very poor and
so long as we allow unlimited hunting in 83% of the state
it is impossible to improve those situations.80% of our
4points are shot every year and the ones that live to be 5 points
90%are shot every year. Out of 100 bull calves that are born
in open units only 1-2 will live to be a 6 point.Of those
that live to a 6, only 1 in 5 will live to be a 300 type bull.
My figures come from talking to 2 big game biologists here
in sw Colo. Some of our larger bulls shot in open units
come from limited units,ex 61-62. Without these limited
units the numbers would be even worse in open units.

 

[smalls]

just felt like being a smartass. I don't know alot about elk management (which should be pretty obvious), but it is my belief that DNR should manage for residents first, nr's second. Plus, if the DNR needs that much money from the sales of tags, one might have to take a step back and question their budgets...just an uneducated though.

 

[chambero]

I recognize the fact that Colorado gives nonresidents a better deal than other western states. I don't think think its right that any of the western states penalize nonresidents on price and tag quotas, particularly considering that actual habitat management is primarily performed by federal land management agencies.

I thought there was a cap on the number of preference points one could accumulate on sheep and goats. I didn't take the time to look it up before I posted, I just thought I remembered reading that in the regs.

All of this being said, I would like to see Colorado to put more limits on bull elk licenses in order to improve hunting. It is ridiculous that very few elk survive to 5 pts, let alone 6. When they are limited, I would just like to have a fair shot at getting them.

 

[rocketman]

There is a cap of 3 points for sheep goats and moose. No cap
for deer and elk in Colo. Already in the 3 NW COLO units that
are draw ANYONE who starts putting in now WILL NOT live long
enough to draw, unless you are hunting at 100 years old.

 

[DougW]

Rocketman-read the regs. a bit more carefully on sheep. After you get 3 pts. on sheep, you begin to accumulate 1 "weighted preference point" each year you don't draw. These are just like bonus points, ie. they are not really preference points; you just get 1 more chance in the draw for each weighted preference point. This started about 4 years ago.

 

[DeerKing]

Actually for the sheep and goat draws your name does not go in the hat an additional time for each additional weighted preference point you have. Here is how it works....

You send in your application and it is assigned a number (10 digiits) After all the apps are in the CDOW picks 10 numbers from 0-9 in random order through a drawing. That number can be any combination of 0-9, or 9-0. Then they match your assigned number to the drawn number. Example the committe draws the random number of: 8617290453, the draw sequence is 0123456789. Then, the draw takes each application number and inverts it. Lets say your assigned number is 372016, it becomes 610273.

This allows for the numbers to be random and not have any bearing on when the application was recieved. Then the inverted number is matched to the random draw numbers. In this case the 6 becomes a zero, because the normal 6 position is now a 0 (look at the number 8617290453, the 0 is where the 6 usually is), the 1 becomes a 6, the 0 becomes a 8, etc. the new number is then 068147. That is your assigned draw number.

Then the numbers will be put in order of smallest to largest. The smallest number has the best chance of drawing, the biggest has the worst. This totally random. Basically the lower you number the better chance you will draw. The CDOW actually gives the license to the lowest # then keeps going down the list of increasing #s until all of the alloted tags are spoken for.

Here's and example off how an unweighted draw would work using random #s arranged low to high. There are 4 applicants with 3 points they are

012345 123456 234567 345678

In a sheep unit with 2 tags applicants 012345 and 123456 get tags. They have the lowest numbers.

Here is how the weighted pref. points work with sheep and goats and moose. You go through all the steps above. If you have one weighted pt, the CDOW divides your random draw number by 2, if you are weighted then twice, (your 5th year in the draw without a tag) they divide your number by 3.... and so on down the line. This makes your random # smaller for each weighted point.

Here's and example using the same numbers from above but with weighted point factored in.

012345 0 weight 123456 0 weight 234567 1 weighted pt 345678 3 weighted pts

After dividing for weighted points the numbers are 12345 123456 117284 86420

The first and last applicants would get tags. In this case a lucky guy with just 3 pts no weight and a guy with 3 pts + 3 weight would draw.

It is important to remember it is possible to have smallest numbers drawn first with out dividing it with weighted points.

It is still pure luck, if you get a bad original (high) number ie 9876543210 you are still at a disadvantage to a a guy who just gets in on his 4th year may just get great numbers ie 0123456789.

 

[BruinBreath]

Who the hell came up with that idea DK ? They should just write your name on a peice of paper and throw it in a drum. Jeez.

 

[Sandbrew]

DK,

It sure would be nice if you put all that in qoutes and gave me and the Bowsite thread it came from a little credit. It took me half a day to type up.



Sandbrew

 

[DeerKing]

Credit given! I had something very similiar that I borrowed from bowsite about a year ago and had it copied and saved but couldn't find it on the home puter. Remembered seeing this on bowsite several days ago and it was much easier to copy it. Thanks sandbrew, appreciate your time, and sorry about the carpultunnel you probably have now.

 

[WHITETAIL3]

I am not a resident of the state, but I do pay taxes just like everybody else does....thus intitles me to voice my opinion.....I think state owned land should be regulated by the state and its residents to a degree...National land should be regulated by everyone..which includes nonresidents as well as residents...I also feel it should be voted on by everyone...just like a president election...then decided on...hey were the ones working our guts out to pay for a bunch of Dumb A$$e$ to set behind a desk at make the call).....(allthough they are probally more educated than I) (Common since goes along ways!)we should have a say in it.....and if they do not want to regulate things by majority opinion...lets just stop going to CO. and spending Millions of dollars hunting their each year ! ! If money controls ? ? We the people control ! ! I bet they would look at things just a little different ! ! !

 

[org]

Having everyone vote is a double edged sword. That's what stopped mountain lion hunting in CA, and is stopping dove hunting in several states. I think I'll leave the final decision to DOW, but keep sending them "guidance".

As far punishing CO by not going there, OK, but where you gonna go? CO is much more nonresident friendly than any other western state. If you don't think so, go buy an over the counter elk license in Wyoming, Montana, Arizona or New Mexico.

I'm not a cheerleader for DOW, and I have a problem with the current preference point system. Any system that causes someone to have to save points for 10 to 15 years before even having a shot at a premium unit is screwed up. In many GMUs the required number of points is going up fast enough that some of us will NEVER have a shot at one of the premium units. That's a problem that probably will be fixed, but not this year, it seems.

 

[WHITETAIL3]

I understand what you mean about a double edged sword. The main reason is because most of us (Hunters)don't have time or are not willing to stand up for ourselfs...Groups like the NRA that constantly knock down or help dramatically with defeating gun laws are on top of things....If we the hunters would get together, we could control half of the United States!
Most elk hunters will get one nice bull and then they are done! They could care less after that.....what the DOW does means nothing after the fact they have a bull on their wall.....
(i honestly beleave i am right)
I have two boys very young(8 and 5).....what do you think the points system will be like in ten years.....If i put inn right now, each and every year (inn a quality unit), they may go before they retire ? ? (and thats if they have a horseshoe up their a$$)

 

[txhunter58]

LAST EDITED ON Apr-17-04 AT 03:40PM (MST)[p]I have to dissagree about the one bull theory. All the guys I know who get a big bull on the wall get addicted to elk hunting! The very few exceptions I know of are rich guys who pay for a ranch hunt to get one on the wall and then don't care. Those guys are few and far between however, where I come from.

I agree that hunters are not nearly as organized as they need to be. However, there are oganizations out there, such as the U S Sportsmans Alliance, that seem to be doing a lot of good. There purpose is to combat the legal angles that the antis are using to eliminate hunting.

As far as National forest and BLM land, you and I and any U S resident has the right to go on it, camp, hike, view wildlife and enjoy it at any time. However, the state LEGALLY owns the wildlife and fish that live within its borders, so you can legally go and SEE the wildlife at any time, but to hunt/fish them, you have to go through the state. Like it or not, that is the law. I can live with it as long as they just don't continue the push to make it only for rich nonresidents.

The defeat of raising resident prices I believe means 2 things, the lack of positive changes listed in the above posts and the continued squeezing of nonresidents for more and more money.

txhunter58

venor, ergo sum (I hunt, therefore I am)

 

[contender]

WHITETAIL3 my friend would you be happy to harvest one big whitetail in your lifetime and you are done? It is a shame that Colorado won't raise resident fee's to raise more needed money. What we don't need is to apply for a state and a federal license to hunt elk. As a Colorado resident I will never be able to hunt as you say a quality unit because I will go elk hunting every year in a lesser area. I won't save the points for my remaining lifetime. Where I hunt, I need my first round pick for a license, that means no preferance point. That being said is it fair for a non-resident to save points and hunt that area?

 

[WHITETAIL3]

The one Bull theory in a 12 point draw unit is closer to the truth than you think......after waiting for ever to get a draw(12 to 20 or even longer years) you couldn't hunt the unit again if you wanted to....and yes very addictive....I would hunt them (elk)every year if i could afford it ?
Their are many different type of hunters (many, many, many) I have hunted all over the US...you would not beleave some of the people i have hunted with........I bet if you would take a vote as to how many out of staters return to CO. every year to hunt elk.....you would be surprised ! ! The younger generation want a quality animal of several different species...Sure if you live close to CO. you could return every year.... but how much does that cost even living near...you have to be in pretty good shape money wise to even hunt once every few years...think about five years of hunting CO....THAT COULD BUY AN OVER THE COUNTER TAG FOR A PRETTY GOOD UNIT..

 

[WHITETAIL3]

LAST EDITED ON Apr-17-04 AT 08:22PM (MST)[p]If i lived in Co. I would hunt the lessor area's every year myself ! ! If you hunt hard enough you will eventually find quality (If thats what your looking for) Like i said their are many different types of hunters....
But the younger generation are way far different than most of us older guys....They look at numbers first...meaning 350" BC...They are not affraid to tell you straight out the quality of animal they are looking for! They have to get a bigger one than their buddies...
I went their last year and saw the biggest elk I have ever have had a chance at getting...What did I do....I stood their and watched him walk away...for the BC lovers he was only a 250" class bull....To me he was to pretty to kill and a little on the short side of mature...and will be a nice one next year...What did the hunt cost(I had 4,000.00 invested......that took me 3 years to save up!
Thats what i am saying $ $ $ Money wise a person would be better off saving for a good over the counter tag in a good area....to save this much money i can tell you i could only do it one time...Kids are smart now a days and this is what they are going to do....as if they have a 24 hr caculator in their head.
The draw is 60/40 i think...40% going to non resident who better have a couple points to even draw the lessor units(or maybe i am just unlucky)
I think DOW understands if they are gonna get the younger generation Non resident in the future....they had better start taking action now...and they are...this is just a taste of whats to come....we had just as well get use to it resident or non...To me they want CO. to be recondised as a Trophy Hunters Dream Eventually..
And I do pay taxes just like everyone else so i am going to hunt it if they let me...

 

[rocketman]

Things have changed greatly in my hunting life, since the 60s
here in Colo. Back then MEAT was by far the most important
factor.Spikes and a fat cow was desired. Today most? hunters
seek a rack meat secondary. I think the younger the hunter
the more this is true. We are such a rich society that game
meat is not critical to our welfare. Hunting has become
far more recreation(racks) than food(meat). I am included
in that case. I hunt 95%rack and5% meat. I do take all of the
meat everytime but what motivates me is a trophy.I agree
with the above in regard to Colo elk hunting. You are far
better saving your money and getting quality from other
states than Colo. Several years of hunting no bulls or 2 year
olds can get you land owner tags etc in other states.

 

[org]

>Finally someone who is on the
>same page as me////...........Like i
>said before (COMMONSENSE RULES)and wake
>the hell up the rest
>of you dumb a$$es !
>!


And just when I was thinking this thread wouldn't dissolve into name calling...

 

[WHITETAIL3]

That was out of line (shouldn't of been said)but when someone thinks they own the world because they live in a popular hunting state....and thinks its not fair for a non-resident to have oppurtunity to hunt were he hunts gets the blood boiling !