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Did not give up

Thank you to all the bow hunters who spoke out yesterday in opposition of the CPW’s recommendation of going to all draw for archery elk for both residents and nonresidents during the virtual game commission meetings. At the beginning of the meeting it sounded like the commission had already decided to move forward with moving to all draw across the board. Then after many good points were made by many bowhunters it seemed to sway the commission to a “we need to learn more” attitude. I urge everyone who cares about this to make your voices heard by any means possible as often as possible. To everyone who has been fighting, thank you and please keep up the fight.

I wasn't able to participate yesterday. What's the timeline for the decision?

It sounded to me like they wanted CPM to come to the meeting in April with answers regarding what the cost burden implications would be on families by having to go through the draw process. Remember when going through the draw process it triggers the qualifying license piece (which for a household could get quite substantial). Also they want answers about what the implications would be on hunters trying to build preference points (which it sounded like almost all of them had no idea about that) and also what the implications would be on being able to archery hunt every year.

You have to have a qualifying license and habitat stamp to buy an over the counter tag so that makes no sense. I guess we get dumb questions when the wildlife commission knows nothing about hunting

Agreed. But they did seem to have a change of mood after the comment period. Some long faces from the commission when the bow hunters were talking.

Then Mr. Siegfried (hopefully I spelled his name correctly) presented some very well put together data and information from his Facebook survey which seemed to frustrate the commission even further. Just as an FYI, the meetings are available on YouTube if you care to get caught up.

Did they really have no idea that this would impact hunters trying to build preference points?? Are they really that clueless?

One commissioner thought the deer rut was in August, another was concerned about the taking of velvet bucks and the sale of velvet for illicit trade. Sadly, the "sportsperson/outfitter rep" is the worst. She insulted Brandon, and all of us saying the petition with 6300 signatures is insignificant, while it might have ten times for input then all of the BGSS input. Before any public input she came out and said, all bowhunters should be limited. Later she said she opposes any early deer, and went on to suggest we don't care about wildlife. It is disgraceful, we need a repeal process. It is really bad, the worst I have ever seen in the 25 years I have followed it.

I will say bowhunter testimony was out standing in number and content. We need to keep the input going at the all remaining meetings. I suspect the next meeting will have a large outfitter presence and we will get the same old stories about how nonresident hunting is the savior of rural colorado, even though rural Coloradans live at or slightly better then poverty levels.

They...don't....care....about preference points. They don't like bowhunters - staff and Commission. At least four of the Commissioners are outright anti-hunting, and the outfitter Commissioners are anti-resident hunters. We are just an annoyance, we push the elk down onto private land, and create conflicts with their precious nonconsumptive users during September.

The painful thing is that the governor and his husband believe outfitters represent the desires of resident hunters, because they have no clue what hunting is about. So we get people like Haskett "speaking for us", who makes her living from nonresidents.

What is Hasketts outfitting business called?

Maybe a little cancel culture is in order?

JLM Outfitters out of Meeker

There's the link. Only does drop camps in Unit 24 for $2800 to $3000. All the drop camps are on public property so you can hunt "with" them. Would be fun to hunt "with" them blasting music all day. Maybe book an all day horse back riding trip and maybe you'll get to see where they hunt. My knees could not ever stand to be on a horse all day though.

+1 Jaquomo "They...don't....care....about preference points. They don't like bowhunters - staff and Commission." Lou couldn't have stated it better, There are those in top ranking positions in the wildlife side of CPW that hates bowhunters, and always have for the last 25+ years. With Polis and his partner (and their minion) this is only the beginning to diminish bowhunting in Colorado, and they won't stop there either.

If the haters have been in there for 25 years we should be glad they haven't been able to completely destroy bowhunting in that time. Meanwhile in the last 25 years bowhunting has gone bananas both in participation and equipment all across the nation. This has also caused a huge influx in traditional archery and hunting with traditional equipment. Nobody can deny that. The fact is the haters have an uphill battle too. I hope the industry (the money) would get more involved with these decision meetings. The commission needs to hear from all the major manufacturers too, not just hunters or wildlife orgs. So I would encourage anyone who knows anyone in the industry to please step up and send emails to the PWC as well stating the impact OTC archery has on the economy. I will sure keep trying to do my part. I am so glad to hear some common sense was acknowledged by the commission to get more information about how these decisions would exploit the qualifying license rule. We all know hunting has unfortunately become pay to play. And it's the world we live in. But if this is a legit concern of the commission and not just a ploy to make it look like the gov isn't commiting outright tyranny then it needs to be played on big time because it is a real problem they will encounter and may be the saving grace for archery OTC or OTC in general.

JLM outfitters do very little business.

Maybe so, Forest, but she is one of our "voices" for resident hunters, and I bet they guide zero resident hunters.

Another note: comm Haskett proposed reducing the 4 rifle seasons to a "5-7-7-5" day scenario (2nd & 3rd rifle seasons= 7 days, instead of 9 as cpw recommends). This basically cuts folks who can only hunt weekends due to school or work committments by 50% by limiting those seasons to 1 weekend instead of 2 weekends.

That outta help hunter recruitment.

The reason we guide 0 residents is because residents dont want to be guided. Ive taken a few residents, but not many. Not by my choice. I would love to take residents hunting.

Keepitreal, "If the haters have been in there for 25 years we should be glad they haven't been able to completely destroy bowhunting in that time." It's due to balances inside DOW/CPW and the forming of the CBA (our voice) and political elements. But, those that are trying and can will diminish bowhunting as much as they can, maybe never eliminating bowhunting all together but changing it from it's glory days.

As the OP suggests, don't give up.

Stix that's just the outfitter mindset, to schedule their hunts easier because most outfits don't have enough help on hand to get all that they have booked packed in and out in the little time that was between the seasons of the previous bgss. The current bgss gives almost too much time when thinking outfitting. It takes a lot to be a good service provider. It's very hard work for the short time but can be very rewarding in more ways than just monetary. But trying to manipulate the bgss to benefit an outfitter schedule isn't right either. Any days taken away from us as hunters or outfitter is not good at all. Heck loosing the second weekend of 3rd season for the last five years has caused a net loss of around 100k for some BTO's that had booked two 4 day hunts in those seasons 9 day seasons. So yeah a 7-5-5-7 is even more bogus.

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