You may wait a lifetime to have enough pts to draw an Eagle or Gunnison tag. What happens if you draw the Gunnision Basin and there are several year's of winterkill? It generally takes at least 5 or 6 years+ for bucks to mature and produce whopper headgear. The Eagle unit late season hunts are some of the toughest units in Colo to draw and are a challenge to find whopper bucks. If conditions are right it could be a super hunt but if not it can be extremely frustrating! The Eagle hunts are highly dependent upon migration and snow. What happens if it's a full moon, no snow, and warm year with little migration? You may wait a lifetime to draw one of those tags but there is no guarantee you'll harvest a 180 or even a 170+ buck! There is potential for a true whopper but those bucks are few and far between. The governor tag guys often shoot them in December after everyone is long gone from that country. A lot of guys don't realize that the Eagle units are OTC for elk. There may be few muledeer tags but there is usually a gob of orange harassing deer while hunting elk. Mature bucks know exactly what is going on! To add to the difficulty there is dark timber in some of that area where mature bucks tend to hang out and live through the hunting seasons.
Anyway, there are a lot of factors that go into a hunt....especially if you have no experience with a unit. If it were me and I waited 15+ years for a tag there is no way I would head to a unit for the first time a couple days prior to the season! If you put all your marbles into 1 hunt you may easily be disappointed! A lot of guys freak out after waiting so many years of applying and shoot the first decent buck they see.....there is an ungodly amount of pressure to harvest an animal on those type of hunts! If you want to be super picky on a hunt of a lifetime....there is always the chance you may eat tag soup or go home with a lessor buck towards the end of the hunt.
Anyway, there are a lot of factors that go into a hunt....especially if you have no experience with a unit. If it were me and I waited 15+ years for a tag there is no way I would head to a unit for the first time a couple days prior to the season! If you put all your marbles into 1 hunt you may easily be disappointed! A lot of guys freak out after waiting so many years of applying and shoot the first decent buck they see.....there is an ungodly amount of pressure to harvest an animal on those type of hunts! If you want to be super picky on a hunt of a lifetime....there is always the chance you may eat tag soup or go home with a lessor buck towards the end of the hunt.
