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Bow attached decoy part 2

The CPW Commission will discuss this issue 22, at 8:30 am. on March 18 during their ZOOM meeting.

The day prior, ON March 17, at 2:30 pm, the Commission will discuss the Citizens Petition to ban ALL recreational trapping. At this meeting "the commission will consider whether it should adopt the Director's written recommendation to DENY a petition for rulemaking." or not.

It will be interesting how the Commission will react and what the votes will be and by whom on both of these issues.

Anyone else besides me as a Colorado hunter, and the CBA, send a message to the Commission concerning bow mounted decoys??????????????????? The Commission meeting on this issue, is March 18 and there is time to submit your comments per the CPW web site. [email protected] Agenda issue 21 to be heard on March 18 on 8:30am.

Yep.

Thanks Lou. I am going to listen to the ZOOM , meeting.

I sent my comments. Basically said that hunters already have the choice to not use weapon mounted decoys if they have any safety concern so no new restriction is needed and hit on the fact that their isn't any clear and present need for any restrictions, so time and energy is better spent elsewhere.

Thanks Don

Also sent my comments on both subjects, Bow mounted decoy & box traps. With this governor in office the anti's won't stop as they have a stanch supporter on their side.

Thanks Dennis. The trapping issue will be discussed on Wed at 2:30 pm, Commission meeting, Zoom meeting can be seen on the CPW website.

The bow mounted decoy issue will be discussed on Thursday at 8:30 am, as above.

I will submit my comments tonight on the bow-mounted decoy issue. After reviewing the CPW item several things popped out. (1) The CPW states there is a safety issue with bow-mounted decoys. From 2010 - 2019 muzzleloaders and archers spent 3,946,574 days in the field after pronghorn and elk. Per their own wording, not one documented case of a bow-mounted decoy resulting in an accidental shooting was documented in the last 20 years. There is no safety issue. (2) The CPW issue states that bow-mounted decoys provide an unfair advantage to the hunter over the wildlife. I looked at the data (pictures). In general, as the number of hunting days increase, the number of animals taken also increases. This is not a big surprise. Archery elk and pronghorn and muzzleloader elk all generally show more animals taken as the number of days afield increase and they are generally in the same family. Muzzleloader pronghorn on the other hand is not in family with the other three plots. As the years have progressed, muzzleloader pronghorn hunters have become vastly more efficient at harvesting. Is this due to the use of decoys? Who knows. But perhaps the CPW should put some effort into studying the efficacy of using a decoy when muzzleloading, rather than simply hamstring archers.

The main reason ML pronghorn hunters may have become more successful over the years is that, in the past, ML pronghorn season was conducted after the rifle pronghorn season. That was changed a few years ago so now the ML season starts the day after the archery pronghorn season, giving ML hunter a better opportunity to harvest, thus increase their harvest percentage.

My take is, I doubt the the CPW staff, in general, believes that bow hunters are increasing their harvest because of bow mounted decoys. The person who initiated this issue was the Commission Chair and the staff just followed up and wrote the issue paper to be examined.

Thanks Paul@thefort. There was a dramatic increase in muzzleloader success starting in 2015. Perhaps that increase is consistent with the season change. I looked up the authors of the issue and they are all CPW staff, which I found curious. Your explanation makes the entire issue more clear to me now and makes me even more irritated.

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