Daily Elk Harvest Data
Colorado
would anyone know where or how to get daily elk harvest data? i cannot find it. i can't recall if that data is part of the surveys or not.
our state at one time published some stats that showed what dates that the most deer and the biggest deer were harvested. roughly nov 3 for archery deer and nov 15 for gun deer. it also showed that many were taken opening weekend of archery with a lull in between. you could see that more deer were taken on weekends and it also showed the number of hunters per day.
i have to believe that there are optimal days in september for each unit that success is maximized.
Barry, I see you are from Michigan. Maybe this message needs to be applied to the Michigan Conference.
I think he's asking about CO. No, they don't ask that on the survey.
Glunt, --correct. No Colorado stats available on daily harvest. Just end of seasons stats by manner of take, per season.
Have never heard of that level of data being tabulated in CO, and I've lived here for 60 years. Heck, the hunter numbers and harvest are only extrapolated from a smallish sample, and sometimes that is way off.
The units I hunt historically have some of the lowest archery success rates in the state. One year it magically jumped to 23%, even though the game warden told me he didn't check a single archery elk in any camps. I did not see or hear of any taken. Now the published rate is back where it should be, 7-8%.
I'd be happy with a breakdown in the percentage of elk killed on public land vs private land.
I took care of two NF campgrounds for several years and kept close tabs on the hunters who stayed there. What I observed was the best elk harvest was on the very first day of the first season by a large margin. Everything went down hill from there! For deer the best time for big bucks was always around the end of the first week in November.
The best date for elk is Sept 17th*
*This is completely unverified and is a W.A.G. based on years of surfing this site and running around the mountains in September
The following will mostly prove what a nerd I am, but a couple years ago during a rehab I decided to look at as many of the elk trophy photos listed by various hunters on here as I could. This is clearly not a large enough sample to be scientifically valid, but I think it's still interesting. I looked at over two hundred elk kills(bulls only) from all states and tallied them. The biggest 7 day period by far was Sept.17-23, with the two biggest individual days being the 19th and 20th. The next biggest week was the 10th -16th. The beginning of Sept. slightly outdid the last week, but some bulls were taken on all days. The bottom line, as stated on here many times is go when you can, as often as you can, and stay as long as you can...Still.....
The best day for elk is the day you put one on the ground.
Brun, nerdly perhaps but interesting and appreciated.
