Burning Colorado Deer points this year?

Good luck to everyone!! I agree should’ve used em years ago on a lesser unit instead of chasing all these years and the point creep has taken its toll.. been lucky enough to pull a few 2nd choice tags though. Wish they would have stuck with all the money upfront and just deducted a bigger application fee and then they wouldn’t have lost any money.
 
sambo3006 said:
I put in with 9 points for a 3rd season tag that was 100% draw with 6 points last year. This year is the only year that the later hunt dates will line up with my vacation time, so I didn’t want to put in for one with iffy odds, especially with point creep.
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That's gotta be tough burning extra points not needed to draw. I hope you have an outstanding hunt!!!
 
I've had a tough time sitting back and biting my tongue over what the CPW is doing in Colo.

If I had pts to burn I would likely burn them ASAP in Colo. The quality of bucks is bound to continue to drop each and every year and there will be fewer and fewer top end bucks available. Increasing tags and having rifle hunts during prime rutting periods is bound to devastate buck quality in all units for years and years to come. This does nothing more than increase $ for the CPW by selling more tags! This may actually bite the CPW in the butt in the long run if the muley population in Colo doesn't rebound from this devastation! If there is winterkill, drought, poor fawn recruitment, etc on top of the late season dates and increase in tags things could get downright pathetic for an even longer time.

Western Colo can throw to the wind the fantastic B&C record book muley bucks that have been broken the past 20 years! B&C bucks in Western Colo are history if this continues! It is really a shame!

I really believe the CPW is making a poor mistake with their "theory" that harvesting older age class bucks is going to save Colo from CWD/Scrapies! This is a total misconception, poor excuse, and will do nothing to prevent the spread or frequency of the disease. The CWD/scapies prions are already in the soil, have been in many locations in Colo for 15+ years, and will be there for years and years to come.

Mass slaughtering of deer has proven to be ineffective. The fantastic genetics of the top mature bucks that are breeding does that have survived Colo winters and have possibly even build up immunity to CWD/Scrapies the past 20 years may die. It would be interesting to know if there are healthy deer in areas where CWD/scrapies has been around for years and years to see if they have built up resistant alleles? It would be a shame if we are culling large numbers of mature bucks that have somehow built up some sort of resistance to CWD/scrapies. The CPW has no clue to so many questions. They know for a fact that giant culling projects in the past didn't solve anything!

Yep, if you have pts burn them now because it will be a long, long time before the deer rebound with the current 5 year season structure in place.
 
jims said:
I've had a tough time sitting back and biting my tongue over what the CPW is doing in Colo.

If I had pts to burn I would likely burn them ASAP in Colo. The quality of bucks is bound to continue to drop each and every year and there will be fewer and fewer top end bucks available. Increasing tags and having rifle hunts during prime rutting periods is bound to devastate buck quality in all units for years and years to come. This does nothing more than increase $ for the CPW by selling more tags! This may actually bite the CPW in the butt in the long run if the muley population in Colo doesn't rebound from this devastation! If there is winterkill, drought, poor fawn recruitment, etc on top of the late season dates and increase in tags things could get downright pathetic for an even longer time.

Western Colo can throw to the wind the fantastic B&C record book muley bucks that have been broken the past 20 years! B&C bucks in Western Colo are history if this continues! It is really a shame!

I really believe the CPW is making a poor mistake with their "theory" that harvesting older age class bucks is going to save Colo from CWD/Scrapies! This is a total misconception, poor excuse, and will do nothing to prevent the spread or frequency of the disease. The CWD/scapies prions are already in the soil, have been in many locations in Colo for 15+ years, and will be there for years and years to come.

Mass slaughtering of deer has proven to be ineffective. The fantastic genetics of the top mature bucks that are breeding does that have survived Colo winters and have possibly even build up immunity to CWD/Scrapies the past 20 years may die. It would be interesting to know if there are healthy deer in areas where CWD/scrapies has been around for years and years to see if they have built up resistant alleles? It would be a shame if we are culling large numbers of mature bucks that have somehow built up some sort of resistance to CWD/scrapies. The CPW has no clue to so many questions. They know for a fact that giant culling projects in the past didn't solve anything!

Yep, if you have pts burn them now because it will be a long, long time before the deer rebound with the current 5 year season structure in place.
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Did you apply this year?
 
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I'm burning 1 and one of my sons is hopefully burning 14 on a third season unit. I have built points for him since he was old enough to apply. He is now out of college, has enough vacation time built up, and we don't have any other guaranteed tags for that date so hoping to draw this year.
 
jims said:
I've had a tough time sitting back and biting my tongue over what the CPW is doing in Colo.
Click to expand...
jims said:
I really believe the CPW is making a poor mistake with their "theory" that harvesting older age class bucks is going to save Colo from CWD/Scrapies! This is a total misconception, poor excuse, and will do nothing to prevent the spread or frequency of the disease. The CWD/scapies prions are already in the soil, have been in many locations in Colo for 15+ years, and will be there for years and years to come.
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I agree, They may even make things worse
The theory is that by hunting the rut hunters will shoot more older age class bucks. That is not necessarily how it works in Montana where we have an all out assault on rutting bucks. Hunting the rut allows hunters to be more selective in the deer they shoot. Hunters select for antler size not age. It is true that older deer tend to have better antlers, but it is also true that not all old deer will have big antlers and not all big deer will be old
Just like some humans will never grow taller than 5 foot no matter how much they eat and some teenage boys will be 6 and a half feet tall in high school. Antler growth is the same and like most things in nature if you are to graph the antler growth potential of all bucks the graph would likely form a nice bell curve.
For example if the peak of the bell curve is a 165 inches there is going to be just as may deer in the herd that will never top 130 inches even in the best years as there are deer that will grow 200 inch antlers. Those deer that have the potential to be 200 inch deer at age six will have antlers better than the antlers of the average six year old bucks in the herd at age three and with there lesser body size they look huge in the field.
What CO will do by going to rut hunting is put added pressure on the bucks in the top half of the bell curve. I have little doubt that the average age of the bucks in the top half of the bell curve will decrease by x amount of years. At the same time because it is much easier to select for antler size during the rut, pressure on the bucks in the bottom half of the bell curve in going to decrease. CO will gain little when the average age of the bucks in the bottom half of the bell curve increases.
This is what happens in Montana were hunting pressure is limited on private ranches. Bucks with good antler potential are taken out of the herd at a young age and bucks that are never going to grow a big set of antlers die of old age.
This is going to be a mistake of epic proportions by Colorado game managers.






























jims said:
structure in place.
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GilaJeff said:
That's gotta be tough burning extra points not needed to draw. I hope you have an outstanding hunt!!!
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Thanks GilaJeff!
No big deal on the points. I was never going to draw a premium tag and I wanted to guarantee a tag this year with the favorable hunt date. This year was my only chance the way my work schedule lays out. I’m tempering my expectations on quality of bucks. I’ll be there early to scout and can stay for the whole hunt if need be.
 
sambo3006 said:
Thanks GilaJeff!
No big deal on the points. I was never going to draw a premium tag and I wanted to guarantee a tag this year with the favorable hunt date. This year was my only chance the way my work schedule lays out. I’m tempering my expectations on quality of bucks. I’ll be there early to scout and can stay for the whole hunt if need be.
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Did the same thing last year with wife. Burnt a couple extra points, but was garentteed the tag. I retired a year and a half before and had all the time needed. Went to unit the year prior with another MM'er that had tag and scouted unit during the same 3rd season hunt with him and seen some great bucks. Spent the season there even a couple extra days after she tagged out. Had a great time and zero regret on burning extra points that saved up until everything was what we wanted.

Draw the tag, enjoy the hunt and make some awesome memories.
 
As I've been saying all along, I can pretty much guarantee the quality of bucks is definitely decreasing every year in all the premium Colo units. The only exceptions will be units with lightly hunted private land. The only thing that will change this trend is if the CPW wakes up and discontinues their current 5 year plan. 4 years from now when the 5 year plan is over a 170 buck will be considered a true whopper in the best public units. Super sad to see this happen when Colo was re-writing the B&C record books for so many years!
 
11 thought I was safe from creep last year, I think I am ok now. Like others should have burned them but had a few other lucky draws line up and only so much vacation time.
 
rockymntsnyper said:
Burnt 21 after waiting years for a ranching for wildlife unit only to have DOW take it off the list. . . Drew third season in CO unit 10. . . Anyone have any intel? Want to hunt it with a bow. Thanks!
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Unit 10 with a bow during 3rd rifle seems like kind of a huge handicap on yourself, but best of luck to you.
 
Nice! Good luck! Never spent much time there but looks like awesome deer country, can’t wait to hear about it
 
Thanks! I’m definitely gonna hit it hard. it’s been years since I’ve been in the unit but gonna be there early and the entire season if needed!
 
In some units the draw odds went up quite a bit in spite of tag cuts.

Both 663rd and 664th could be had with 22 points this year. they cut 3rd by 10 tags I think and the draw odds went up.

So either point creep is reversing or a lot of people didn't apply this year for some reason. I would have lost a bet on this so I can't speculate as to why this happened.
 
Togwotee said:
In some units the draw odds went up quite a bit in spite of tag cuts.

Both 663rd and 664th could be had with 22 points this year. they cut 3rd by 10 tags I think and the draw odds went up.

So either point creep is reversing or a lot of people didn't apply this year for some reason. I would have lost a bet on this so I can't speculate as to why this happened.
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Reverse happened for 2nd season in 66, that tag took 11 points to guarantee a draw last year, 12 this year. Most of that can be explained by them cutting tags. The 3rd season change is baffling. 24 guaranteed it last year, 23 this year.
 
I burley snuck into the 66 second season deer tag last year with 10 points. I thought for sure that the odds for that hunt was going to stay the same our take slightly less than last year. I was wrong. The later date for the second season still was not quite late enough to get bucks chasing but the weather was not on our side last year either so maybe it will be different this year for the lucky one that draw tags. Good luck. I just brought points this year in Colorado. Plenty of other hunts going on this year so Colorado got the pass.
 

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