Wyoming long range hunting debate

[MallardSX2]

If I had a dollar for every story I've heard about people emptying their gun (or in some instances even guns) at 500 yards plus on deer going over the next ridge, I could probably buy me one of those fancy “long range guns”.

I will take their concern seriously when they pull crossbows put of archery season...until then they aren't really serious.

FACT

 

[wind gypsy]

Crossbows in WY are a bit different than crossbows for people hunting whitetails on little postage stamps in the east IMO.

I hate crossbow legalization with the best of the haters but hell if I'd want to carry one of those things around the mountains. Still wouldn't advocate for other western states to follow suit.

 

[mt terry d]

Definitely need more government oversight. That has solved every problem tackled.
Except the 1.6 gal flush toilet. They need to require devices that also limit it to one flush per 12 hours because unethical poopers will just flush twice, defeating the purpose.
More government is better government
Just ask the government experts.

 

[BRTreedogs]

Does anyone actually have any numbers related to increased success or wounding over the last 10 years?

Or is this all anecdotal wild a guesses?

In the time I’ve glanced at success rates they are plus or minus 2% usually.

But I’m not really a data nerd.

I’ve never noticed a unit doubling success rates and thought ohh long range hunters drew tags there this year.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Because the objective isn't to keep firearms out of hunting. The objective is to limit technology enough to be able to keep opportunity high while maintaining quality and numbers. It's worth adding that I don't think this needs to apply to all species.

Thats my point, tag allocation is based off a sustainability model in relationship to success, want more tags take away firearms. Most states have a 90 plus success rate on firearm/ML Pronghorn, only a minute amount of those filled tags are shot at these so called extreme distances, so it would better to take firearms and optics out of the equation.... that makes more sense than putting range limitations

 

[cuerro viejo]

Does anyone actually have any numbers related to increased success or wounding over the last 10 years?

Or is this all anecdotal wild a guesses?

In the time I’ve glanced at success rates they are plus or minus 2% usually.

But I’m not really a data nerd.

I’ve never noticed a unit doubling success rates and thought ohh long range hunters drew tags there this year.

Thats its long range, is minute number of firearm success and the only way to regulate it is remove firearms altogether.

 

[S-3 ranch]

Idk, I think jailing some idiots and the word getting out might work better than the nothing that is being done right now. Montana estimates that for every 100 ungulates harvested, up to 30 more are wounded that aren't recovered. Animal numbers would be up and tags along with it if people were more ethical by law.

The should have jailed that hack gun writer Aram Von Benedict,
After he stole that deer after saying he shot it 780 yards off hand
Total lack of ethics and same with that mulie freak poacher guy makes unethical shots

 

[AZ_Hunter_2000]

Humans' natural physical ability vs the animal's natural ability; naked and mano a mano. The moment a human uses a tool, of any kind and sophistication, it gives us an advantage that we would not have otherwise. The proverbial slope is long and slippery.

No footwear. No clothes. No hunting in windy, rainy, snowy, and/or foggy conditions. No tools including corrective lenses for eyesight and hearing aids for the hearing impaired. No weapons; only can use your physical appendages. Primitive shelters only without the use of tools. No sleeping bag/quilt. Have to use 100% water from the environment. Cannot have any man-made water storage device; animal organ only. No food other that what you can gather legally. No stove for cooking or heating. No matches to start fire. No bringing any fuel. No backpack unless you make it out of 100% natural goods while in the field. The list goes on.

The fact is bad shots happen at all distances. Want to improve the success of shots and reduce the wounding of game? Teach folks how and why to pass on certain shots. But hunters have demonstrated time after time that they are incapable of that type of thought. Hunters only know that their individual way is the right way and everyone else is wrong. They will seek other likeminded hunters out as they crave the camaraderie and want a common enemy; hunters that think differently are the enemy while ignoring existential threat of the loons. Hunters are unable to see that the moment they do this, they lost and the loons won.

For the folks promoting the prohibition of not using certain tools, don't use them. Eat your own dog food.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Thats my point, tag allocation is based off a sustainability model in relationship to success, want more tags take away firearms. Most states have a 90 plus success rate on firearm/ML Pronghorn, only a minute amount of those filled tags are shot at these so called extreme distances, so it would better to take firearms and optics out of the equation.... that makes more sense than putting range limitations

But giving more tags to hunters using less lethal methods increases the number of potentially wounded animals. Most of which will die. Those animals are thus killed without being counted as taken. They are effectively wasted. The number of tags issued has to account for the number of animals which are wounded and not recovered as well as those recovered.

And obviously more tags issued increases the crowding problem.

To limit “wasted animals”, you need to increase lethality and proficiency.

To limit crowding, you need to limit tags in a given area.

You can also achieve this by increasing access (spreading the people out more).

Or you can achieve this by limiting access, which will tend to reward those who make the most effort (or spend the most money) to get further into the harder-to-reach areas.

In my corner of Virginia, they shut down vehicle access to parts of the national forest and wildlife refuges. That gives those of us with access to the "far side" of those areas via private land a significant access advantage. Before they did that, we used to routinely have hunters traveling right up to our border - or even crossing onto our land from the national forest side - to hunt. But there were also a lot more deer hunters back then. So people had an incentive to get away from the access roads. Now, I effectively have hundreds of acres of national forest I can reach more easily than anyone except the farmers on either side of me. The effort to access whitetails just doesn't make sense for most people around there. I'm sure if there were elk to hunt, then people would be parking down on the access roads and hiking in the few miles needed to get away from the roads.

From an outsider's perspective, the problem in most of the West is that your Fish and Game people want the money from non-residents. I read that Colorado cut 8000 OTC resident tags and replaced them with 10,000 nonresident tags. That's pretty ****** up, if you ask me.

____________________
“Keep on keepin’ on…”

 

[PathFinder]

Humans' natural physical ability vs the animal's natural ability; naked and mano a mano. The moment a human uses a tool, of any kind and sophistication, it gives us an advantage that we would not have otherwise. The proverbial slope is long and slippery.

No footwear. No clothes. No hunting in windy, rainy, snowy, and/or foggy conditions. No tools including corrective lenses for eyesight and hearing aids for the hearing impaired. No weapons; only can use your physical appendages. Primitive shelters only without the use of tools. No sleeping bag/quilt. Have to use 100% water from the environment. Cannot have any man-made water storage device; animal organ only. No food other that what you can gather legally. No stove for cooking or heating. No matches to start fire. No bringing any fuel. No backpack unless you make it out of 100% natural goods while in the field. The list goes on.

The fact is bad shots happen at all distances. Want to improve the success of shots and reduce the wounding of game? Teach folks how and why to pass on certain shots. But hunters have demonstrated time after time that they are incapable of that type of thought. Hunters only know that their individual way is the right way and everyone else is wrong. They will seek other likeminded hunters out as they crave the camaraderie and want a common enemy; hunters that think differently are the enemy while ignoring existential threat of the loons. Hunters are unable to see that the moment they do this, they lost and the loons won.

For the folks promoting the prohibition of not using certain tools, don't use them. Eat your own dog food.

I agree with most of your points. However, there has to be a line where the technology starts to drive success rates too high, and opportunity is sacrificed to maintain the technological advantage. What will be decided in the near future is just where that line is with rifles. It has been widely accepted that technology like drones and thermal take it too far, but that question hasn't been settled in regard to the effective range of centerfire rifles. Likely as a result of increased demand, limiting weapon technology is back in discussion. Open sights on rifles seems like a pretty reasonable middle ground for some hunts and species.

 

[Flyjunky]

Does anyone actually have any numbers related to increased success or wounding over the last 10 years?

Or is this all anecdotal wild a guesses?

In the time I’ve glanced at success rates they are plus or minus 2% usually.

But I’m not really a data nerd.

I’ve never noticed a unit doubling success rates and thought ohh long range hunters drew tags there this year.

I had the same thought. If we are getting so good at killing animals the success rates should reflect that but I sure haven’t seen it.

 

[Formidilosus]

Personally, I’d see nothing wrong with a regulation stating a fixed 4x scope max with no exposed turrets and a simple crosswire reticle. That would still allow rifle hunters to hunt like rifle hunters, but with practical limitations. Would some asshats still be lobbing 5-600 yard shots? Perhaps, but most wouldn’t.

So take off cap and dial still..? A 4x with a duplex doesn’t change much, and certainly not at 500 yards.

And it would require hunters to have to exhibit some hunting and woodsmanship skills to get within such a range where the animal can actually detect a human presence.

But bow hunters say all rifle hunters are unethical and don’t give the animals fair chance?

Which ultimately, I think is only fair to the animals and is what is most off putting about LR hunting.

Again, to lots of archery hunters all rifle hunting is off putting.

 

[Formidilosus]

If you really want to limit long range killing AND not increase short range wounding, ban all electronics.

 

[AZ_Hunter_2000]

I agree with most of your points. However, there has to be a line where the technology starts to drive success rates too high, and opportunity is sacrificed to maintain the technological advantage. What will be decided in the near future is just where that line is with rifles. It has been widely accepted that technology like drones and thermal take it too far, but that question hasn't been settled in regard to the effective range of centerfire rifles. Likely as a result of increased demand, limiting weapon technology is back in discussion. Open sights on rifles seems like a pretty reasonable middle ground for some hunts and species.

It's a tough one especially on where to stop today let alone tomorrow.

Technology definitely can take things "too far" but there still is human factor that can dictate if is too much or not. I can have a $10K custom rifle that that is dead nuts accurate and deadly to 1000 yards. However, if my shooting fundamentals are "lacking" then the advantages that rifle offers are mostly lost on me. I have seen folks miss the proverbial broadside of a barn and no amount of currently legal weapon technology will overcome that; unless there is an anti-slap or anti-jerk option for triggers. Sedatives could help, at least for buck fever, but then that is a whole other conversation.

The bigger issue is the hunters. Hunters are the ones slinging lead at various distances at animals without a care in the world. Hunters are the ones not respecting the target species and it has nothing to do with shot distance. Hunters are the ones being too lazy to pack out their dead animals. Hunters are the ones being too lazy to go after their wounded game. Hunters are the ones raging against poachers yet promote the unlawful killing of animals that they don't like. Hunters are the ones painting hunters as being unethical; we give the antis plenty of material to choose from.

Since folks won't fix the hunter, restricting weapons will likely make things significantly worse. You have millions of people who are barely functional with a scoped rifle. Take away that option and force those millions to use open sited rifles, muzzleloaders, traditional bows, compound bows, shotguns, spears, etc. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine if the number of wounded game would likely increase or decrease. Some folks would also likely give up hunting altogether. Maybe that is why some folks from both sides are pushing it; one side wants to get rid of hunting and the other doesn't want the competition; hunters wouldn't even know that they're in bed with the loons.

The fix is easy: hunters need to improve their proficiency with their weapon(s) of choice. That alone would do more to reduce wound game than anything. But since it well proven that hunters are unable to fix themselves, this would require government involvement which is not a positive overall.

Apologies for the ramble...

 

[WhoGarrDen]

I agree with most of your points. However, there has to be a line where the technology starts to drive success rates too high, and opportunity is sacrificed to maintain the technological advantage. What will be decided in the near future is just where that line is with rifles. It has been widely accepted that technology like drones and thermal take it too far, but that question hasn't been settled in regard to the effective range of centerfire rifles. Likely as a result of increased demand, limiting weapon technology is back in discussion. Open sights on rifles seems like a pretty reasonable middle ground for some hunts and species.

I don't have any experience or data to back this up - so start with that. However, my view is that all of the additional technology has just pushed the unethical shots out further. Hunters who don't ever zero, don't ever practice, shoot way further than they should, etc. are always going to be there. The only difference now is that instead of a wounding animals at 300 yards, those same people are now wounding them at 600 (and heck, maybe clean missing even more?). I think the type of people this is aimed at are always going to choose to make marginal shots.

I wish I had something useful to contribute as far as ideas to limit take. I really don't like the idea of having to limit tags even more to keep populations sustainable/growing, as point creep is already a very daunting as a hunter starting to look west for adventure (me).

What about limiting bino magnification to 8x, and no spotting scopes? If you can't find em, you can't shoot em!

EDIT: I have been having more conversations at the gun range with guys that really sport the idea of "yeah I shoot to 500, 800 and 1,000 for fun, but I wouldn't take a shot over 350 out in the field. Now...they could be blowing smoke, and if their BOAL walked out at 700 they might change their mind. How can we stop those guys from taking the shot? You can't.

I think AZ and others are right - we should definitely be pushing a culture of proficiency and ethics.

 

[codym]

It amazes how many of you think government oversight is the key, because that always works right? Let’s just be straight up, if you have never wounded game then maybe you can comment everyone else is a hypocrite in this case. I have taken game at up to 900 yards and every thing with a rifle 400 yards or more all one shot kills, I shoot consistently and competitively. Conversely I’ve lost a bull I shot 40 yards broad side with my bow. Looked like a perfect shot, tracked and gridded for 4 days and went back after the season and looked never found it. I shot 50 plus arrows a day for months leading up to that hunt and every archery hunt since. It can happen to anyone no matter the gear or distance and honestly the skill level. Where I hunt I see way more animals wounded or not recovered during archery season. I’ve guided hunters that are ill prepared under equipped with all types of weapons. Most of the time we make hunters shoot their rifles in front of us and if they can’t hit a 8 inch plate at 300 yards we have them shoot our rifles and if they can’t do it then they don’t go. We hold them and ourselves to the drawing blood or obvious hit rule, draw blood and your done regardless if it’s recovered. There are many problems with hunting just like society, it’s unethical or incompetent or criminal people. We need to four best to educate and lead our fellow hunters and call out unethical behavior. One of the things I’ve seen is how many people can’t track an animal, it’s a skill that can be taught. We need to help others learn these fundamental skills. In this day and time where so many people want to take your right to bear arms, your ability to hunt and trap with any means, we are here on a public forum bashing each other, expecting the government to legislate morality… are you ******* kidding? Did you all just not live through the same 5 years I did? I won’t ever trust these clowns to do anything. Hunters will kill hunting. Stop tearing each other down and circle the wagons.

 

[Mike D Texas]

It's not hard to regulate at all. If you get caught shooting past say 500 yards you better have your long range shooting certificate handy showing you passed a specific long range shooting course as designated or authorized by the state you are hunting in......could be a common course held by many well regarded outfits currently doing it all over the country. Every state has them. No different than a concealed carry permit, drivers license, etc etc., you must qualify in some manner. Most states require a hunters safety course so this could be done in the same manner.

F that.


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[Jordan Smith]

However, I still think there is a perception here that shooting beyond 5-600yds and maintaining a high cold bore hit rate, let's say >50%, is a SKILL that can be LEARNED. Unfortunately this is simply not the case. Random dispersion cannot be "learned", nor can it be accounted for. Your cold bore hit rates in hunting scenarios, in objective terms, will NEVER be at an "ethical" threshold above about 500yds.

Dispersion can be minimized such that it is not the dominant variable in the trajectory solution. The other variables can be minimized by learning. A few minutes with a "WEZ" model simulation can be informative.

I don’t see any meaningful implication on hunting by limiting anything , even if it were made 100% archery only.

Access and habitat are the issues. They don’t make the state or hunting industry money though.

Exactly. Either reduce tags or increase habitat and access.

If all of that stuff was outlawed tomorrow, I’d find a way, and so would many others. The game would benefit, state coffers and the hunting industry wouldn’t.

There are two ways to approach this problem. Either decrease the number of tags and opportunities, meaning that fewer hunters are in the hills but their success rate is high, or else keep hunter numbers up but make hunter effectiveness low to reduce hunter success. Both options could, in principle, result in the same number of animals being killed.

One option provides more opportunities to more hunters, but less animals killed per hunter, and the other results in each hunter having fewer opportunities but higher success rates per opportunity. In either case, most hunters would be well served to spend their time hiking instead of hunting, as the outcome would be about the same.

I think the real issue is simply too many people out hunting and. It enough animals and space. Western states like away are getting worse and worse to try and get any quality tags regardless of weapon used.

Some of the things I have seen I think are more ethics based on individual hunters vs technology. I have seen someone run up next to me and rush a 1450 yard shot, with 6.5creedmoor at a 3x3 elk. They missed 7 times than ran back to their truck. This behavior is now common, I think we all have these stories.

Not sure what the fix is, I often joke if atvs and utvs were banned and all areas were wilderness hunting would be amazing, until I got old.

Not sure what the fix is but I sure feel the pressure out west every year. However with archery season it is equally as busy and chaotic so I do not personally think people shooting far is the issue it’s simply the sheer number of people. the fact every tag comes with an entourage of 5-7 buddies running all over the mountains helps it get busy fast.

Exactly.

 

[BRTreedogs]

Just show me numbers for a regular area that has super high success.

And that that success is significantly higher then 10-20 years ago.

Other the pronghorn and other very limited area I don’t think success is near as high as you think.

 

[JohnJohnson]

Does anyone actually have any numbers related to increased success or wounding over the last 10 years?

Or is this all anecdotal wild a guesses?

In the time I’ve glanced at success rates they are plus or minus 2% usually.

But I’m not really a data nerd.

I’ve never noticed a unit doubling success rates and thought ohh long range hunters drew tags there this year.

This is an almost entirely vibes based discussion and from what I can see you're correct about the rifle success rates not really increasing at all. Whereas archery success rates have actually increased a fair bit in the last couple decades if my memory is accurate. But, as I said earlier, it's not possible for archers or archery to be unethical because they're closer to the animal.