Shed Hunting 2018
Colorado
Contributors to this thread:
Did anyone go out scouting, (shed hunting) did you find anything? Boot tracks? Cache's? ATV tracks?
Kind of funny the shed season was put in place to protect the deer and elk yet CPW upped Tags for almost every unit?
Heaviest single load - about 60#.
Heaviest single load - about 60#.
A couple of bigger ones.
A couple of bigger ones.
Ski and Skin.... Where did you get data on tag allocations for various units? I've looked on CPW website and can't find anything. Very nice sheds Ziek.
cnelk's Link
everyone knows there is a magical day when we go from having to save every last animal, at any cost to where we have to kill all these animals for their own good,(remember to save the village we destroyed the village)??
We used to never know when this day was but thanks to our beloved government agency we now are narrowing it down to somewhere between May 1st and June first.
Thanks CNELK...... Any idea how to find the population estimates for deer and elk? They are not posted in the statistics columns yet, but they have obviously compiled the info, as that is what the allocations are based on.
Brun The DAU data is 10 years old. I recently reached out to the CPW about when it will be updated and they said very soon.
My soon and their soon varies :)
Nice Ziek!!! Hopefully you can find the other sides?!?!
I went out on the first, found boot tracks some sheds. I saw two cats, a male about a foot behind the female the wind was great. For the next hour you could hear them mating. Didn't get to see any bears, too late.
Just be careful out there. I almost stepped on this guy on one of my trips.
CNELK, Curious about your comment and the DAU data. If you look at the statistics pages on the website is has information on each[almost] DAU going back to about 2005. I checked several DAUS and the numbers were different every year. Are you saying that they haven't done the flyovers and are just guessing. Not questioning you, I'm just trying to understand what I'm looking at. If you look at DAU 1, which is units 2, and 201, it shows a large reduction in numbers since around 2007, which certainly seems to reflect the observations on the ground. Any insight would be appreciated.
They guess all the time that is why they were off by over 50% on the bear population
Orion, I'm sure that any method of estimating animals involves a lot of guesswork, but I'm thinking some guesses are more educated than others. Obviously a winter flyover is completely useless for bears, but should provide a more accurate look at deer and elk. That is, course, assuming they actually do the flyovers. I always value the imput of people in the field more than numbers put out by CPW, but still curious about the comment that the data is 10 years old.
I really wish they would keep up on the hunter surveys as well. Besides checking in bears I have not been contacted for a survey in over 5 years.
cnelk's Link
Brun
Dont mix up the statistics with the DAUs management plan.
Until the the CPW goes to mandatory harvest reporting, the stats are just a guess each year
See link for DAU info
CNELK, Thanks for the link. I have looked at the management plans before and I know they are dated. The area I am most interested in is not even listed in the DAU management plan for either deer or elk, but they do give the population estimates in the statistics, it's just not posted yet this year. The population estimates will always be a guess, even if they have mandatory harvest reporting, but I still enjoy looking at all that stuff
Mandatory harvest reporting would at least be realistic success percentages. Right now they just use the WAG theorem.
Not interested in mandatory reporting. There are enough rules to follow already. Population counts are a guess, but management is a long term deal and it can show trends. I think wildlife management in CO is already more complicated than it needs to be.
Why wouldn't you be interested in mandatory reporting? It would keep folks honest and give a little more feedback as to what was harvested in a given unit.
Yeah no kidding New Mexico's literally takes 30 seconds to fill out. Plus Colorado could make it ineligible to apply if you don't do it like New Mexico