RAC permit recommendations for 2022

southernutahhunter · Mar 30, 2022

We need all the post season deer we can get.

elkassassin · Mar 30, 2022

We Went from 5 Regions to 30+ Units for Better Management!

How'd That Work Out For You?

elkassassin · Mar 30, 2022

You Really Want That Many StickFlippers in One Pile?

shootem said:
Or at least offer a higher percentage to archery than rifle. 60% to Archery 20% to rifle and 20% to muzzleloader

shootem · Mar 30, 2022

elkassassin said:
You Really Want That Many StickFlippers in One Pile?

Yes, if the success rate is lowest for archery, wouldn’t it make the most sense to offer more tags to the lesser of the 3 weapon types? I’m ok with an even split across the board as well. It just doesn’t make sense to offer 50% of tags to the any weapon season with the highest success rate if we are advocating fewer bucks killed. I would rather see more opportunities to hunt than the alternative of closing down units or restrictions to only certain weapons. Like you said, all should give some, not some give all.

elknr · Mar 31, 2022

I agree with middle fork. Make general season
Mandatory reporting. If you don’t report you cannot put in next year.
That will finally give us True harvest rates.
Then we can choose to shorter seasons, or shut down some units for a few years.
For what I’m seeing lots of places have plenty of habitat. Yes some units don’t have much at all. And cheat grass. While all units decline.
We need to try something different.
It’s worked years ago on the Henry’s and the Vernon when they were shut down.
They didn’t allow any elk hunters either
Cause there wasn’t any or many elk anyways. Chasing elk around from aug to January could put a lot of does going into winter pregnant under so much stress. So shut down elk and deer hunting. And Restrict shed season til May 1.
If we closed a few areas at a time for 5 years to both Deer and Elk hunting.
We all can just pick a new area to hunt for them years. 2-3 units at a time. So we don’t shut down all of opportunity.
We can at least see what kind of changes happen to them units, to see if it’s worth keep going. If it works out. Open them units back up, and close some more down. Even if we need to keep doing it for eternity. If it makes them units a better experience having more fawns which make more does.
We all need to give up a little. If it’s going to improve the herds.
Nothing else is working right?
Who is not ready to give a little to get a little??

elknr · Mar 31, 2022

Also we need to amp up predator control on these areas. And the rest of the state.

Daxter · Apr 1, 2022

deadibob said:
Shutting down a unit doesn't grow a deer herd. What it does is keep from shrinking that deer herd. Every deer not shot is the same as adding a deer post season.

The problem isn't with the buck to doe ratio, the problem is that the population (deer herd) is shrinking and, as a result there are fewer bucks available for hunters. Therefore they have to reduce tags to address the shrinking population. They aren't cutting buck tags to stop the herd from shrinking, they're cutting tags because it's shrinking.

To get more bucks you have to have does that give birth to fawns that survive. If the deer are resource limited (up against carrying capacity) and you shut down the buck hunt and keep a bunch of extra bucks around, they will outcompete does and fawns for the limited resources and more does and fawns will die. Buy keeping extra bucks around you actually decrease the reproductive potential of the deer herd even more. The herd is in a crummy situation to respond to favorable conditions. When they do have a series of good weather years it's really hard for a bunch of bucks to have babies and grow the population.

Shutting down a hunt will temporarily let you grow more older bucks. It won't grow does or fawns and may actually reduce how many does and fawns survive. It is NOT a silver bullet to helping struggling deer populations.

So many hunters don't ever seem to be able to wrap their heads around this. The knee-jerk reaction when a population is struggling is always to cut buck tags and even to shut it down for a few years. That only results in a short term gain in buck quality. I guess for most hunters that is about the only way they really can interact with and gauge the status of a deer population so it makes sense that's how they see "success".

You can have a really nice meal on the deck of the titanic, but the ship is still sinking.

middlefork · Apr 1, 2022

There were some really good presentations and discussions at the workshop that covered some of these issues.

It wouldn't hurt anybody to watch the meeting and listen to what is being said.

southernutahhunter · Apr 1, 2022

In the 70s the overhunting of bucks and doe on the pauns caused there to be almost no deer on that unit. I was on this unit a lot and it was rare to see any deer at all during the latter part of the 70s. In 1980 they closed it for 5 years then opened it up with limited tags. The deer herd rebounded in both bucks and doe and has become one of the coveted units in the west. Explain how shutting this unit down did not help the deer herd grow?

Daxter · Apr 2, 2022

southernutahhunter said:
In the 70s the overhunting of bucks and doe on the pauns caused there to be almost no deer on that unit. I was on this unit a lot and it was rare to see any deer at all during the latter part of the 70s. In 1980 they closed it for 5 years then opened it up with limited tags. The deer herd rebounded in both bucks and doe and has become one of the coveted units in the west. Explain how shutting this unit down did not help the deer herd grow?

Shutting down doe hunting most likely would help the herd grow.

A lot of this has to do with whether or not the population is resource limited (at carrying capacity). In Utah, we harvest very few does and the ones we do harvest are taken from the landscape in pretty specific, targeted areas. Because we don’t kill very many does, you can figure most of our deer populations are at a functional carrying capacity. They aren’t growing unless conditions/resources change. When we have wet years it increases our carrying capacity and deer pops grow. If we have severe drought it decreases our carrying capacity.

I personally don’t know about conditions in the Pauns in the early 80’s, but if the deer population had been depleted by over hunting does and the habitat was in great shape and could hold more healthy deer - stopping the hunts would result in growing more deer. You could grow both does and bucks. In those kind of conditions - with no resource limitation and plenty of room to grow (under the carrying capacity), shutting down a unit to hunting would very likely increase the population.

Currently, we just don’t have deer units in Utah where overhavest of does has caused the population to decline to below the carrying capacity. That’s why shutting down a buck hunt isn’t an effective way to increase overall deer numbers. When we can’t keep does alive and producing healthy fawns the supply chain issues really start to be noticeable.

The health of a deer herd starts with does and fawns and is manifested in bucks later.

southernutahhunter · Apr 2, 2022

I can tell you the beaver unit is in the same boat as the pauns. There is an abundance of feed and water in many areas but no deer. Why would deer not move to these areas that could hold hundreds of deer, instead we are not seeing any. They say deer travel many miles to migrate I am sure they have a sense of where good feed and water are located. That puts us in the same situation as the pauns regardless how we got to it you are going to have to do something drastic to grow the herd, besides just hope for a weather change.

X7ahunter · Apr 2, 2022

deadibob said:
Shutting down a unit doesn't grow a deer herd. What it does is keep from shrinking that deer herd. Every deer not shot is the same as adding a deer post season.

Not necessarily. That deer that doesn't get shot by a hunter could get killed by a predator, die of winter kill, get injured in the rut and die, hit by a vehicle, die of disease, get poached or a number of other factors. Lots of things can happen.

mtnrunner260 · Apr 2, 2022

Daxter said:
Currently, we just don’t have deer units in Utah where overhavest of does has caused the population to decline to below the carrying capacity. That’s why shutting down a buck hunt isn’t an effective way to increase overall deer numbers. When we can’t keep does alive and producing healthy fawns the supply chain issues really start to be noticeable.

Daxter do you think that roadkill is a limiting factor with does?

ridgetops · Apr 2, 2022

elknr said:
I agree with middle fork. Make general season
Mandatory reporting. If you don’t report you cannot put in next year.
That will finally give us True harvest rates.
Then we can choose to shorter seasons, or shut down some units for a few years.
For what I’m seeing lots of places have plenty of habitat. Yes some units don’t have much at all. And cheat grass. While all units decline.
We need to try something different.
It’s worked years ago on the Henry’s and the Vernon when they were shut down.
They didn’t allow any elk hunters either
Cause there wasn’t any or many elk anyways. Chasing elk around from aug to January could put a lot of does going into winter pregnant under so much stress. So shut down elk and deer hunting. And Restrict shed season til May 1.
If we closed a few areas at a time for 5 years to both Deer and Elk hunting.
We all can just pick a new area to hunt for them years. 2-3 units at a time. So we don’t shut down all of opportunity.
We can at least see what kind of changes happen to them units, to see if it’s worth keep going. If it works out. Open them units back up, and close some more down. Even if we need to keep doing it for eternity. If it makes them units a better experience having more fawns which make more does.
We all need to give up a little. If it’s going to improve the herds.
Nothing else is working right?
Who is not ready to give a little to get a little??

I can see the lifetime license holders loving this idea. They would be able to hunt the newly opened units every single year.

treedagain · Apr 2, 2022

ridgetops said:
I can see the lifetime license holders loving this idea. They would be able to hunt the newly opened units every single year.

Just code them as LE instead of Gen. Pretty simple. All units in Utah should be coded as LE.
Why? Because they all are LE by the set # of tags.

2lumpy · Apr 2, 2022

Daxter said:
The problem isn't with the buck to doe ratio, the problem is that the population (deer herd) is shrinking and, as a result there are fewer bucks available for hunters. Therefore they have to reduce tags to address the shrinking population. They aren't cutting buck tags to stop the herd from shrinking, they're cutting tags because it's shrinking.

To get more bucks you have to have does that give birth to fawns that survive. If the deer are resource limited (up against carrying capacity) and you shut down the buck hunt and keep a bunch of extra bucks around, they will outcompete does and fawns for the limited resources and more does and fawns will die. Buy keeping extra bucks around you actually decrease the reproductive potential of the deer herd even more. The herd is in a crummy situation to respond to favorable conditions. When they do have a series of good weather years it's really hard for a bunch of bucks to have babies and grow the population.

Shutting down a hunt will temporarily let you grow more older bucks. It won't grow does or fawns and may actually reduce how many does and fawns survive. It is NOT a silver bullet to helping struggling deer populations.

So many hunters don't ever seem to be able to wrap their heads around this. The knee-jerk reaction when a population is struggling is always to cut buck tags and even to shut it down for a few years. That only results in a short term gain in buck quality. I guess for most hunters that is about the only way they really can interact with and gauge the status of a deer population so it makes sense that's how they see "success".

You can have a really nice meal on the deck of the titanic, but the ship is still sinking.

Not sure who started this unproven theory. But…. whoever it was that first articulated these beliefs was wrong, and like the other false theories that……, you can’t count winter range mule deer from aircraft, spike bucks are genetically inferior, mule deer are like flies, you can’t kill them all, antler restrictions are harmful, cougars and coyotes don’t negatively impact mule deer, mule deer die from alfalfa, corn will kill trout……… etc etc.

When you close a mule deer unit to hunting, and you apply a unique prescription of treatment to what caused the failure of the health and sustained surplus of the deer heard, mule deer rebound quite remarkably. Some units need aggressive and sustained predator reduction, other units need either huge forage rejuvenation on the winter range or the summer range or both, still others require water restoration as more and more seeps and springs are put into pipelines and piped miles away, while others need highway protection strategies and the list goes on and on because one size does not fit all. Closing a unit to hunting without adding necessary corrective measures is far from the answer to growing more mule deer. It would be like a rancher refusing to fence his pasture after a freeway was built through the center of it and wonder why his cow herd is shrinking. That’s no more absurd than what’s been happening with our mule deer.

Where is the proof of my argument.
Henry Mountians, Book Cliffs, Vernon, Paunsaugunt, Bumblebee, Parker Mountain, etc, etc. These and other units came roaring back, in both there doe and buck populations with 2 to 5 years, of closure.

When fawns survive at over 75/per hundred doe, the deer herd nearly doubles every year. 2000 become 3,500 in one year, 3,500 become 6,100. In just three years your herd grows to 10,000, up from 2,000. (Less natural mortality from old age and disease.) This is only assuming your fixing the causes of your low fawn survival while the unit is closed. If you do nothing, off course your population will continue to decline.

Before this nonsense about getting no increase in over all populations numbers started some 30 years ago, we know darn total hunting closures were extremely effective.

Here is a question for you…… when was the last time Utah closed a mule deer unit? When did Utah’s mule deer populations, State wide, tip over and what’s been done about it, other than reducing a few hunting tags?

This business about believing closing hunting and letting buck numbers grow being harmful is absurd and could only be possible if the herd was at carrying capacity and that would never be the case if your populations numbers are in serious decline. The two conditions could never happen at the same time, unless you had a catastrophic geological/environment shift in a single year. If your deer herd was at carrying capacity you certainly wouldn’t be demanding or needing hunting closures. You would be killing male and females to save the herd from starvation.

Unit hunting closure should be a regular and active management strategy….. constantly, to maintain maximum recreational hunting opportunity.

We’re completely screwed up and doubling down on failing and have been since 1993 and in some parts of the west, prior to that.

This serious draught is a recent issue and is not what put us where we are today.

Believing false truths are the cause and the continued belief in these falsehoods are going to keep it from improving. I’m beginning to believe they don’t want it to……. mule deer and mule deer hunters are too much trouble to justify the effort to improve it.

Daxter · Apr 2, 2022

2lumpy said:
Not sure who started this unproven theory. But…. whoever it was that first articulated these beliefs was wrong, and like the other false theories that……, you can’t count winter range mule deer from aircraft, spike bucks are genetically inferior, mule deer are like flies, you can’t kill them all, antler restrictions are harmful, cougars and coyotes don’t negatively impact mule deer, mule deer die from alfalfa, corn will kill trout……… etc etc.

When you close a mule deer unit to hunting, and you apply a unique prescription of treatment to what caused the failure of the health and sustained surplus of the deer heard, mule deer rebound quite remarkably. Some units need aggressive and sustained predator reduction, other units need either huge forage rejuvenation on the winter range or the summer range or both, still others require water restoration as more and more seeps and springs are put into pipelines and piped miles away, while others need highway protection strategies and the list goes on and on because one size does not fit all. Closing a unit to hunting without adding necessary corrective measures is far from the answer to growing more mule deer. It would be like a rancher refusing to fence his pasture after a freeway was built through the center of it and wonder why his cow herd is shrinking. That’s no more absurd than what’s been happening with our mule deer.

Where is the proof of my argument.
Henry Mountians, Book Cliffs, Vernon, Paunsaugunt, Bumblebee, Parker Mountain, etc, etc. These and other units came roaring back, in both there doe and buck populations with 2 to 5 years, of closure.

When fawns survive at over 75/per hundred doe, the deer herd nearly doubles every year. 2000 become 3,500 in one year, 3,500 become 6,100. In just three years your herd grows to 10,000, up from 2,000. (Less natural mortality from old age and disease.) This is only assuming your fixing the causes of your low fawn survival while the unit is closed. If you do nothing, off course your population will continue to decline.

Before this nonsense about getting no increase in over all populations numbers started some 30 years ago, we know darn total hunting closures were extremely effective.

Here is a question for you…… when was the last time Utah closed a mule deer unit? When did Utah’s mule deer populations, State wide, tip over and what’s been done about it, other than reducing a few hunting tags?

This business about believing closing hunting and letting buck numbers grow being harmful is absurd and could only be possible if the herd was at carrying capacity and that would never be the case if your populations numbers are in serious decline. The two conditions could never happen at the same time, unless you had a catastrophic geological/environment shift in a single year. If your deer herd was at carrying capacity you certainly wouldn’t be demanding or needing hunting closures. You would be killing male and females to save the herd from starvation.

Unit hunting closure should be a regular and active management strategy….. constantly, to maintain maximum recreational hunting opportunity.

We’re completely screwed up and doubling down on failing and have been since 1993 and in some parts of the west, prior to that.

This serious draught is a recent issue and is not what put us where we are today.

Believing false truths are the cause and the continued belief in these falsehoods are going to keep it from improving. I’m beginning to believe they don’t want it to……. mule deer and mule deer hunters are too much trouble to justify the effort to improve it.

I really respect and appreciate the passion and hard work of guys like 2lumpy. We wouldn’t have half of what we have today without guys like DeLoss. He has a ton of experience and has “been there and done that” with regard to wildlife in Utah. I also think we look at the same units and datasets and see different things. That can be tough, but I don’t want to fight against someone that is so passionate, generous and dedicated to wildlife. The bottom line is that he wants and works for us the same thing we all want - healthy deer habitats and deer herds with lots of animals and the ability for folks to enjoy those animals. We might have different ideas about how to get there, but we want the same thing and I’m happy there are passionate guys like him out there.

2lumpy · Apr 3, 2022

Thank you for the very kind remarks Dax.

It’s true, you and I do want the same things for mule deer. You too have spent a life time committed to wildlife and I wish you the very best in your endeavors.

southernutahhunter · Apr 3, 2022

The trouble now is the herds have reduced far beyond what the estimate numbers are being stated. With the numbers as low as they are now, the question becomes what needs to be done with the current situation in most units.