Utah Elk Management Plan

[Elkslayer2015]

Devil is in the details.

First off, the population estimate is generally post-hunt. Below are the actual harvest stats for 2021. I marked the two key ones in red. These figures & the pop. estimate do not take in the Indian reservations.

View attachment 71758

Yes that's my point
It is amazing how many tags issued, and they still maintain 35,000 elk
So why is Utah struggling. why can Arizona issue that many tags and only harvest 9,158 elk.
What is Utah doing wrong?

 

[OutdoorWriter]

Yes that's my point
It is amazing how many tags issued, and they still maintain 35,000 elk
So why is Utah struggling. why can Arizona issue that many tags and only harvest 9,158 elk.
What is Utah doing wrong?

It's all on how the permits & seasons are manipulated to keep the overall harvest rates at sustainable levels.

For example, just one way:

Let's say there's an early rut hunt with 100 tags that produces a 75% success rate, i.e. 75 dead bulls.. Cut those tags to 50 for a kill of 38. Now take the other 50 tags & move them to a late Nov. hunt that has a 15% success rate for a total kill of 8. So that bit of 'social engineering' results in a harvest of 46 bulls rather than 75, yet still allows 100 hunters to go afield after elk.

 

[Elkslayer2015]

It's all on how the permits & seasons are manipulated to keep the overall harvest rates at sustainable levels.

For example, just one way:

Let's say there's an early rut hunt with 100 tags that produces a 75% success rate, i.e. 75 dead bulls.. Cut those tags to 50 for a kill of 38. Now take the other 50 tags & move them to a late Nov. hunt that has a 15% success rate for a total kill of 8. So that bit of 'social engineering' results in a harvest of 46 bulls rather than 75, yet still allows 100 hunters to go afield after elk.

Utah has roughly 80,000 elk in the state.
Well that answer my question. It's how you do your season dates, I looked at how they do there season dates.
we could easily add more LE tags especially to archery we could double the tag quota and still maintain quality and if the rifle hunt was moved we could add tags there as well and still maintain quality in Utah. in my opinion.

The other thing from what I just found, they go off of bull to cow ratio not age objective.

 

[OutdoorWriter]

Utah has roughly 80,000 elk in the state.
Well that answer my question. It's how you do your season dates, I looked at how they do there season dates.
we could easily add more LE tags especially to archery we could double the tag quota and still maintain quality and if the rifle hunt was moved we could add tags there as well and still maintain quality in Utah. in my opinion.

I haven't really studied Utah's season options, so it's something I can't make informed comments about.

In an effort to increase hunting opportunities, AGFD did the same thing with many of the Dec. Coues deer hunts that have traditionally high success rates. They took oodles of permits and moved them to hunts during Oct./Nov. with significantly lower harvest rates. Just by going from a 50% sucess rate to a 25% season means doubling the number of permits/tags.

 

[elkhunterUT]

Of course it is how you do your season dates - there is no question Utah could greatly increase the # of LE elk tags issued by moving hunts into dates that are not as highly successful as a rut rifle hunt. The corporate greed in this state runs all things though, so we can't do anything in Utah that makes sense. Really unfortunate!!

 

[Deerlove]

Sorry I don’t understand what am not counting??

Tards see brown elk and start shooting. There's no counting pts.

 

[Bigfoot 1]

What is an LE tag? Thanks in advance.

 

[elkhunterUT]

What is an LE tag? Thanks in advance.

LE = Limited Entry (read-not general season)

 

[Bigfoot 1]

LE = Limited Entry (read-not general season)

Got it, thanks.

 

[gundog2]

I don’t completely trust harvest report information. I believe some people lie on those reports thinking they are gaming the system some how. What do you think?

I work hard as a scientist to collect good data so I would never lie on a harvest report. I can see how some people might be tempted to downplay success on a GS hunt, but I can’t see any motivation to to that on a LE hunt. I think GS hunters should be able to mail unused tags back in and be eligible to purchase a tag the following year without having to draw. Encourage people to let the small bucks live another year.

 

[BLooDTRaCKeR]

I'm sure it happens, but I think most people are honest on them. I would take that risk over not doing anything at all, which is where we are at right now (With the exception of LE and OIL hunts).

I’ve harvested a bull every year for the past two decades on public land and never once have I told them where I have killed. Don’t need my hard work ruined by some punk kid “collecting information” for “his job.”

 

[BLooDTRaCKeR]

What type of service are you suggesting for elk? The elk herd isn’t exactly hurting in Utah. Herd health wise it’s probably better than it’s ever been in history. It’s certainly better than it was any time in Utah history prior to the 2000s.

I’m not against your idea, but what are you hoping to accomplish with these service hours other than just making it harder to get a tag?

Fencing projects? Winter range improvement projects? I am sure the DNR has some ideas as well that can help those who want to contribute, help them.

 

[elkhunterUT]

I’ve harvested a bull every year for the past two decades on public land and never once have I told them where I have killed. Don’t need my hard work ruined by some punk kid “collecting information” for “his job.”

I won’t share exact locations either and I get that for sure, but I would hope people understand the importance of sharing accurate data around whether they harvested, # of days hunted, animals wounded, and at least the general unit. If you are not honest on that type of info, you may want to reevaluate what your “end game” truly is.

 

[Bigfoot 1]

I work hard as a scientist to collect good data so I would never lie on a harvest report. I can see how some people might be tempted to downplay success on a GS hunt, but I can’t see any motivation to to that on a LE hunt. I think GS hunters should be able to mail unused tags back in and be eligible to purchase a tag the following year without having to draw. Encourage people to let the small bucks live another year.

That’s a very interesting idea.

 

[hossblur]

If we went tagless, e tag, a survey could be included

 

[JakeH]

I'm all for moving the rifle hunt out of peak rut, but I don't understand why anyone would want to stop the general spike hunt unless you switch it to something that manages all the younger bulls that no one will kill on the LE trophy hunts.
It does no good to a herd to have too many bulls that don't get harvested.
We are not "wiping out" our bulls on the spike hunts, not even close.
They estimate 10% survive the hunts.
Then for the next 5-6 years you've got an abundance of "satellite bulls" competing for everything including critical winter forage.
Compound that 10% by the "5-6" years and that's a hell of a lot of up and coming bulls to reach maturity.
I believe the 10% estimation is low, I saw a herd on the Wasatch last year on the rifle deer hunt that had 12 spikes in it alone.
And if you go up into Hobble Creek during the winter, you will see a lot of spike bulls.

How many bulls die of old age because of poor genetics that no one wants to harvest.
Just because a bull reaches his prime doesn't mean he'll even make 300" or even be a 6x6 for that matter.

So what do we do?
Stop killing spikes and issue hundreds more LE tags to keep the herd numbers managed appropriately?

I'm not gonna speak for any other unit, but the spike hunt in the bookcliffs has 100% absolutely ruined that unit. It's been in conjunction with some other things as the elk population as a whole is tanked the last 10 years, but 100% the number of bulls and especially the number of top end bulls has suffered greatly because of the spike hunt.

The spike hunt needs to be removed from the books, I won't speak for other units, but it has absolutely hurt the bookcliffs.

 

[hossblur]

I'm not gonna speak for any other unit, but the spike hunt in the bookcliffs has 100% absolutely ruined that unit. It's been in conjunction with some other things as the elk population as a whole is tanked the last 10 years, but 100% the number of bulls and especially the number of top end bulls has suffered greatly because of the spike hunt.

The spike hunt needs to be removed from the books, I won't speak for other units, but it has absolutely hurt the bookcliffs.

The spike hunt on the Manti came about real early on. It hasn't really hurt it. The changing of the age class to create more tags has.

Everything I read on the Books looks like their is a real issue over there with all undulates

 

[slamdunk]

The spike hunt on the Manti came about real early on. It hasn't really hurt it. The changing of the age class to create more tags has.

Everything I read on the Books looks like their is a real issue over there with all undulates

Yep.....Books are a whole different beast and are definitely in trouble.
Like Jake mentioned, we can't keep killing the very few yearlings that are even surviving.
And no more cow tags.

 

[400or200]

Balance. When we do drastic knee jerk reactions, they usually end up bad for long term. Every unit needs something different. I will speak to the Beaver unit. Per DWR numbers, it is at carrying capacity. It is 1 to 1 bull to cow ratio per poor management. Now that there are no cows, we are forced to kill more bulls to keep the unit at quota. We want to maintain quality as it is one of the premier units in the world, BUT have to kill more bulls. You cannot simply give more tags per the dates we have now and maintain any quality. You can still hunt bulls in the rut and maintain quality, but have to control those rut hunt numbers. Give a few of those as it is the greatest experience ever. But to kill more bulls, and not decimate quality, you have to hunt the majority of those bulls when the bigger and smarter bulls are not so easy pickens. In my opinion from my 25 plus years hunting high quality elk, the hardest times to kill those are October 15-30 and archery august 25-sept 5. You can kill more bulls during these times and not decimate the quality. Keep the rut hunt and late hunt numbers down and give some opportunity hunts at hard times. You will kill bulls, but not generally the top end.

 

[Tristate]

I'm in a class where my teacher is a board member. And we are going through the Utah Elk Management plan making suggestions on what we think should be modified or changed and if it's a decent idea he is going straight to the top with it. So what's your ideas?

Quit talking about "opportunity " in a management plan. It's a useless undefined word that let's the DWR avoid dealing with proper game management.

It's like counting the number of times "journey" can be said on a teenie-bopper television show.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Stop killing spikes and issue hundreds more LE tags to keep the herd numbers managed appropriately?

What if every 5 years they opened it up a bit, and maybe double or triple LE tags. This would cut down the population and moved some point holders through. This would all be dependent on the population size and bull to cow ratio.

In full disclosure no idea if this would work or is feasible just throwing out an idea.

 

[cdhooper04]

Oh good god. They have a hard enough time sticking to the topics at hand during these meetings, now they are asking kids for input on how elk should be managed?

It’s official. Utah hunting is *******. There’s no way around it at this point.

I just saw this. I'm not a kid, I'm an adult. He said to ask your families to give there thoughts and ideas and I thought, oh I'll see what these guys think ?

 

[Ultimag]

Vanilla
Yes you are correct it's about the hunt.

So we choose to run these 30 LE units for Quality. Some of the units have higher age objective and some have lower age objective.
But why can't we just do a 4.5 age class across all of the LE units and offer more tags?
It's not because of the herds health, it's because they want quality bulls for hunters.
So we are managing for hunters/quality/satisfaction has nothing to do with health of our elk herd health.

That is why the rifle hunt is where it is, because Rifle hunters want there cake and eat it too. most effective weapon during the rut with the high success of 70% some units are 80 to 90 % versus archery 26% yeah it's about the hunt alright.

There is no other state that runs the rifle hunt in the Rut.

Montana does in certain units for elk(back country ) and all units for deer

 

[Ultimag]

It absolutely blows me away how many on here are against hunting.

Again it is an assumption that changing the rules to either or will improve your ability to draw the hunt you desire.

Sounds like Montana residents thinking

Do you really want to open up a Colorado free for all for 4 point or better?

Montana is headed that way

 

[middlefork]

What ever way it is headed is due to hunter input. Not a lack of elk.
I just think it is funny that people think someone is just going to kill all the elk when they have no opportunity to even learn to hunt them.
At least that's the way I learn. Maybe others are different.

 

[Ultimag]

What ever way it is headed is due to hunter input. Not a lack of elk.
I just think it is funny that people think someone is just going to kill all the elk when they have no opportunity to even learn to hunt them.
At least that's the way I learn. Maybe others are different.

its not just hunter input driveing wildlife management its also biologist ranchers and the general public just as it should be

 

[Ultimag]

Get the rifle hunt out of the Rut
I want spike hunting shut down more than anyone. but how do we accommodate the 15000 tags without jeopardizing our GS bull elk hunt?

I have an Idea I just thought of, what if we shut down spike hunting out in the book cliffs everyone knows that unit is struggling and it is loosing quality out there.

let's give it an honest run for 7 years. Then when this comes back up in 7 years. we have hard data showing what the outcome is.

A mandatory harvest survey on all spike hunters. We need to know how many future bulls are being harvested.

does utah have mandatory harvest reporting on all big game ?

 

[Ultimag]

Eliminating or drastically reducing private grazing on public lands and you can increase your numbers. People don’t understand that a private entity dictates how many naturally occurring wildlife can be living on our public lands.

biologist also have a say in how much wildlife lives on our public lands its not just private land owners and ranchers the land can only support so much wildlife

ranchers pay for those public land grazeing leases,.... they also pay taxes on that same public land just like me,you and everyone else..., therefore they should have a say in how its managed and used every bit as muc as anyone else

 

[Elkslayer2015]

does utah have mandatory harvest reporting on all big game ?

Just on LE unit hunt's.

 

[Ultimag]

so i dont see how making spike hunters do mandatory reporting is going to help
if they have to do mandatory reporting then everyone should have to dont care if its spike ,bull cow or calf l/e or genral
i mean if its to keep track of how many possible future trophy bulls are being killed
then it should be mandatory reporting for everyone not just spike hunters