Some Stats regarding elk movement Unit18
Colorado
That attached charts are from the CPW for unit 18. Not sure what it implies because natural migration movement occurs during these times also. Interesting to note:
~60% of elk population, on hunter accessible public land (USFS,BLM,SLB) during winter summer when no hunting is allowed.
~47% of elk population on same lands during archery.
~70% elk population not on hunter (private/NPS) accessible lands during rifle.
The charts don't state if these totals are prior, during, or after the seasons.
Maybe the intent is to offer more PLO tags in an attempt to pressure elk back onto public land where the masses of hunters are or to give private land owners more of a $$$ windfall???
Or the intent is to change the DAU to Limited draw from the current OTC status during the archery season. I saw the same thing happen in 54, 55, and 551 and in the Flat Tops where the DOW "showed" that an increase in Early Season participation caused a percentage of the elk to move to private lands where then, rifle hunters, could not manged their numbers as well as on public Forest lands. This DAU use to be a good unit to hunt elk in back in the 1990s but last year the bow hunter success was less than 10%, for 1200 bow hunters to stated they had hunted there.. And it might have been closer to 5% success, one of the lowest in the state. Also, the elk population has been reduced by 1/3 of what it use to be in the late 1990s. So more bow and ML hunters, less elk, lower success may have caused more complains about crowding, lower success, less elk, etc. etc.
They offered more early PLO tags in 16 and 17 but it didn't work. The elk that were pushed back onto public were pushed right back onto the private by all the guys bowhunting close to the big ranch boundaries. In those units it's like a caribou migration onto the private during the first week of archery season.
But the public land hunters have nobody to blame but themselves. Way too many guys hunting badly during mid-day when the wind is swirling, hunting bedding areas in bad wind, pressuring the elk hard when they should be backing out. It's a phenomenon happening all over northern CO where the low country is almost all private and the higher summer range is NF or BLM.
and in addition there are already PLO cow tags unused in the DAU
We hunted OTC Taylor Park for a couple years right before it went Draw Only. It was closer for the boys to come up for long weekends. We just got it pretty well figured out when they made the change - "The ranchers are seeing too many elk move on private property". We didn't find anyone offering discounted trespass fees to help mitigate the problem. Maybe we could have "played the game" and gone with second choice cow only for 0 to 1 or 2 pts. We just reverted to our old OTC standby - more than double the drive time, and less opportunities (time) for the boys. PLO cow tags are OK, but the cheapest I've found is $900-$1000, and up. What's DAU?
What is a DAU, ie, Data Analysis Unit, (basically a watershed or units surrounded by a physical boundary, made up of one or more, GMUs, ie, Game Management Units. So DAU includes GMUs 18 and 181. An area that the CPW biologists examine for caring capacity of the different species of wildlife, plus harvests, success, hunter numbers, license allocation.
Paul, I did "hear" talk, although it was not an official position, that many of the staff were eyeing some, if not all OTC archery units to become draw areas, solely due to crowding issues. They claim that since archery is more a recreational tool than a management tool, it's causing too many elk to be displaced onto private land due to the pressure, and current management techniques (rifle) and objectives are much harder to achieve.
Again, this was chatter.
Thanks, I was thinking maybe DAU was "Draw only Archery Unit" which didn't fit the context. Again, if this were to come to pass - all draw ( and I hope it doesn't, but fear it eventually will), it would be some consolation if they were to put together blocks of say 3-5 or more contiguous units. The current OTC has so many units that it would likely be impossible to "hit them all" in a month, but when the boys were younger we often took advantage of it, hunting OTC units closer to home with them to limit their time "out of school". The further away "proven" units in the same season.
What is "Rifle Season"? Is it first season or first through fourth season? Anyone who has spent time during rifle season on public understands the big difference in pressure between archery and rifle and how they move game. Yes archery season moves game but in my experience nothing close to the effect the first OTC rifle elk season has on the next one.
Per the CPW statistics page, some of the OTC archery units have equal pressure than OTC rifle units. Since typical archers go deeper from trailheads than typical rifle hunters, and move more game deeper, I believe the movements of game are about equal. However, extrapolating the data from the charts show that archery season moves about 15% of elk from public to private (or NPS), rifle season moves another 15%. If you start out with 50% of the game equally dispersed on public/private, you are left with 20% left on public land for a huge amount of hunters going for this small remnants.
I am going to throw out some thoughts/ideas for folks to chew on that are solely my opinions, and not the consensus position of the CBA board (at this time) for the purpose of discussion. We all need more to chew on over the holidays other than ham, turkey, and wild game.
When you read through the issue papers posted regularly on the parks and wildlife commission agenda page - I notice 3 common themes.
1. A continued shift to PLO licensing to solve private land harvest, and sometimes conflict. My personal take on PLO licensing is while it may obtain desired harvest and manage herds biologically, there could be more done on the part of CPW to facilitate "opportunity for all" as it relates to hunter recruitment, retention and access. As you know, with PLO it is the responsibility of the hunter to obtain access, for free or by fee. Very few have time to door knock anymore, and frankly landowners don't have time to deal with constant pestering for access. PLO licensing often is designated as rifle tags, and I know the season length in unit 20 runs from August to late january.
2. HPP The premise of HPP is mitigate game conflict, using fence and forage project work, and on occasion game damage/dispersal hunts that can use "hunt coordinators". The public has limited visibility to the availability of the hunts for dispersal. Anyone ever get a press release from CPW offering sign up for a dispersal hunt on private land? Me neither. In Montana, the premise is we will offer fence and forage project benefits only to mitigate the impact from allowing public access hunting, who will as by product of being given access achieve herd management, and eliminate the need for PLO licensing and game conflict. HPP is devoted 5% of what I believe is all license revenue, which is ball parkish of about 4 million dollars a year. Some of our HPP forage projects are done on public ground to keep herds of animals off private, which does benefit us all as hunters. HPP could be better leveraged for public hunter access, they do have conflict we can help solve!
3. Game damage We pay it, and payments could be reduced in some situations if we could open up some hunter access. Some payments are unavoidable, but some are improvable.
Who out there would support an access pilot, and be willing to pay in the neighborhood of $35 a day for access to hunt on private land instead of the current PLO licensing shift? Maybe unit 18 could be a good candidate, I don't know. I would assume there might have to be some sort of reservation system in the pilot, as you wouldn't want to creating crowding or drive animals off the property into unhuntable zones. I am not talking about leasing hunting trophy ranches for $35 dollars a day. Most likely smaller plots, hopefully adjoining tough to reach public lands, and my spreadsheet looks like at a $35 rate you might have to contend with up to 5-15 other hunters on the property daily. At $50 a day, fewer hunters would be possible.
As the elected CPW liaison on the CBA board, my duties allow formation of committees to work on stuff. I could use help acquiring/analysing data from the CPW on licensing, PLO, HPP, game damage, satisfaction, and participation. 2 years ago I presented an access lease concept at the cattlemens association stock show advocacy group meeting. After the meeting, a member of the north park chapter approached me and said he thought there might be opportunity in his area for this concept.
If you have some time and would like to collaborate on a team to do data analysis of PLO licensing trends, HPP, and game damage, let me know. Ultimately, the goal would be to write up a proposal to submit to the CBA for board review and approval, let me know. I would be looking for CBA members to help, I think it is a good policy and my preference for sure.
With board approval I would hope to take the proposal to the cattlemens state group or local chapters for further co-development, and then on to CPW and the commission. I have left a couple messages with them already asking if they would like to co-develop a program.
Let me know if you have time and want to help.
I suspect that if 5-15 guys paid $35 to share a "smaller" plot, most of them would end up unhappy campers. If it's mostly about revenue I'd be willing to pay more, for less "harvesters". $100-$200 a day, shared with just a couple others, if there are shot opportunities, isn't at all unreasonable these days. Elk being elk, figuring you are going to go up & harvest one in a single day may not be a sound plan. I'd go for 2-3+ days at that rate, if need be (to harvest one). PM'd you GH
I think they are changing DAU (Data analysis unit) To "Herd management unit" New verbiage same thing. I feel Limiting archery has helped the Gunnison Basin. Elk Distribution and hunter density.
Steve, thanks for your efforts and forward thinking on ways to improve hunter access. I think you are right that if our dollars are used in game damage mitigation, it should be done so with an agreement to let the public hunt these lands in a way that is equitable to the amount of claim $$ the land owners receive. HPP is the answer, but my own personal thinking is to elevate the cost of the Habitat stamp to cover the costs. This should be far less costly than charging the hunters who hunt the private land individually and give everyone a stake in the lottery. But that's my $.02
They claim the same crap here in 12/23/24 and Archery is all Draw, with rifle hunting 2nd and 3rd OTC. The elk still breed, and the only thing that really pushes our elk is lots of snow which triggers the migration- this year it still has not really started yet...
