Pontification

Chasing inches whether its deer or elk is the problem today. I would like to see more opportunities for hunters to kill a 280" bull than the chase for the 200" deer and 400" bull. Now how that is accomplished is for the biologists. And even they seem to disagree. Then throw in the lust for hunter $$$ and everything goes to the S%It
 
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Actually, if we wanted to save herds and improve quality, we’d kill more bulls. The most effective way to kill a bull elk is with a rifle. So cutting rifle tags is exactly opposite of what should be done if we are talking about the health of herds and producing more elk.

But very few people, I repeat- VERY few people actual care about the health of the herds. Everyone has an agenda and they push for what fits that agenda, too often attempting to weakly cloak the agenda in some misguided biological statement.

At least Troy with SFW was honest in why he wants to move the LE elk rifle hunt out of the rut: We can grow more 400” bulls to sell tags for at auction if we do that. I don’t agree with him that we should do that, but I can at least respect the transparency.
That was BEFORE the cam and posse law
 
I Don't Need To See The Study!

I See It & Study It Every Year Myself!



Start shoveling fellas..the only way I see improvement for big game hunting is to improve the habitats, limit tech, shorten seasons. Predator control, feral horse control. Highway high fencing, wildlife crossings. Good luck to us all to achieve this.

Tech is not going away.
Seasons are not changing
There is not one silver bullet to fix this.

Anyone else see the BYU study on fawn and calf mortality on the bookcliff unit?
 
Troy Needs To Go Back To Managing Cattle!



Actually, if we wanted to save herds and improve quality, we’d kill more bulls. The most effective way to kill a bull elk is with a rifle. So cutting rifle tags is exactly opposite of what should be done if we are talking about the health of herds and producing more elk.

But very few people, I repeat- VERY few people actual care about the health of the herds. Everyone has an agenda and they push for what fits that agenda, too often attempting to weakly cloak the agenda in some misguided biological statement.

At least Troy with SFW was honest in why he wants to move the LE elk rifle hunt out of the rut: We can grow more 400” bulls to sell tags for at auction if we do that. I don’t agree with him that we should do that, but I can at least respect the transparency.
 
And What Destroys Everything?

You Got It!

$$$!

Chasing inches whether its deer or elk is the problem today. I would like to see more opportunities for hunters to kill a 280" bull than the chase for the 200" deer and 400" bull. Now how that is accomplished is for the biologists. And even they seem to disagree. Then throw in the lust for hunter $$$ and everything goes to the S%It
 
Troy Needs To Go Back To Managing Cattle!

Like I said, I don’t agree with his position on this topic, but I can respect the transparency. At least he is not hiding his true motive behind some fake biological reason that doesn’t exist.

There is something to be said for honesty, even if I think that person is wrong.
 
FWIW, there certainly is on the LE hunts.View attachment 82079
I see a steady climb before the scopes, and then it levels off and starts dropping again.

Now ask yourself what is the difference between a general season tag and a LE tag????

Numbers, there simply is just a lot more game on those hunts, and a lot less people as well. LE muzzloader is a fraction of what the general is in the sheer amount of people.

How many LE units have you been on where you can drive around and look at deer that just stand there and look at you? I know every unit I have been on that is the case, that really doesn't happen in the general units, especially after the archery hunters have been chasing them for a month.

So why is the success higher??? simple there are just a lot more uneducated deer for people to take, and come the end of the hunt you can damn sure bet they are going to take something after burning 10 to 18 years for the tag. Most people are not going home empty handed and there are lots of "nice" bucks that people are willing to burn a hole through at the end of there hunts. But even then the difference between 78% and 87% is really not that many extra deer killed with the limited number of hunters in the field for the LE hunts.

Edit: Also how many people are actually going out and getting there set up perfectly dialed in for the basically once in a lifetime hunt they drew, some even bought all new set ups.

All in all most are just more prepared for the hunt.
 
lots things could change the amount of bucks/bulls taken in a year one is more food close to trails and roads, More fields have crops in them, more little bucks taken, less big bucks/bulls seen, guys who drew didn't care what size a buck/bull is. More predators was taken before spring time. Weather was raining, wind blowing, etc. Deer /Elk moving on to private before start of seasons. Hell the list is huge on why the numbers can jump up or down. Scopes could be a small part of the whole reason's.
 
GATOR +1

We could always eliminate scopes on centerfire rifles. Even better yet ?introduce wolves. Oh yea Colorado is already doing that. Dumb A$$es.
 
Actually, if we wanted to save herds and improve quality, we’d kill more bulls. The most effective way to kill a bull elk is with a rifle. So cutting rifle tags is exactly opposite of what should be done if we are talking about the health of herds and producing more elk.

But very few people, I repeat- VERY few people actual care about the health of the herds. Everyone has an agenda and they push for what fits that agenda, too often attempting to weakly cloak the agenda in some misguided biological statement.

At least Troy with SFW was honest in why he wants to move the LE elk rifle hunt out of the rut: We can grow more 400” bulls to sell tags for at auction if we do that. I don’t agree with him that we should do that, but I can at least respect the transparency.

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