I lived in Colorado for 35 years, worked in Aspen, Snowmass, Carbondale, and Glenwood. I got really into hunting at the age of 26. I hunted high country buck in 471 a few times, hunted elk all over 471, 43, 444, 47 and once unit 61. I killed a bighorn ram in 2006 at the base of Sopris, a mountain goat billy in 2001 near the town of independence. A lion over near Gypsum, bears above Aspen, and down on Missouri heights. Deer in 471, 43, 444, 5, 34, 44. Won a raffle tag for deer Governors tag once too. The hunting was great for deer in the early 90's, elk really came into play in the late 90's and early 2000's. I killed several big bulls, and missed some giants. The opportunities to hunt were great as well.
In the last 10 to 15 years I got more preference points than deer tags, the elk population starting dropping like a rock around 2008 or 2009, while at the same time the hunting pressure went through the roof. Quality of elk peaked in that area around 2006 to 2008. Where in the early 90's I'd see 330 to 360 bulls every season, by late 2000's I would rarely see a bull bigger than 300 in some areas.
Parks was merged with DOW because parks needed money and DOW had money coming in. My understanding was that DOW was the only state agency that didn't receive tax money, only license sales. Parks siphoned money off that was needed for game management. I knew many of the DOW officers back in those days. Unit 444 elk herd was down 60% when I last spoke to the DWM back in 2019 or 2020, they didn't know why. I was told that the decision makers in Denver were pushing cow tags for the revenue. There were years I got 3 elk tags, many years where there were 500 left over PLO cow tags. Last I saw there were still some cow tags being issued.
Quality of the hunt started going down noticeably in about the mid 2000's. Hunter numbers seemed to be very high in some areas. I counted more hunters than antelope when I last hunted antelope in 2009. Deer numbers in 444 were hit hard back in about 1996, they didn't seem to recover in numbers ever, though quality did come back around 2016.
CWD exists in way more areas than they admit. I had extensive discussions with CPW employees about CWD, it appeared then that they had a much more extensive problem than they thought. My buddy hunted an area north of Eagle several years back with mandatory testing, his deer tested positive, the next year CPW said CWD was not known to exist in that area.
I left a few years ago, since then it seems like circling the bowl has transitioned to down the drain. Training class to buy a gas operated semi auto now. Additional taxes, 11% i believe, on ammo. Magazine capacity limits. Illegal to make your own gun now, or posess one you made legally in the past. Red Flag law. State license to be an FFL. License plate cameras going into the shooting range, cameras with audio on the shooting line, video recorded and kept forever. Video accessible to "law enforcement".
And now you have wolves, wolves that were known to be preying on livestock before they were transplanted. It is only a matter of time now before the deer and elk populations are in trouble. Impede lion hunting, like they tried to do, and deer will suffer immensely as will the avalanche creek bighorn sheep herd.
The anti gun laws will only get worse, the anti gun culture will only increase. Wildlife will suffer from poaching, predation, and mismanagement. Freedom in general will continue to erode. Traffic was horrible there several years ago and from friends there it is worse than ever. And, they keep raising taxes. License fees will continue to go up.
Colorado with its impressive scenery is already gone. There is NO voting that will slow down the rot, let alone reverse it.
. Yes it is a tough situation, yes it’s an uphill fight. But did a law that many thought would be a slam dunk get stone walled 60/40 last year?! Yes! 
