Did Colorado Bucks Survive the 5-year Plan?

[S.Clancy]

hey! All that means a lot coming from you. Thanks for listening in and chiming in.

And I ain't afraid of doe harvest when we can do it, and as long as it is the same tag for bucks. Many people really do want the meat and will let a buck walk given the chance to harvest a doe.

I am taking this to mean you are against doe harvest on B-tags? I'm curious to your reasoning if that is the case.

Another great podcast. Listening to a guy like Mr Diamond who clearly knows his herds well and also understands the nuances of the social aspects of big game management inspires confidence. Reinforces why I choose to listen to the biologists when it comes to mule deer issues.

I would also love to be able to use “stochastic” in a sentence correctly someday

I used it today. It was glorious.

 

[idelkslayer]

I think that optics play as big of a role as any other technology. I didn't know many guys with quality binos and none with spotting scopes 25 years ago but it seems like everyone has them now. We can sit on one ridge and glass 2 or 3 drainages in an evening. Without optics we had to walk those ridges and be within naked eye distance to see and go after deer. We save so much time and energy with quality optics. Combine that with roads and a hunter hardly has to leave the truck to glass miles and miles of country, only needing to leave the truck after spotting a buck.

 

[robby denning]

I am taking this to mean you are against doe harvest on B-tags? I'm curious to your reasoning if that is the case.

I used it today. It was glorious.

Well "against" is a little strong for what I mean.

Let me clarify.

If a hunter only gets one tag, and that tag is good for either sex (assuming the unit is at or above objective and can sustain doe harvest), some will chose to put their tag on a doe, taking pressure of bucks.

whitetail world figured this out long ago, if we only offer buck tags, we force everyone to be a buck hunter.

Many hunters don't really think through what "bucks only" hunting really means = all pressure on bucks (not good if we want more bucks)

Now, I do understand the purpose of B tags. If it's the only way to get enough doe harvest, then it makes sense.

That's all I meant.

 

[robby denning]

I think that optics play as big of a role as any other technology. I didn't know many guys with quality binos and none with spotting scopes 25 years ago but it seems like everyone has them now. We can sit on one ridge and glass 2 or 3 drainages in an evening. Without optics we had to walk those ridges and be within naked eye distance to see and go after deer. We save so much time and energy with quality optics. Combine that with roads and a hunter hardly has to leave the truck to glass miles and miles of country, only needing to leave the truck after spotting a buck.

you're not wrong!

 

[CoMulies]

Admittedly not super well versed on the topic, and the little I did read was somewhat mixed reports on the actual effectiveness… but introducing an antler point restriction could potentially help push more of those guys just looking for meat to the doe tags if they know they can’t just whack a forky. May help some with the age class hit as well.

Separately, I know that CO resident v. NR tag allocation/pricing is a hot topic on here and gets beat to death, but man, with Utah doubling the price of NR tags I’m increasingly worried the crowds / draw odds in CO will only continue to get worse. I hunted a no point unit last fall that I had a 100% chance of drawing 2nd choice as R, and this year, the odds show 0%…

 

[S.Clancy]

Well "against" is a little strong for what I mean.

Let me clarify.

If a hunter only gets one tag, and that tag is good for either sex (assuming the unit is at or above objective and can sustain doe harvest), some will chose to put their tag on a doe, taking pressure of bucks.

whitetail world figured this out long ago, if we only offer buck tags, we force everyone to be a buck hunter.

Many hunters don't really think through what "bucks only" hunting really means = all pressure on bucks (not good if we want more bucks)

Now, I do understand the purpose of B tags. If it's the only way to get enough doe harvest, then it makes sense.

That's all I meant.

Roger.

I've thought a lot recently about doe harvest and it's negatives and potential benefits. I think best case scenario is an agency needs to be really adaptive in their doe harvest based on population.

They need to be able to react quickly and cut doe opportunity as populations drop. IMO, and I think this guest also makes that argument, they need to offer significantly more doe opportunities as populations climb to keep those climbing populations from overburdening habitat. Once habitat has been over utilized, it may be degraded for a decade or more. This affects the populations ability to recover and results in a decreased carrying capacity into the future.

Best case scenario is an agency somehow offers enough doe opportunity to always keep populations just slightly below carrying capacity. In my mind, this helps populations recover from the inevitable hard winters or droughts without leaving us in these long troughs of decreased capacity.

Just things I think about alone on the side of a mountain.