Pine Valley open bull unit

[dleonard3]

Is there anyone out there that believes there is a huntable elk herd on the Pine Valley open bull unit in Southwestern Utah? The DWR opened this unit for some reason, but I think it must have been to sell more Elk tags and pull some hunters off of the other units that actually have some elk on them. I have heard a lot of people talking about hunting Pine Valley this year, but when I ask them where the elk are, all they can say is "I heard there were some elk seen in Enterprise", or I heard there were some elk seen in New Harmony", or Bumble Bee, or Peradise, or White Rocks, or Pinto, or even Pine Valley town. What a bunch of hoowee. I've personally seen a few elk south of New Harmony 10 or more years ago, but they have been wiped out a long time ago by land owners and depredation permits. Here's my point: Even if there are a few elk here or there, what makes you think you will be able to find them during the hunt. Especially if there are several other hunters out there looking for the same elk. This is not a huntable unit, so unless you know something I don't know, I wouldn't even bother with the Open Bull Pine Valley unit.

 

[257Tony]

Sounds like somebody is trying to keep us out of his secret spot. Everybody hit Pine Valley!!!!!

 

[azbiggame]

It's "SAD",but several states are doing this under the Guise of "Opportunity Hunts"= Tag $$$.00 In Nv,this Spring,NDOW did this on a Spring Turkey hunt in units 24.15 tags in 2005 and in 2006,UNLIMITED TAGS.For these agencys its all about the BENJAMINS !!!

 

[BlastNCast]

What's this I hear? 400 inch bulls behind every tree in Pine Valley. The best thing is it is a general season hunt. I agree w/257. Pine Valley or Bust!!!

 

[PleaseDear]

Hunt the Northwest boundary....

Shocking the amount of elk in there....

I wonder if the elk drifted south from the Utah LE/Nv. unit boundary to the north.....west...?

 

[dleonard3]

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Thanks for the humor.
You know, you might be right. There are 400" bulls behind every tree in Pine Valley (wink wink). I just hope our little secret gets out soon so we can thin this herd out a little. With all of the extremely heavy rut activity, there aren't any young trees left. They have all been killed by the bulls rubbing their antlers - yah, that's what happened to them trees. In fact, in St. George I have to wear ear plugs during September so I can sleep at night - because of all the noisy bugling. We can't even let our children play at the parks that time of year because they might get trampled or gored. So for the sake of the children, please talk all of your hunting buddies into coming down here to kill some of these elk. All non-residents are welcome here too. Call all of your out of state friends and relatives and bring them too. They can easily get a monster bull the first morning of the hunt.

 

[muleygrande]

I'm sure it's the same reason they opened up the Veron West Desert unit. They said, it just is not good elk habitat but really they were getting to many landowner complaints to deal with.

 

[hogliver]

My buddy at DWR tells me they transplanted all of the bulls off the Pahvant to Enterprise. Should be an interesting hunt for those who know.

 

[peakfreak]

I live in St. George and spend alot of time in the hills. I've never seen an Elk on the Pine Valley unit. Should be like finding a needle in a hay stack. I've never been on Bumble Bee so mabye thats where they are.

 

[Butler]

The DWR does not want any elk on the Pine Valley Unit. They can control the cows with depredation tags, but they can't do it with bulls. I think they'd like some elk on the Pine Valley, but the farmers won't allow them there anymore. Every now and again Cedar Mountian Bulls wander and end up in the New Harmony feilds. Landowners have seriously complained for years when elk are in their alfalfa. Several years back, they gave dep. tags to farmers to kills the cows and then they tried moving bulls by helicopter and that didin't work too well. That same year a guy got killed when he hit a crossing bull with his van on I15. Pine Valley has some good elk habitat, but the bulls always end up in the fields. One farmer who has a dry farm in New Harmony "HATES" elk and has given the DWR lots of trouble. Infact,15-20 years ago,there was a fairly large herd,good bulls and a limited draw hunt. The DWR has turned it open bull to get some elk killed, some years there's a few bulls around. It is no different then Oak Creek,Vernon,San Rafael,and the Henry's. Yes, lots of guys will go after a handful of elk. Many wil be upset they didn't kill a 350 bull. It happened on the Henry's the first year. We knew of a total of five different bulls and maybe 20 cows on the whole unit. We got really lucky and killed one of the bulls on the Henry's the first year it opened, amidst a sea of hunter's orange. I bumped into complaining hunters from all over the state that didn't do their homework and expected to just drive down and kill a big bull off their four-wheelers. They were mad at the DWR. The Pine Valley will be the same thing.

 

[dleonard3]

I don't know of very many Alfalfa fields in New Harmony. I've only seen one pivot on the east center of the valley and a few grass pastures on the south west side. These pastures are not really cultivated, but sometimes they are watered to keep the grass growing for grazing cattle. Even though I don't know of any Elk in New Harmony, I can still understand why landowners would be complaining about losing too much of their grass "crop" to elk. They want the DWR to pay them. Who wouldn't want free money? By opening an area to unlimited Bull Elk hunting, the DWR is making a statement that either the huge population can support the unlimited hunting pressure, or in this case, the DWR wants to reduce or eliminate the population in that area. If the DWR wanted a resident population, they would "manage" it with limited numbers of permits, population counts, habitat research, etc, etc. I hope the DWR is ready to take a whole bunch of complaints from irritated hunters about this stunt.