Colorado and OTC tags
Kansas
Looks like Colorado may eliminate OTC Elk tags for archery in the near future.
There’s plenty of context in a number of threads on the main and Colorado forums. It seems like this has been the goal and direction for a while now. Obviously there are many moving parts here but at the root is the need for game departments to manage people rather than animals because of the popularity that some species and regions have gained.
Seeing it right now in Wyoming as well. The NR general elk hunt is likely moving to a not so “general” structure. They intend to split the general units into regions and direct the hunting pressure with quotas. Some of the proposed regions are smaller than a handful of current limited quota units. Thus officially ending any sort of “general” hunt per se. You might get a handful of units on one of the general region tags, but it will effectively play out that those regions are treated by hunters no differently than current limited quota units as they’ll take a certain number of points to acquire, some likely more than many of the established LQ hunts. I foresee Colorado looking very similar down the road. More units going to draw tags and “otc” regions, some popular enough that they sell out within minutes of going on sale. And somewhere down the line potentially all Colorado hunts moved into the draw system. Generous opportunities for non residents isn’t the way of the future in most states.
Hopefully if they do it’ll all be based off of biologists recommendations/ population trends, and not off of someone’s personal agenda.
I’m all for this type of movement by any and all states. Residents should always be the priority. Hopefully that is at least some of the motivation in CO.
Some years back they made unit 55 Elk a draw for bowhunters but left rifle hunts over the counter. I could see them doing that again if the limit other units, don't understand their reason for just limiting bow.
1. Everyone seems to hunt Colorado while they build points in other states. Things are getting very crowded.
2. It may be a pre-emptive move as they may need tighter management in the future due to unforeseen circumstances... ie wolves.
Residents should be the priority unless you are hunting land that we ALL own.
Colorado , Wyoming all have lots of national forest ground that is a little different than private, the residents do get a cheeper tag, have mixed feelings about them getting 90 percent of tags but do kinda feel their pain from what we deal with here in Ks if you do not own deer hunting ground. Seems every western state is cutting access to non Res and Kansas wants to give them more.
Basically this is going to require guys who western hunt yearly to have more of a plan. I am actually fine with Colorado doing this. OTC is crowded and residents from my perspectives are over it I get it, same thing we deal with here from their perspective regardless of amount of public vs private. Have hunted Colorado and Wyoming. Will say if Colorado adopts the same methods as Wyoming most will be happy, defiantly more about quality of hunt in Wyoming where as in Colorado my opinion is they manage for quantity of hunters. Will be interested to watch but I will continue to play the game in multiple western states!
We shall see how it goes. One big difference I see with elk vs WT deer in KS, deer don’t really leave the country like elk do so even though there are large expanses of public ground, a lot of it is void of elk after a week of bowhunting pressure.
Like KS, I’ll believe the changes when I see it. I will say that these changes made on the fly where they are converting OTC units over to draw is just making things worse for us OTC guys. It’s starting to look like salmon fishing on the Kenai River for reds.
