It seems a little ironic to me how so many people have hated the spike hunts arguing that we are taking away future crop, yet here we are "bull heavy on almost all of our LE units" (as reported in last weeks workshop by biologists).
Beaver unit is 1:1 cow/bull ratio and other units are not far off that same path.
The original plan and forecast on killing spikes was that 10% of them would survive their first hunt and carry over into maturity before they potentially became 6.5 or older and had more appeal to hunters than just a 2.5-5.5 raghorn.
Well, 25 years worth of carryover spike bulls, very limited LE tags and "trophy hunting" has finally peaked out to where it's time for an evaluation and major overhaul.
Did us old timers that hunted back when even seeing a bull was almost as rare as seeing a unicorn think we'd get to a point where we had "too many bulls"?
Here we are.
One thing is for dang sure, we can't manage for numerous 380" bulls and have optimal opportunities to hunt when tags are very limited in the same token.
Fact.....we have GOT to kill some bulls, period.
What I see happening is what I will call the "DLL SYSTEM"
Deseret Land and Livestock.
1:1 bull/cow ratios and a lot of bulls needing harvested every single year.
Deseret doesn't kill spike bulls, nor is there even a 380" bull roaming the unit, but are a hell of a lot of 300-330" bulls and a hell of a lot of "opportunity"
Yes of course 95% of the people pay to hunt the ranch, but it's the same principle as a hypothetical public land hunt.
They keep bull numbers high, opportunity stays high and everyone is happy......everyone that is happy with a 7.5 year old 320" bull that is.
If they want a 380" bull, they go elsewhere.
We're obviously not killing enough spike bulls on the bottom of our units, and we limit tags to have some quality age class bulls on top, but now we are imploded in the middle.
We've got to start killing some bulls and growing some cows to keep the circle of elk life going.
I'm all for juggling weapon seasons around because it creates opportunities and crushes the points creep problems.
We have grown a lot of bulls over the last two decades, now let's utilize them and balance things out for decades to come.