For those using Go Hunt for making draw decisions..

[aggieland]

I have reached out to GoHunt via email and phone to discuss what has recently happened to me this draw cycle for Colorado Deer. I hunt with Traditional equipment so I wanted to hunt the highest success unit available. I had 9 Prefrence points, so pretty much any area was available to me. Anyway, their success rate for the unit I chose was over 60% another great unit I considered was in the mid to high 40's if I remember correctly.
So I applied for the highest success unit. Last night a friend was asking me how I make these decisions and told him about Gohunt. I look up the unit I chose and now after the draw the unit success rate has dropped over 20% from what it showed before the draw deadline. The other unit I considered was now around 60%. I would have probably chose a different unit based off these new numbers. It's a waste of time picking a unit if the numbers are going to change after we have already all applied.
I plan to hunt the origional unit because it's to late to make a change anyway, just really confusing seeing these changes now. I will update this thread after I have actually spoken with a Gohunt rep.

 

[huntngolf]

I have reached out to GoHunt via email and phone to discuss what has recently happened to me this draw cycle for Colorado Deer. I hunt with Traditional equipment so I wanted to hunt the highest success unit available. I had 9 Prefrence points, so pretty much any area was available to me. Anyway, their success rate for the unit I chose was over 60% another great unit I considered was in the mid to high 40's if I remember correctly.
So I applied for the highest success unit. Last night a friend was asking me how I make these decisions and told him about Gohunt. I look up the unit I chose and now after the draw the unit success rate has dropped over 20% from what it showed before the draw deadline. The other unit I considered was now around 60%. I would have probably chose a different unit based off these new numbers. It's a waste of time picking a unit if the numbers are going to change after we have already all applied.
I plan to hunt the origional unit because it's to late to make a change anyway, just really confusing seeing these changes now. I will update this thread after I have actually spoken with a Gohunt rep.

Are talking the highest success of drawing the unit or actually taking a deer?

 

[PredatoronthePrairie]

Would never in my wildest dreams pick a unit based off supposed % harvest success.

 

[aggieland]

I was looking at harvest success rate.
Update from Gohunt:
Dave Barnett (GOHUNT)

Apr 15, 2024, 9:32 AM PDT

Casey,

Harvest statistics are changed on our site once the state releases that information. Colorado does not release that info prior to the draw deadline, though. If they did it would be excellent!

So, the numbers they have are not the latest information, due to the state not releasing that info. Might want to keep that in mind when you guys are looking at data on there. It can swing my large percentage points.

 

[180ls1]

Sounds like you applied before the most recent harvest information was released by CO (this just happened). Once released, GoHunt updated it.

 

[Dos Perros]

Imagine burning 9 points without even talking to a game warden or biologist.

 

[taskswap]

Harvest statistics are changed on our site once the state releases that information. Colorado does not release that info prior to the draw deadline, though. If they did it would be excellent!

I've always suspected this was on purpose.

Forever ago (in my memory) my ex wife's grandfather was a sailor and used to do these things called "tested log races". It was an interesting race format that was almost completely about the skipper's guesswork. It wasn't ranked by who finished 1st, 2nd, etc. Boats with all different performance characteristics competed side by side.

Instead of timing the sailors side by side, the night before, you had to turn in a sheet where you predicted what your total time would be, and with no knowledge of what the wind or current would actually be the next day. This is a 3 hour, 50mi course, mind you. And to make it more "sporting" you weren't allowed to see your speed - any instruments like that had to be covered, and a monitor joined each boat to be sure nobody peeked. The winners were those who came closest to their own predictions, and the best racers were within a few MINUTES of their prediction - the year I went, I think 1st place the guy was only 47 seconds off or something crazy like that. Total guesswork, deliberately made hard, and intuition and past skill and experience wins the day.

Colorado's draw process sometimes feels like that to me.

 

[Extrapale]

Colorado harvest stats are known to be inaccurate anyway, so I don't understand why you would base your app on a single year of those stats.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

 

[LFC911]

Imagine burning 9 points without even talking to a game warden or biologist.

never had 9 pps, most is 5 before they got used in unit

 

[S.Clancy]

Imagine burning 9 points without even talking to a game warden or biologist.

I was gonna say imagine having 9 points….homie is a lot more patient than me.

 

[LongWayAround]

I would be dubious of both 60% and 20% harvest success statistics. Colorado randomly samples people who had licenses that year.

You could also have referenced the previous years on the CPW website.

Besides, it seems like you are complaining about a tag that you haven't drawn for a hunt you haven't gone on. If I'm mistaken, I apologize.

 

[Minute_of_Antelope]

Imagine burning 9 points without even talking to a game warden or biologist.

That’s kinda silly. I’ve talked to several over the years and I rarely get much info of consequence.

 

[ReaptheHeat]

I was looking at harvest success rate.
Update from Gohunt:
Dave Barnett (GOHUNT)

Apr 15, 2024, 9:32 AM PDT

Casey,

Harvest statistics are changed on our site once the state releases that information. Colorado does not release that info prior to the draw deadline, though. If they did it would be excellent!

So, the numbers they have are not the latest information, due to the state not releasing that info. Might want to keep that in mind when you guys are looking at data on there. It can swing my large percentage points.

Interesting, I swear I was scouring 2023 harvests before the draw deadline this year for hours.

 

[Ucsdryder]

You based a decades of points off fake news anyway. But getting on RS to complain about it is just funny.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Wouldn’t give two squirts what bogus success percentages say. I have done well in supposedly low success places and struggles in higher point “higher success” spots. Bottom line you will make your own odds. Remember that and enjoy the hunt.

 

[BrokenArrow]

First things first, some states report complete, accurate harvest stats.
CO is not one of those states. They run a statistical model off of a percentage of the hunters per hunt code.
Therefore those harvest stats, at best, are guidelines.
As much as I don’t want to believe this, even states with “accurate” stats have people that do not report kills. Because they can actively alter the stats in their favor. What that does is effectively lowers the harvest numbers, tricking the biologists into thinking there wasn’t a large harvest any given year. Then they consider this and adjust up for more tags the next season based on the “low” harvest from the year before.
It’s like cousin eddy emptying his crapper into the city sewer drain.

 

[wapitibob]

That’s kinda silly. I’ve talked to several over the years and I rarely get much info of consequence.

Wardens and bio's aren't even on my list of things to consider.

 

[ccoffey]

I think go hunt needs to remove that stat from their filtering. I’ve never once used that as a metric to determine where I was going to hunt. I would put the percentage of hunters willing to accurately report harvest data lower than the odds of getting struck by lightning.

 

[Fatcamp]

Harvest stats are fantasy.

People lie and that's all there is to it.

 

[taskswap]

What's remarkable to me is how confidently these stats are published. They publish SO many data points, but NOT the per-DAU response rates that would tell you how relevant they are. In some cases they may even be pretty close to accurate, while others are almost pure guesses, and there's no way to tell the difference.

As others mentioned above, comparing year-to-year changes can help give a little clue to this. Most of the online tools don't give an easy way to do that. I do like that GoHunt shows a trend chart, which is a start.

Personally, I tend to ignore these stats. I'm not a trophy hunter, I'm a meat-in-freezer guy, and while I'm still tough enough to put in 10-15mi days I do have arthritis and I've had three mini-strokes so I try to be careful with terrain - I can't keep up with the sheep-hunter crew anymore. What I look for is:

- Size of herd in the DAU (if there's only 1000 head across 50,000 acres, yeah... I'm not going there...)
- Points required (until they kill the point system, I try to alternate 0pt units for 2-3 years and then "something fun" to burn a few points on)
- Public land access (I prefer to hunt public land so no $5k Trinchera Ranch trespass fee for me, thanks)
- General terrain stats FOR THE SEASON (if I hunt past Rifle 2 I don't care as much about terrain because I'll be lower anyway)
- Scouting and knowledge of the area. I've probably scouted 20% of the GMUs (that I might actually hunt) in the state. IMO I think knowledge of a zone with a 10% "harvest success rate" trumps going blind into one with a "40%". It doesn't matter how successful other people are. Just how successful YOU are.
- If it looks fun. Sort of the opposite of the previous point, I'm a nomad and I like to roam around and explore new places. Hunting is my excuse to do that so this year for example I put in 1st choice for an area I've never been to, and I'm excited to see it.