CO Eastern Plains WT?
Whitetail Deer
Lost my spot in SE CO a few years ago and am itching to get back out and hunt that river bottom country again. Anybody have any recommendations for leases, outfitters or even public out on the plains? Not looking for a Mule Deer, strictly interested in bowhunting big whitetail’s in November or December only. Would also consider far western Kansas. Any info would be very much appreciated.
Don’t understand your response, Dale? Never had a problem getting an archery tag for plains WT. Even years that I decided to hunt out there after the deadline had past, I found landowners tags.
They give out whitetail-only tags like Halloween candy. Give Scott Limmer at CWO a call. I'll check into another good spot I know that recently changed outfitters.
It is bad enough we get overrun by out of staters for elk and mule deer. Even some what for antelope. For God sake can the out of state folks not at least leave the few whitetails we have alone. I promise you there is a long list of states with better whitetail hunting.
Sorry John, I just like hunting western Whitetails.
JohnMC.....FWIW, NR's are a non-factor in competing for limited archery WT-only hunts on the eastern plains of Colorado. Actually, even among residents, there's very little demand for the WT-only hunts. Looking at the 2018 draw stats for limited archery WT hunts, all hunts except one were under-subscribed. Out of the 8 units, only one unit even had a NR apply first choice and draw. The other 7 hunts had no NR applicants.
Of course there are numerous other hunts where any deer is legal, muley or whitetail.
But for whitetail only, there's very little demand, especially from NR's.
By tag, I meant I was watching this thread. As I am interested as well. Sorry for the confusion.
Good luck finding a spot Busta.
Unfortunately the liberal tags due to the CPW wanting to eliminate whitetails on the eastern plains have really hurt the whitetail hunting where we hunt in SE CO. It's a shame what once was an awesome whitetail hunt for BIG deer has turned into a hunt where you hope to even see a big mature buck. I'm hoping it's different in other areas as our area got pounded.
I hunt east-central CO and whitetails have been virtually wiped out in my area. Many ranchers want them gone because of the perceived effect on muleys. (I did watch a mature whitetail chasing a mature muley buck away from a herd of muley does during the rut).
I saw five wt bucks this season in 25 days of hunting and scouting. Until this year, it was remarkable to see even one or two. When I told my rancher friend, he remarked, "That's way too many, ain't it?"
^^ True. I hunt family property on the eastern plains and seeing a mature WT deer out there is like seeing an Elk (yes we had a cow elk on our trail cam a few years back). It's amazing how the WT deer herd has dwindled out there. 10 years ago we use to have a handful of real good bucks every year, very few in the past 5 years now.
Interesting. I’m originally from west central Ks, about 40 miles north of Dodge city. I hunt there every year. There used to be lots of mule deer there and few white tails. Now the opposite is true.
Dale06,
I'm assuming that is directly related to the new tags where residents can hunt any season and either species with their tags with the exception of a rifle mule deer? The western Kansas area we hunt has seen a big drop in the amount of mature muley bucks since the inception of this. I will give KDPW some credit as they have since reduced the amount of muley doe tags and that seems to be helping with the mule deer numbers but still not seeing the amount of mature mule deer bucks we used too.
I'm no expert on KS deer but this is what we have seen happen.
