For me, there is no offseason. Hunting season does not begin in the fall, it is a yearlong procession of research, applications and scouting seasons, all culminating in the hunt. I put a lot of effort into this process; have developed some different ways of doing my research to put myself and my hunting partners on the ground in productive country, and would like to show how it is we are able to routinely harvest in new country every year. Because we are unit hoppers, we never get to intimately know an area the way someone would who has hunted a specific drainage for the past 20 years. I don’t find that to be a handicap, in fact, I feel that you are missing out by not exploring new country whenever possible. When you are wed to a specific unit, you stay with it through the good years and bad years, never feeling comfortable with the idea of trying a new location, not knowing how your wisdom will translate, and not knowing the specific movement habits of game in a new spot. I accept that I will never know have a complete understanding of the unique movements of game in every area, but I feel that knowledge and wisdom gained through hunting many places will apply to most situations I will encounter. While I may eventually settle down to hunting a few units routinely, by being flexible and keeping my eye on the population trends, I am able to hunt more places at their peak, and I don’t ever feel “stuck” with the same old, same old.
Unit selection is all about putting the odds in your favor. Most elk and deer hunters throughout the west go home empty handed more often than not. On average, elk hunters in Colorado harvest about 20% of the time, and deer hunters are successful about 40% of the time. Average isn’t good enough for me; I want to have the chance to harvest every time I go out. To do that, I feel it is advantageous to put yourself in more productive country. But how do you identify those areas? What do I look for when selecting a unit? After I’ve selected a unit to hunt, then how do I go about narrowing down the options for selecting a specific region to hunt? This script will attempt to show you the statistics and research that I looked at for this year and then show you the sign, habitat and terrain features that will encourage or discourage me from hunting in a specific area. Then hopefully, we’ll be able to put it all together for a successful hunt.
To begin the 2010 application season, my partners and I all had differing amounts of preference points and hunting preferences. We are all Colorado transplants, and so we do not have deep connections to any particular area within the state. We are mostly rifle hunters, but we also dabble in muzzleloading and archery now and then to expand our hunting opportunities. In 2009, very few of us were successful in drawing our first choice deer and elk tags, so we mostly hunted on second choices, OTC tags and leftovers. We had an up and down year with a few blown chances sticking in our collective craws making the season seem not quite as successful as we had hoped. As a group, our deer preference points were all over the map, with one of us having 0 points, one having 1 point, 2 having 2 points, one having 4 points, and two with 5 points. Only one of the 3 with a high deer point count had a plan for his points, the others were just blindly accumulating. For elk, we had fewer points as a group, with one having 5 points, but the rest of us had either one or two points each.
So our first order of business was to sit down and have a Meeting of the Mighty Hunters to map out our plans back in February. This was already past the application deadline for Wyoming elk, but none of us seemed interested in attempting an elk hunt Wyoming this year. For the last couple of years we have been going to Wyoming for a doe antelope hunt, so our first set of deadlines was going to be March 15th. New Mexico elk was on Ryan’s radar, and I decided to apply again for Nevada mule deer, as the last cheap and easy western hunt left now that New Mexico requires the full fee up front. But other than those hunts, the majority of our efforts were going to be focused on our home state of Colorado.
As with every group, some take a more active role in the planning process than others, with the less active members being more amenable to whatever the planners decide on. First order of business and that which most of us plan our year around is the elk hunting. In 2009, the main group hunt was a 1st rifle cow hunt in and alongside a wilderness area. We also had a 3rd rifle OTC bull elk hunt for 3 of us, while others hunted muzzleloader and archery seasons if they hunted elk a second time. Ryan had just taken up muzzleloading in 2009 and had an awesome experience with elk bugling in his face. As a dedicated waterfowler, the game calling aspect also appealed to him. To me, l liked the idea of having first crack at an elk with a firearm, and love mid September in the Rockies. We were also able to get more guys to commit to a backcountry elk hunt in September as opposed to October or November. Thankfully, we have access to Adam’s horses, which would make packing in a lot easier for all of us. Still, not everyone in the group was willing to commit to this hunt, but enough of us were willing to give it a shot.
Previously, I wasn’t willing to consider muzzleloading for cow elk until 2010 when the regulations changed. The previous statewide muzzleloader cow tag was a List A tag. But now that the statewide tag had been broken up into numerous units, with those tags that were List B for rifle hunts, now being list B for muzzleloading, it made it so that if I drew a cow tag, we wouldn’t lose an opportunity at a bull with the OTC tags or a leftover. While we were sold on muzzleloader season for our elk applications, we were well aware that our success rates would be much lower than a first rifle season tag. Traditionally, here in Colorado, 1st rifle season stands head and shoulders above the other seasons in terms of success rates. Of the 106 units I follow closely 1st season has approximately twice the success rates of the OTC seasons. Part of that is due to the common either sex tags, part of it is due to the fact that the elk have not been bothered for several weeks, and have not been run off onto the lower elevation private lands. But as you can see in the graph, 1st and 4th seasons are generally your best bets to kill an elk. These are 5 year averages reflecting either sex success rates for archery, muzzleloader, 1st and 4th rifle season, but bull only success rates for 2nd and 3rd seasons.
But where to go? I’m not the kind of guy who’ll chase a hot tip, and I try to put the experiences of others into perspective when listening to their advice. And most guys who’ll suggest a place to hunt have no perspective, and don’t really know what’s out there. Looking over data will help put things into perspective. And while it can be manipulated, I trust it more than the biased opinions of most hunters.
The unit had to be List B, so that those who drew cow tags could still hunt a bull. We also wanted a high density elk unit with low pressure. I want to hunt in units where I at least have a solid chance at shooting what I consider a trophy bull, basically anything approaching 300 inches. I have a sliding trophy scale, depending on the circumstances of the hunt; how many days I have left, what caliber of bulls I am seeing, what caliber I expect to see, and how many, if any elk I’ve already seen. The stat that I’m most willing to compromise on is success rate, as there are so many variables that affect a success rate that I feel it does not accurately reflect the way I hunt. Some of the guys were going to only put in for cow tags as a second choice so they could continue to accumulate preference points, but we were totally unsure of how the new muzzleloading elk units would draw out. There were no draw odds, and no tag quotas announced ahead of the draw, so it was going to be a gamble.
Anyway, our unit possibilities boiled down to the following units, some of which we had hunted in the past, others were new to us: Units that ranked highly on my lists that we had hunted recently and were considering returning to A, B, C, D, E, F and units that we had not hunted recently but were very interested in W, X, Y, and Z. Included on this list were some units that had previously had limited muzzleloader tags, but since we were unsure of how the breakup of the statewide tag would affect tag demand, we gave them some consideration too. All of these units had significant roadless area, most of which was federally designated wilderness.
As you can see in the chart, unit X has a significant elk density advantage over the others, and was a unit we had had our eye on for the past several years as the elk population had been growing.
Unit C, also has a substantial elk population, we were very familiar with it, but it was basically considered a raghorn unit, as you can see in the % of the bulls being harvested there last year. In fact, while only 30% of the bulls had been harvested out of that unit in 2009, that is considered a down year for that unit, as typical harvest percentages are in the mid to upper 40% range, leaving very few older bulls in the population. However, while Unit Y was a little below average in elk density, it is the top trophy potential unit, right next to unit X.
When you examine the number of elk per hunter in these units, once again unit X comes out on top, with only unit B coming in a close second. But unit B, which we hunted last year, doesn’t come close in terms of trophy potential and has half the elk density.
We do however like the extremely low hunter density in unit B as compared to unit X, but it’s not like X was particularly bad. When we hunted Unit C a few years ago, the hunter density was a real turn off for us, despite the fact we all harvested elk. Unit Y came up as another good possibility for low hunter density and good numbers of elk per hunter.
The main downsides to both units X and Y were the success rates, indicating difficult to access elk populations, especially compared to units C, E and Z.
Still, since we had decided to backcountry camp this year’s muzzleloader hunt, we were willing to disregard the lower success rates that are typical of units where a significant portion of the area is wilderness. We also knew we had to step up our scouting efforts in order to find good populations to hunt during muzzleloader season, as we wouldn’t be able to up and move very easily during the limited amount of time we’d have to hunt. But our decision had become a no-brainer at this point. With the expanding elk population in Unit X, which still wasn’t on the tongues of many hunters, we had to hunt this unit while it was still at its peak. Unit X is tops in nearly every category and the mediocre success rates could be explained away by the poor access that we could overcome through backcountry camping.
So that solved one of our primary elk hunt. Myself and Adam would put in for the bull tag as a first choice but were unsure how many points it would take to draw it. Ryan, Mike and Jason would apply for the cow tags with a second choice; while Matt and a friend of his from Florida, Chuck, would bow hunt the unit. We all applied separately, no group applications.
That left our deer applications for the other major group hunt. Having two or more resident points really opens up a lot of excellent possibilities. Determining a season can be almost as important as determining a unit. For us, primitive weapons hunts for deer hold little interest, but the early, high country rifle hunts have a lot of appeal. When you look at Western Colorado as a whole, there is little reason to spend the points on 4th rifle season, and the early rifle season is a terrible value. Although we still remain interested in the early rifle hunt, it would also conflict with our muzzleloader hunt this year.
However, when you look at some of my top rated units, you’ll see a few that truly represent excellent value. No one in the group had any special attraction to previously hunted units, and in fact hadn’t been happy with the ones we had hunted in the past, and had not drawn any tags since we had recently been following the data as closely as we do now. Jason and I had applied last year to unit A, but did not get drawn. However, a customer of mine had an excellent hunt in the same area we intended to hunt. I was open to a variety of units and seasons for 2010, but really dislike the amount of pressure that the 2nd season sees due to the number of OTC elk hunters. Traditionally, 2nd season has nearly twice the hunter pressure that 3rd season sees, and the deer success was lower. So it had to be a truly stellar unit to interest us in a 2nd season deer hunt. The units we were looking at for this year also had to require 2 points or less so most of us would have a chance to draw.
Unit A 3rd season, Unit B 3rd season, Unit C 2nd season, Unit D 2nd season and Unit E 3rd season, were the only units given much consideration. This was not going to be a meat hunt for most of us, we were after a quality experience. In the group, our trophy standards are all over the place, with some guys willing to shoot the first buck they see, others willing to be a little more patient for a buck. The unit also had to be OTC for elk, so those who only drew cow tags in muzzleloader season could come along on a bull hunt. Also, we had another friend, Tom, who wasn’t up for the backcountry muzzleloader hunt with his son, but would be more willing to jump in on an OTC bull hunt. He would be hunting a unit we had good success in for 1st season a few years ago.
Each of these 5 units had something going for them, and we knew that whichever we selected would be a slight compromise. But we had some incredible options to mull over. First, looking at the deer densities, unit E was the obvious standout, and is one of the top deer density units in the state.
But Units A and B were not too far behind in deer density.
One of the real downsides to Unit E 3rd season, which is even worse in worse in 2nd season, is the hunter density.
So, negating Unit E 3rd season, we looked at A and B for 3rd season, which were the next highest deer densities, and you’ll see both have low hunter densities. In terms of trophy Potential, Unit B 3rd season, begins to separate itself from A 3rd season.
However, unit C has excellent trophy potential. But the real downside there is the low deer density. Also, Unit C has a poor success rate. While that normally wouldn’t be the deciding factor, it did play a small role in this decision.
Of the last major statistical categories that I decided to look, Bucks per Hunter, Unit D 2nd season really stood out from the pack:
As I said, this was a tough decision. All of these units were ranked in the top 15 to 20 units in 2nd or 3rd season, and amongst the top values. The first to be eliminated was unit E 3rd season. It ranked the worst of these units, but the incredible deer density kept it in play in the discussions. Unit D 2nd season is the top ranked second season deer hunt, but because it required one more point than the other units, it would eliminate some of our hunters from drawing, and those with the minimum number of points, might not actually draw. So that left Units A, B and C. Unit C 2nd season only had the high trophy potential going for it, everything else looked poor in comparison with units A and B. And unit C 3rd season required more points than most of us had. So, in reality it came down to unit A versus unit B in 3rd season. Unit B was ranked slightly above A in our rankings, but because A was so close to our elk muzzleloader elk area, we had knowledge of the unit, the success rate was higher and the landownership pattern and terrain more conducive to our hunting styles, we decided to compromise and go with A. A did not lead any category, but was still an excellent unit.
Deciding on which units to apply for in New Mexico and Nevada went through similar processes. When we first started antelope hunting in Wyoming, we went on the recommendation of an area by a friend of ours. Productive hunting, and research showing we’d have to travel a lot further to greatly improve our hunting has had us staying put in the unit we know and like. Plus the tags are easy to get.
To be continued next time with the draw results, remote scouting and spring scouting…
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