Heading to the CPW Commission meeting
Elk
Heading to the CPW Commission meeting today to testify for Alternative 2, Allowing resident archery elk hunter to maintain OTC elk license and restrict non residents to a limited draw system. I hope many of you have contacted the Commission and expressed your recommendations concerning this issue. The Commission will make its final decision at the June meeting on OTC elk archery licenses so there is time to submit your recommendations. Send them to
[email protected]?. You can watch the meeting today from Noon to 5 PM on CPW YouTube.
Will they make a decision today?
Edit. Apparently I didn't read very well. I see my answer. June
Go get them Paul. Thanks for fighting for our sportsman’s rights.
I was actually considering a move to Colorado from Ca as my daughter, just bought a house there,, but it looks Co is turning into CA-??
"I was actually considering a move to Colorado from Ca as my daughter, just bought a house there,, but it looks Co is turning into CA-??"
Absolutely. It would really please Gov Polis if Colorado was called Calirado. After all, he is from California.
Whatever California does, you can be sure Colorado is just a couple years behind.
Too bad the commission already has their minds made up and this is just a dog and pony show to check a box off
I wonder if the commissioners stayed awake during the comment process?
^^^ I could almost hear them snoring from work today.
cnelk, Unfortunately our commie Governor was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. He's just a big dip wad fan of CA, not sure where his 'husband' is from though.
Thanks, Paul. Youvhave some good, articulate resident hunters joining you. I'm afraid the train has left the station and the PWC isn't looking back.
Polis was born in Boulder but lived in California
I saw online that Polis was at the CPW meeting today.
Thanks to those that spoke up today. Director Davis had a pretty powerful opening statement and at least 1 Commissioner adamantly supported OTC for residents. I listened to the whole thing until the very end when the commission was presenting the final recommendations to go forward. What was the result of the 4th topic (OTC Archery)? Did they push both options through or follow Commissioner Haskett who couldn’t keep her mouth shut?
Keith
Pushed alt 1 &2 thru until all commissioners are present, nixed status quo
Thanks. That’s good to hear
It was not surprising that all the outfitters that testified, along with Commissioner Haskett, who is the sportsperson/outfitter rep, all supported going to a all limited draw for archery elk.
You cant complain about over crowded units and expect to have the unit stay OTC. That makes no sense to me.
^^^ It makes sense when the OTC over-crowding is caused by NonRes. The data is out there.
Oh wait.... You're an outfitter. That makes sense
I am for limiting non-res only, but one question: does it make a difference if you're being crowded by residents or non-residents? Crowding is crowding, no matter who's doing it.
It's also stupid to limit archery but still have the OTC pumpkin patch of 2nd and 3rd rifle.
For stix: "It makes sense when the OTC over-crowding is caused by NonRes. The data is out there."
“does it make a difference if you're being crowded by residents or non-residents? Crowding is crowding, no matter who's doing it.“
If we cap and regionalize OTC for non-res we can control overcrowding… see how that works? Simple concept.
Where I [used to] hunt OTC archery elk , NonRes trucks outnumber Res trucks 3:1, maybe 4:1
Lungshot x2!! And there is no good reason a resident should be sitting on the sideline, unless they choose, because they didn’t draw first go around and then they are stuck in the free for all draws……and everyone has seen what a $hit show that is!
Oh wait.... You're an outfitter. That makes sense
It didn't make sense to me before i was a outfitter and it still dont. Why would the state give you what you want when you dont contribute anything. We should of taken a different approach 20 years ago.
Residents don't contribute? Your outfitter bias keeps showing on these threads
Archery hunters as a whole are not a management tool
We are absolutely a “Management tool” even if your only talking about tag sales which equals revenue which equals funds for wildlife managers, conservation projects, recreational projects etc… If we keep telling ourselves we don’t have a seat at the table we don’t. As far as I’m concerned we do.
With that mindset I guess archery season should just be eliminated. Careful what you wish for the commission is already headed that direction
I grew up in unit 33. 25 years ago they made it a draw unit for archery. Cpw said at the time that to many archery hunters were pushing the elk on to private property before rifle season and they could not manage heard numbers properly. That unit is still a 0 point unit for residents. I feel like our resident bowhunters voice is just like a nagging old lady to the CPW. And they are kinda tired of it. Just my opinion.
I dont look at it as the State giving me anything. The wildife is mine shared with my fellow Coloradoans. The States job is to manage it so we can benefit from it. Part of that is allowing some non-owners (nonresidents) access to hunt to generate license revenue and economic activity for hotels, restaurants, stores, outfitters, etc.
Of all the groups of Colorado residents who benefit from wildlife, resident hunters are one of the few who pay their way. Most who benefit economically or just enjoy seeing, photographing, hearing or just knowing wildlife is out there contribute nothing directly to the budget.
"Why would the state give you what you want when you dont contribute anything."
I contributed 1,200 last year as a resident. Drew a cow moose, 3 ATV registrations, elk, deer, small game, fishing, I think 8 landowner voucher fees, boat registration' state parks pass, and probably more. Boat registration fees are crazy.
Think about a guy with 4 or 5 kids living in rural colorado with median incomes at about poverty level. Maybe you should retract that statement?
Im not against you! Or any Colorado resident. But what you got for 1200 dollars would be 12,000 to a non resident. And non residents dont complain about everything. I remember when you could get a otc deer tag for 12.50$ guys still complained
Well, the comparison at CPW is NR elk brings in $800. They appear to value that more then my 1,200, my contributions to the community economics, and my county property taxes that tripled this year.
You and I would agree on a couple things. This state has changed, the other thing is we probably agree on is we like better the way it used to be.
As I've said before, when climate change makes wyoming less windy, I'm moving there.
PECO and Lungshot: Don't get me wrong, I'm in the corner of either NR draw or NR caps while keeping Res OTC.
But I just dont see how if 5000 tags are available for an area, and those tags all get sold, how does that remedy the crowding issue, whether it's NR's or R's buying the tags. I need that explained to me so I can understand.
PECO and Lungshot: Don't get me wrong, I'm in the corner of either NR draw or NR caps while keeping Res OTC.
But I just dont see how if 5000 tags are available for an area, and those tags all get sold, how does that remedy the crowding issue, whether it's NR's or R's buying the tags. I need that explained to me so I can understand.
cnelk, Funny he has on one of his main BIO pages that he is a longtime native of Colorado, glad you pointed that out, when we're at the next meeting for state development I'm going to point out that Polis has contradictions in his Bio statements that are miss leading, most likely won't change anything.
I'm 100% in favor of resident bowhunting retaining the OTC areas. Should roll back to the map before all the OTC units lost the last few years.
That said, residents keeping some OTC units and nonresident being all limited will not result in any noticable change in "crowding". There will still be around 50,000 bowhunters and even if they reduce it to 45,000, it will be basically unnoticeable.
As long as the herds stay around the current number, there won't be any big reduction in total licenses sold. That holds true even if resident archery goes 100% limited as well.
Why not limit NRs to a draw and leave residents OTC and see how it goes for 5 years?
Also, it doesn't make a difference if your "draw" is for thousands of tags.
I issue I have with any of the CPW/DOW elk studies when is comes to "bow hunters" pushing elk onto private property is that there is never a follow up study to see if their action actually produced the results they wanted. The White River study, done over 25 years ago, was one of those studies and it claimed early movement, so those units 23/24 went limited draw. Never a follow up study to see if there were less elk movement early. Oh, OTC licenses remained on private land!!!!!!!!!!!! GEE!
^^ therein lies the problem Idyl.
Prime example in 2020, gmu’s 44,45,47 & 444 went to “bull only” draw for archery from otc(no cow tags because of low calf recruitment). First year 526/700 total tags sold with 152 going to NR. In 2021 & 2022 it sold out 2nd choice. 35% NR cap for 1st choice is 245 of the 700, however with no NR cap 264 tags went to NR’s in 2021 & 306 of the 700 to NR in 2022. In 2023 they increased tags from 700 to 800. 353 tags went to NR that year. When the question was directly posed to CPW about the tag increase from 700 to 800, I was told “the area is being managed specifically for opportunity, not overall experience and not necessarily for herd objectives”.
Money is definitely the driving factor with NR tags. As long as CPW continues to allow NR to have no hard cap on tag allocations and sets tag numbers in draw units for income purposes only it will never make a difference on crowding.
(Please make no mistake, this area(Vail) of Colorado has seen a huge population increase in full time residents since 2014 and even more since COVID, with more year round outdoor recreationalists to the point of having to make reservations on NF trails because of overcrowding & the elk populations have taken a significant reduction over the last ten years. It is not that there are more elk here that would in any way justify the tag increases-CPW runs articles in the local newspapers asking recreationalists to please observe spring area/trail closures during calving seasons because the elk numbers are declining so rapidly.)
Agreed Paul, last herd management plan listed for E-16(units in my above post) on the CPW website is from 2013. I guess if you hide the current data it makes it easier to justify monetary decisions over wildlife conservation.
@IdyllwildArcher "Why not limit NRs to a draw and leave residents OTC and see how it goes for 5 years?"
CPW made a presentation at the the CBA annual shindig last month and I asked them this exact question. I said give it 5 years to see if it works because once they go 100% draw they will never go back. Their response was something like "when we ended OTC for deer we didn't do that and we don't do that kind of hybrid thing here." Couldn't believe that was the best weak-ass excuse they came up with for that option not being given serious consideration.
A MAJOR issue is that CPW does not have a justifiable way to track what actual/historical OTC unit by unit hunter numbers have been in the past to set tag allocations correctly.
CPW has no harvest reporting requirements and relies solely on post season email and phone call surveys conducted by part time employees or college students to collect data on where people hunt and success rates.
There are between 40 and 50 high country OTC units depending on your definition of high country. Devils advocate here--50,000 OTC tags sold and 40,000 of those hunters could have been all hunting in 5 of the 45ish OTC units, yet they are going to set draw tag numbers for every OTC unit based on what factual data of actual hunter numbers? It is going to be an absolute S%*t Show!
How about something like keeping Resident OTC, implement a geographic tracking system on tags sold/areas hunted and mandatory harvest reporting. This could be easily done with NR tags by individual unit sales data and then allocations adjusted post season on an annual basis until they get the NR numbers close for individual gmu's. Even without the mandatory harvest reporting it'd be better than shooting from the hip.
(CPW told me they explored a mandatory harvest reporting system and the costs outweighed the benefits and post hunting surveys were close enough in their book, really???)
^^^ Right. My home unit is historically one of the worst as far as archery success rates. Always has been, for a variety of reasons. Then one year the success rate miraculously jumped to 23%. I did not see a dead elk in a camp or a vehicle that season, and the only elk checked by my game warden fishing buddy was an illegal spike. But Huntin Fool and the other tag whore outfits picked up on it and publicized it as a great "sleeper" unit.
The next year resident apps increased by about 30%, producing point creep, but the success rate dropped back down to single digits, where it always was.
