You have a real uphill fight if you want to remove spike hunts in Utah.
What is your solution for elk tags in Utah? Switch LE units to general units and remove all the spike hunts and make it brow tine bulls like Colorado?
I will get some slack for what I'm going to say it but it is the truth.
I'm not saying get rid of all LE elk units get rid of the low producer like what they presented earlier this year Nine Mile and The South west desert and i think it was a cache unit maybe add 3 corners to the list...
#1 Yes get rid of the spike hunt period they are our future bulls....
#2 run the archery LE ELK hunt threw September.
#3 run the muzzleloader hunt the last week of the archery hunt with no scopes.
#4 Then move the dam rifle hunt out of the Rut and put it in place of where the spike hunt was yes this will be more of a challenge and that's what we want a challenge.
I know I have been on a lot LE units during September during the rut and it is way easy to call in a mature bull within 500 yards hell even 300 yards. The way technology is with rifle and scopes these days it needs to be move I will bet that the success rate will drop on the rifle hunt.
But the problem is $$$$ and the other problem is they will not give up there rifle rut hunt because they know it's an easy hunt and I know it is an easy hunt.
So if we stop killing spikes on LE units you will have more bulls on the landscape period. which in turn more tags issued all the way around. make it harder for the rifle hunters to harvest a bull you will have more bull left on the landscape period.
now i already know what People will say why does the archery hunter need to have the rut they already get a month to hunt well in reality they don't hunt a month the average is around 13 to 14 days and the success rate is way lower.
archers ask the same thing about the rifle rut hunt.
It is a hell of a lot easier to kill one with a rifle plain and simple Go look at the Annual report and go to afield the rifle hunters get 9 days but on average they only hunt 5 to 6 days between all the LE unit's.
then look at the harvest success rate and how many tags and now compare it with archery it's all there and that's why the rifle hunt needs moved
for everyone that thinks it will be easier for archery hunters beep wrong answer. Calling them in will be challenge because they don't want to leave their cows. Sneaking in with in bow range will be even a bigger challenge too many eyes and satellite bulls around the herd (I know been there and done that in Idaho).
You can add more tags if you make the hunt harder and lower the success rate.
Sorry I should add that we can add more if we wasn't in such a drought
And as far as general season any bull hunt I would honor antler point restriction on Elk to 4 point or better then everyone would have a chance at a good bull in a few years. Colorado has some good bulls in there over the counter units.
but if people like to spike hunt that's fine don't do an antler restriction you can shoot a spike on an any bull unit anyways But then we need to shut down some LE units like what they proposed before so we can Accommodate for the spike hunters making the transition over to the any bull units.
We have to do something at least for our kids or grandchildren or in 20 years we will be waiting 10 years to get GS bull elk tag we are already heading in that direction with deer.