M
MBM
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LAST EDITED ON Jun-08-04 AT 07:47AM (MST)[p]What are your thoughts on Archers in Utah being able to hunt statewide? I understand from the SFW Primitive weapon thread that some Southern region hunters feel that most bowhunters are going south and killing more deer from the southern region and affecting the buck/doe ratio.
I have bowhunted the southern region archery for the last 16 years and although there are more bow hunters now than 16 years ago I noticed the increase long before Statewide archery went into affect in 2001. I have seen a higher number of road hunters the last few years but I think that is becauseof the higher widespread ATV use than to more hunters. I understand that other areas in the Southern region could be different.
The deer numbers in the area I hunt has not been very good the last few years but I think that is more due to the expanding elk population than to more hunter pressure.
I posted the following on the SFW Primative weapon thread.
I looked at the Harvest stats for 2002 in the 2004 proclamation and put together some numbers for the Southern region.
Archery (Southern Region)
Hunters Afield-5265
Harvest-965
Sucsess Rate-18.33%
The statewide Archery sucsess rate is 14%
ML (Southern)
Hunters Afield-2254
Harvest-785
Sucsess Rate-34.83%
The statewide ML sucsess rate is 25.1%
Rifle (Southern)
Hunters Afield-12563
Harvest-4094
Sucsess Rate-32.59%
The stated wide Rifle sucsess rate is 26.8%
Also in 2002 the Southern region had the highest buck to doe ratio of any other region.
I was suprised to see how well the southern ML hunters are doing compared to the state average. Archery is only a 3.3% above the state average while ML is 9.7% above. Between the two primitive weapon hunts only 1750 deer where harvested compared to 4094 on the rifle. 29.9% of the total harvest in the southern region is from primative weapons and only 16.5% is from Archery. If things are going down hill in the Southern region it is not the Statewide archery hunt at fault. Most the deer are being killed on the rifle hunt and ML has a higher than normal sucsess rate by almost 10%.
What do you guys think?
Mark
I have bowhunted the southern region archery for the last 16 years and although there are more bow hunters now than 16 years ago I noticed the increase long before Statewide archery went into affect in 2001. I have seen a higher number of road hunters the last few years but I think that is becauseof the higher widespread ATV use than to more hunters. I understand that other areas in the Southern region could be different.
The deer numbers in the area I hunt has not been very good the last few years but I think that is more due to the expanding elk population than to more hunter pressure.
I posted the following on the SFW Primative weapon thread.
I looked at the Harvest stats for 2002 in the 2004 proclamation and put together some numbers for the Southern region.
Archery (Southern Region)
Hunters Afield-5265
Harvest-965
Sucsess Rate-18.33%
The statewide Archery sucsess rate is 14%
ML (Southern)
Hunters Afield-2254
Harvest-785
Sucsess Rate-34.83%
The statewide ML sucsess rate is 25.1%
Rifle (Southern)
Hunters Afield-12563
Harvest-4094
Sucsess Rate-32.59%
The stated wide Rifle sucsess rate is 26.8%
Also in 2002 the Southern region had the highest buck to doe ratio of any other region.
I was suprised to see how well the southern ML hunters are doing compared to the state average. Archery is only a 3.3% above the state average while ML is 9.7% above. Between the two primitive weapon hunts only 1750 deer where harvested compared to 4094 on the rifle. 29.9% of the total harvest in the southern region is from primative weapons and only 16.5% is from Archery. If things are going down hill in the Southern region it is not the Statewide archery hunt at fault. Most the deer are being killed on the rifle hunt and ML has a higher than normal sucsess rate by almost 10%.
What do you guys think?
Mark