Colorado wilderness crowding

[GregB]

To continue on my theory that the problem is everywhere;

I don’t know how this relates to CO but I think part of the problem is that more and more people are being pushed to public land. People are not willing to let people hunt their land like before. Lease prices are becoming ridiculous. People still want to hunt and gravitate to public.

True, I used to jump shoot ducks off of irrigation ditches, and hunt geese in fields growing up, leave the farmer a bird or two. After everyone decided to start duck hunting farmers started leasing their fields to hunt for thousands.

 

[Donjuan]

A stupid question, but are all the trucks and horse trailers hunters or are some trail riders and hikers?

 

[Poser]

A stupid question, but are all the trucks and horse trailers hunters or are some trail riders and hikers?

Trucks with horse trailers are almost certainly hunters. Very rare to see non hunting equestrians in the CO Backcountry. I think I have seen it one single time. You do certainly get hikers, but that dwindles significantly over the course of September. Might see a random Thru hiker with a Lama, usually an older female.

In general, people with big trucks will
Be hunters, not hikers. Hikers will usually be in cars or SUVs. If the SUV has a bike rack, it’s probably not a hunter. (I say that as a hunter with a SUV that has a bike rack and a ski rack, but stereotypes do tend to hold true in this case). If the hunter is from Texas, they might go out of their way to park their rig in some jacked up manner such as one wheel on a slope and another on a boulder even though there is a perfectly flat space available. Treat a parking area like a crime scene and you can tell quite a bit about what to expect.

 

[Doc Holliday]

The main issue is that it is managed by the government. Look at Marine Fisheries, the Social Security Program, the National Deficit, and now in this conversation, wild lands........this screenshot below is from my home state of GA and says alot. You guys out west don't know how good you've got it at present.....but at the same time, you are starting to see the fallacy of thinking that there is a good future for anything managed by the government, especially one that is becoming more liberal/legislation based on pandering to urbanites by the day

 

[Newtosavage]

Yea, the last few wars we were in were all managed by the gubmint, and look how those turned out.

Doc, more trees is a pretty poor metric to prove forests are being managed "better." What you have are tree farms that are being harvested for pulp wood and 2x4's before the age of 20 and that's why there are "more trees." Nevermind those plantations are biological deserts.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Yea, the last few wars we were in were all managed by the gubmint, and look how those turned out.

Doc, more trees is a pretty poor metric to prove forests are being managed "better." What you have are tree farms that are being harvested for pulp wood and 2x4's before the age of 20 and that's why there are "more trees." Nevermind those plantations are biological deserts.

Do you think if these CO OTC units were privately owned that they would have the same hunter density as you have now?

 

[RockinU]

Do you think if these CO OTC units were privately owned that they would have the same hunter density as you have now?

No, that’s the point. If those lands were privatized it would diminish the opportunities for most. It would be pay to play.

 

[Doc Holliday]

No, that’s the point. If those lands were privatized it would diminish the opportunities for most. It would be pay to play.

Exactly, like I said, you guys don't know how good you have it (for now). But this complaining about crowding is what you are going to get in a shared public resource.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Doc, more trees is a pretty poor metric to prove forests are being managed "better." What you have are tree farms that are being harvested for pulp wood and 2x4's before the age of 20 and that's why there are "more trees." Nevermind those plantations are biological deserts.

And on the biological deserts comment, you couldn’t be more wrong. I know many land owners, and own some timber myself. I and every single landowner I know, and the people they know, all burn pine stands regularly, partner with their local county forestry office and wildlife biologist, maintain dedicated openings with annual and perennial food plots and native grasses, and also protect old growth hardwood bottoms and uplands. We have pileated woodpeckers, owls, hawks, falcons, a plethora of song birds, fox squirrels, bobcats, grey and red foxes, coyotes, raccoons, chipmunks, wild turkeys, deer, hogs, frogs, snakes, and too many insects to count. In our darkest mis-managed pine stand, we have much more game and life per square mile than you do in the mountains, and it’s not even close.

 

[Billinsd]

random guys

We need to regulate those random guys. That struck me, because my wife and kids recently started using "random" as a catch all phrase or more correctly as a filler word. That random trash on the floor, look at that random buck on the hillside. Pick up that random trash on the floor. I'm just poking fun and realizing how we all seem to use the same slang words across the country. Carry on....

 

[RockinU]

Exactly, like I said, you guys don't know how good you have it (for now). But this complaining about crowding is what you are going to get in a shared public resource.

Yeah, I recognize that the complaints are part of it, and I agree that many can’t see how good they have it.

 

[Newtosavage]

And on the biological deserts comment, you couldn’t be more wrong. I know many land owners, and own some timber myself. I and every single landowner I know, and the people they know, all burn pine stands regularly, partner with their local county forestry office and wildlife biologist, maintain dedicated openings with annual and perennial food plots and native grasses, and also protect old growth hardwood bottoms and uplands. We have pileated woodpeckers, owls, hawks, falcons, a plethora of song birds, fox squirrels, bobcats, grey and red foxes, coyotes, raccoons, chipmunks, wild turkeys, deer, hogs, frogs, snakes, and too many insects to count. In our darkest mis-managed pine stand, we have much more game and life per square mile than you do in the mountains, and it’s not even close.

Glad to hear it. But every pine plantation I worked in through college was in fact, a biological desert.

And you can't compare biological density between areas that get 20" of rain a year and those that get 50". Of course there are more individual animals in places that have 50"

 

[Billinsd]

Not sure what the shoulder to shoulder on 20 acres snark is about

That how dove and pheasant hunting is in California. Overall hunter numbers are down, way down. Percentage wise is much, much worse. Most hunters live in Pennsylvania and Michigan don't they? Western hunting is becoming more popular via the internet, since late 90s and all the Esstmans and now podcasts. I'm not sure if hunters are more well off to travel West than they used to be? I think they are, because it seems it's so much more expensive, even after taking inflation into account. Those who are traveling West are far more prepared and dialed in than ever before!!! And it's so much easier, you can get spoon fed. With all the podcasts, Google earth, etc. You can really get dialed in. All you are missing is the hands on experience, which is still real important. So, as the overall pool of hunters dry up the remaining hunters hunting the West will be more affluent, serious, with tech help putting more and more pressure on popular Western big game hunting. Dwindling hunters and exponentially more successful, competitive, and dialed in hunters that will remain. Bill

 

[5MilesBack]

there's no interpretation involved

Which is why you misinterpreted it..........locale.......entire state.......entire nation. If you want to discuss the entire nation's hunting numbers, perhaps a new thread would be more appropriate.

 

[BeastOfTheTrees]

Greed or not with the industry and hunting promotion, more hunters= hunting always being here. That’s better than my feelings are hurt because more ppl were in my spot.... adjust and figure it out success will be sweeter when you overcome.

 

[RockinU]

Which is why you misinterpreted it..........locale.......entire state.......entire nation. If you want to discuss the entire nation's hunting numbers, perhaps a new thread would be more appropriate.

Man, you keep trying to steer this discussion the way you want it to go, and that’s fine, but to ignore the pertinence of the larger picture is to ignore an important part on the conversation. A conversation that is taking place in this thread, if you don’t want to acknowledge or participate in that aspect, that’s fine...don’t.

 

[CX5Ranch]

Scoot over boys here we come !

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[BeastOfTheTrees]

Scoot over boys here we come !

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

This is great

 

[MuleDeerMike]

Hunter numbers are declining? Hmmm I've never seen a thread on any hunting forum where someone points out how many less guys there were in their spot that year compared to the year before. It seems like guys from back East really grab onto this perceived idea (which has been highly pushed down our throats the last few years) that hunter numbers are declining and we need to recruit more or hunting is going to go away, as some sort of, in my opinion, unnecessary defense or justification against guys in the West who complain about guys from the East flocking by the 10s of thousands to their states. We don't need more hunters. Hunting brands do, though, in order to continue to see growth year after year and make their shareholders happy. Guys from back East, you don't need to defend yourself for wanting to go out west and hunt public land, hunt where ever the **** you want for whatever animal you want, public is public. Residents who have a problem with non-res should call their state fish and game and legislators weekly to bitch to them that there are too many non-res tags and to get non-res tag quotas either in place or lowered. If fish and game agencies are suffering from not enough funding then it's because they're mismanagaing it, not because there's not enough hunters buying tags. Fish and game departments are the worst red tape bureaucracies in the entire government and that's becoming more and more clear by the year. The mechanism in our government that allows the electoral college to not let 3 states control our entire country is the same one that will protect hunting and hunters interests for decades to come. Hunting isn't going anywhere anytime soon and if it does it will be the hunters fault for not keeping their state fish and game in line.

 

[RockinU]

Hunter numbers are declining? Hmmm I've never seen a thread on any hunting forum where someone points out how many less guys there were in their spot that year compared to the year before. It seems like guys from back East really grab onto this perceived idea (which has been highly pushed down our throats the last few years) that hunter numbers are declining and we need to recruit more or hunting is going to go away, as some sort of, in my opinion, unnecessary defense or justification against guys in the West who complain about guys from the East flocking by the 10s of thousands to their states. We don't need more hunters. Hunting brands do, though, in order to continue to see growth year after year and make their shareholders happy. Guys from back East, you don't need to defend yourself for wanting to go out west and hunt public land, hunt where ever the **** you want for whatever animal you want, public is public. Residents who have a problem with non-res should call their state fish and game and legislators weekly to bitch to them that there are too many non-res tags and to get non-res tag quotas either in place or lowered. If fish and game agencies are suffering from not enough funding then it's because they're mismanagaing it, not because there's not enough hunters buying tags. Fish and game departments are the worst red tape bureaucracies in the entire government and that's becoming more and more clear by the year. The mechanism in our government that allows the electoral college to not let 3 states control our entire country is the same one that will protect hunting and hunters interests for decades to come. Hunting isn't going anywhere anytime soon and if it does it will be the hunters fault for not keeping their state fish and game in line.

I'm not going to further engage in the debate as to whether or not hunter numbers are in decline, the info is out there, it's all documented, if you choose to not believe it, then it is what it is, but I do have a few comments.

First, even though I didn't create a thread about it, last year I actually did return to a place where I had been 2 years previous, and spent 7 days little more than 3 miles from the trailhead, and never saw a soul. After about a mile, I didn't even see any human tracks. Anecdotal and not representative of the whole I know...but I like irony.

As for government protecting hunters for years to come, the problem with your theory is that game management is left to the states, so the federal mechanism you reference is not in play. Further I would point out that CA lost mountain lion hunting almost 30 years ago, and lost fur trapping yesterday. New Jersey bear hunters suffered a big blow last year, and other bear hunters around the country are under siege. Coyote hunters, and predator callers in general are also under attack. I get fairly regular updates from the New Mexico Trappers Assn about all the legal challenges they are forced to answer.

You are right, we probably aren't going to lose all of hunting in the next little bit, but those who would take it from us are well funded, passionate, active, and patient. They are playing the long game, and incrementally chipping away at our opportunity. If we let them build momentum unanswered, it's on us, and nobody else.