Game per hunter

We all like hunting in places where there are a lot of animals and not a lot of hunters. However, many of the elk and deer hot spots are either tightly controlled or too well known, with too many hunters.
When I first looked into the game per hunter statistic for my own unit selection, I was coming off two disappointing elk hunts in a row, hoping to find areas with just as many elk, but far fewer hunters. Both hunts were in well known areas of Northwest Colorado; the Bear’s Ears and the Flat Tops. Yes, I was hunting 1-2 miles from the roads, and yes I did harvest elk on both hunts, but I was stunned at the number of hunters, my inability to escape the pressure, and the degree to which the elk were run back and forth between ambush points. Shooting at panicked elk, with their tongues hanging out of their mouths from exhaustion was not my idea of a good time. The morning after I harvested the cow elk in the Flat Tops, I decided to hit a smaller, hopefully lesser known parcel of BLM to look for deer. I had allotted plenty of time to drive to the location and hike up the cliffs, but there were guys parked or camped all over the place, trying to hunt a roughly 4 square mile parcel of BLM. There was just nowhere to go to ditch the crowds. That’s really more of an issue of public land hunter density, but that hunter density breeds a competitiveness, and drive to shoot the first legal animal that many hunters would rather not deal with. Throughout most of the west, there are considerably more hunters than legal male animals during every season. If you want to shed some of the pressure to harvest the first legal animal you see, you need to look for under the radar areas with good numbers of game per hunter.
To some degree, higher hunter densities can be tolerated if you are seeing game. But those game sightings might not be what you consider an ideal opportunity to fill your tag. This is where the game per hunter statistic matters. Units with high game per hunter values, whether it is elk, deer, bucks or bulls per hunter, those are units that provide you the luxury of turning down a less than ideal shot at a less than ideal animal. Many areas have less than 1 elk, bull, buck, or deer per hunter, depending on the season. Those are places where you will be tempted to take that long distance, Hail Mary-type shot that you may or may not have been practicing all summer for. If you’re four days into the hunt and finally see your first elk running straight away through timber, you might be tempted to take a shot you wouldn’t otherwise be proud of.
This same line of thinking applies to buck and bull hunters who are trying to stick to an age or trophy standard. If there is less than one buck per hunter in the woods, you can’t really be picky and still expect to go home with an animal.
For instance, let’s say you are ready to apply for your first high quality deer tag (we’ll get to elk in a minute). We all dream of Boone and Crockett class deer, but in reality, those are freaks of nature, and not the norm. But let’s say a 4 year old deer is our goal, maybe it’ll score 160 inches, maybe you are more interested in 28 inch or better spread. Either way, you need to be able to pick and choose a little bit to harvest an animal that you are satisfied with (and you really shouldn’t be shooting a substandard animal just to fill your tag. If you have a standard, stick to it. Let someone else harvest that young deer if won’t make you happy.). But if what you’re looking for requires some age, say 4.5 years old, you need to know the odds of making it that old and how many deer you may have to turn down to find that old of a deer. We’ve already covered the trophy potential indices in previous articles (email me if you want another copy), but we haven’t covered the number of deer you’ll have to be willing to turn down yet, which is another use for the bucks/hunter statistic.
First, we’ll need some brief overview of population demographics. Each cohort or age group of deer will have the maximum number of males of a cohort available at birth, with that cohort declining over time. There will likely be a high rate of fawn losses over their first few months, after which the losses over time slow down, then increasing again as the deer age, and their teeth wear down. That is more applicable to does than bucks, as most hunters do not select for a particularly large, old, young or small doe. They often take the first legal animal. Bucks will be a little different. After fawnhood (50% mortality is pretty typical), there is a steadily increasing pressure on the bucks as they age, meeting more and more hunters’ trophy standards. A yearling buck in a trophy unit likely won’t have many folks willing to pull the trigger on him, but a 5 or 6 year old will likely meet 90% of hunters’ trophy standards.
Of course this takes nothing into account regarding that individual deer’s ability to avoid hunter pressure as he ages. So, in a medium density (hypothetical 8 deer/sq mi, 65 square miles, 25 buck: 100 does sex ratio) unit where 20% of the bucks are harvested annually (pretty typical outside of OTC states), and let’s say another 5% die of natural mortality between the ages of 1.5 and 7.5 each year, how many 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 year old bucks would you be likely to encounter before finding the 4.5 year old that meets your standard?
In this little unit, with 435 does and 87 bucks, we have a theoretical buck age structure of 25 1.5 year old bucks, 19 2.5 year olds, and 14 3.5 year olds before you get to the 4.5 and up crowd, with 11 4.5 year olds, 8 5.5 year olds, 6 6.5 year olds and 4 7.5 year olds before they all die out by age 8. So of the 87 bucks, 58 or 67% do not meet our requirements. See the problem developing here? If 2 out of every 3 bucks do not meet your requirements, you’ll need to see at least 3 bucks before you pull the trigger. In which case, hunting a unit with less than 3 bucks per hunter would be make no sense whatsoever. And if you want to start putting the odds in your favor, I’d be hoping to find a unit with 6 or more bucks per hunter. 6 bucks per hunter isn’t out of the question, as nearly 25% of Colorado’s western deer units meet that requirement. However, this isn’t the case with most other Western states that I’ve looked at. One would think that Utah might come close, but only in their 3 top trophy units do they exceed 6 bucks per hunter. Wyoming appears much better at first, as the state average is 7 bucks per hunter, but a few units that exceed 100 bucks per hunter really the exaggerate the statistic. In this case, it’s better to look at the median bucks per hunter in Wyoming which is just 1.16. In California, the state average is 3.6 bucks per hunter, but once again is being carried by a few top units. The California median bucks per hunter is just 2.1, which is still better than the mediocre units in Wyoming, believe it or not. Oregon, with their OTC deer tags is much worse, averaging 1.25 bucks per hunter, with only one unit exceeding 6 deer per hunter and just four units exceeding 3 bucks per hunter.
I’m sure you get the point, but if you have a standard that you plan on sticking to, you need to be in the right unit for you and your goals. And even in well managed states, you can’t find a unit like this by picking radomly.
Now, like I promised, let’s look at elk. On average, it seems more people are happier with a younger age class of bull than they are deer. A 3 year old bull is easily capable of exceeding 260 inches, which most hunters would deem a trophy. Elk are much hardier and don’t have nearly the calf mortality that deer suffer, but they also have fewer young cows reproducing. In a hypothetical unit of 4 elk per square mile, 90 square miles, 25 bulls per 100 cows, a post season ratio of 35 calves per 100 cows and 35% bull harvest is pretty typical. In Colorado, spikes are generally protected and suffer almost no natural mortality. So, if they survive calfhood, they will likely make it to 2.5 years old, at which point they are relentlessly pursued. In our little population of 61 bulls and 305 cows, we can expect 18 or so yearling spikes, 16 2.5 year olds, 10 3.5 year olds, 7 4.5 year olds, 4 5.5 year olds, 3 6.5 year olds, 2 7.5 year olds and an 8.5 year old. So of those 61 bulls, 27 meet our minimum critieria, or 44%. If you’re happy with raghorn 2.5 year olds, 43 bulls or 70% of the bulls would make you happy. But sticking with the 3.5 and older bulls we’ll still need to pass up one or two bulls before finding one we’d be happy with harvesting.
So, looking for a unit with 2 or more bulls per hunter isn’t out of the question, even during OTC seasons. Colorado’s first season averages more than two bulls per hunter throughout the western units we cover. 3rd season and archery is your best bet if you are trying to be picky during an OTC season in Colorado. The high pressure OTC second season drops that average to just 0.74 bulls per hunter. Idaho’s general elk units are popular enough that there are no units with over 2 bulls per hunter, there’s a similar problem with Montana and their general tags. Most of Wyoming’s units with over two bulls per hunter are limited units, but some general units do fit the criteria. About half of New Mexico’s units allow for over 2 bulls per hunter, same with Arizona. The only units in Oregon or Utah that manage for greater than two bulls per hunter are limited draw units. Even though Colorado is known as a raghorn state, it’s your best opportunity at a 3 year old and older bull if you don’t want to wait to draw a limited tag. But you have to be willing to pass up legal animals if that is your goal. Harvesting the first raghorn you see will guarantee that you never shoot a mature animal. I know the temptation all too well, as my standards are on a sliding scale, depending on many factors…