CO - Tag Allocation R v. NR - CORA Data

[Bambistew]

The Colorado economy is booming yet we are at the very bottom for education spending. I'm a fiscal conservative but that law is asinine

Not to side track this, but CO is in the top 10 for education ranking and has been for a long time. CO has a great school system. While you may be near the bottom for spending. I see that as quite an accomplishment. Throwing money at something doesn't necessarily make it better. The only reason I say this is because Alaska has been in the top 3 for education spending for decades, and are near the bottom 3, every year for ranking. We now have some of the lowest academic rankings for many age groups. We are below LA, MS, etc for grade school math and reading, by a few percentage. There are plenty of excuses, but money isn't one of them... unless you are a liberal in Alaska, then cutting their funding will mean the end for children... We can't get any worse. haha

TABOR seems like it has good intentions, but challenging consequences.

Either way, thanks for rounding up the info, makes for an interesting conversation. I'll gladly give CO my money in return for another elk at some point in the near future.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Not to side track this, but CO is in the top 10 for education ranking and has been for a long time. CO has a great school system. While you may be near the bottom for spending.

Side tract indeed, but CO is in the top on residents with college and post grad degrees but bottom in spending per pupil, test scores, and class size.

 

[Zach]

Side tract indeed, but CO is in the top on residents with college and post grad degrees but bottom in spending per pupil, test scores, and class size.

Do you really think a blank check from MJ will cure that? Yeah, me neither. I thought the lotto was the cure for school funding shortages...

Epic work on the data. Will take me some time to make an educated post thought on it.

 

[vanish]

I would doubt archers with A tags buy B tags for rifle seasons.

This is what I do every year. If I fill the A tag, the rifle B tag doesn’t get used. Most of the archers I know do the same thing every year also. I only know a couple people who buy both the archery OTC list A and B tags.

I want to jump on this train because @grasshopper needs to know that his original assumption is off base.

Most of my family and friends follow this pattern - buy the OTC archery A tag for the chance at a bull and the long season, and a B list late cow elk rifle tag for "meat insurance" and to extend our season. I have never bought the archery cow elk B tag. And yes, I also sometimes do the plains deer tags so I can extend my season.

Getting off topic, but that reminds me of one of the commissioners assuming pretty much all archery elk hunters would also have archery deer licenses and thus would want the exact same dates for those seasons. Couldn't be further from the truth among my circle of residents. Nobody wants to overlap seasons ( darn things are short enough as it is ) or split focus.

 

[Zach]

I want to jump on this train because @grasshopper needs to know that his original assumption is off base.

Most of my family and friends follow this pattern - buy the OTC archery A tag for the chance at a bull and the long season, and a B list late cow elk rifle tag for "meat insurance" and to extend our season. I have never bought the archery cow elk B tag. And yes, I also sometimes do the plains deer tags so I can extend my season.

Getting off topic, but that reminds me of one of the commissioners assuming pretty much all archery elk hunters would also have archery deer licenses and thus would want the exact same dates for those seasons. Couldn't be further from the truth among my circle of residents. Nobody wants to overlap seasons ( darn things are short enough as it is ) or split focus.

Are you saying the 30 day archery season is to short?

 

[vanish]

Are you saying the 30 day archery season is to short?

Growing up where archery season is 3-4 months and gun season was several weeks, they sure feel short. Sure is better than a 5 day season though!

I'm not advocating for a longer season, but getting time in the field requires a lot more effort (planning multiple different hunts for multiple species with multiple weapons) than most places.

I dont learn nearly as much when I dont have a tag in my pocket. Just not the same level of motivation.

 

[WapitiBob]

To update your state table. Wyoming issues 16% of its limited quota elk tags to NR and 7250 general tags to NR.

This is incorrect.
Initial nr limited full price Elk quota is 16% with an underlying full price elk license allocation of 7,250. After the initial draw, drawn nr lq licenses are tallied and the difference between what was drawn and 7,250 is added back to the special gen and the draw is run again to allocate that difference, up to the legislated quota of 7,250. Reduced price and leftovers are not included in the 7,250.

 

[icebreaker12]

This is incorrect.
Initial nr limited full price Elk quota is 16% with an underlying full price elk license allocation of 7,250. After the initial draw, drawn nr lq licenses are tallied and the difference between what was drawn and 7,250 is added back to the special gen and the draw is run again to allocate that difference, up to the legislated quota of 7,250. Reduced price and leftovers are not included in the 7,250.

Right, and we already cleared that up.

 

[Zach]

Growing up where archery season is 3-4 months and gun season was several weeks, they sure feel short. Sure is better than a 5 day season though!

I'm not advocating for a longer season, but getting time in the field requires a lot more effort (planning multiple different hunts for multiple species with multiple weapons) than most places.

I dont learn nearly as much when I dont have a tag in my pocket. Just not the same level of motivation.

Mix in a kid or 3 and you get even less time, especially if they are in some sort of organized sport or 4H/FFA.

Given your hunt journals though, I'd say you're doing ok.

 

[Big Fin]

I just read this thread. Very interesting stuff.

And you Colorado guys need a Hunt Talk reward for demonstrating that it is possible to have a discussion about contentious issues and not run the discussion into the ditch. Please continue. It is very intriguing to read the slight differences in perspectives and learn about how Colorado residents view the solutions to the issues they face with regards to elk hunting, opportunity, season length, funding, and non-resident allocation.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Updated Utah and Washington, had to file "FOIA" requests to get licensing info from both of them.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I just read this thread. Very interesting stuff.

And you Colorado guys need a Hunt Talk reward for demonstrating that it is possible to have a discussion about contentious issues and not run the discussion into the ditch. Please continue. It is very intriguing to read the slight differences in perspectives and learn about how Colorado residents view the solutions to the issues they face with regards to elk hunting, opportunity, season length, funding, and non-resident allocation.

I definitely think having as much information as possible helps drive a discussion, HTers seem to be a pretty thoughtful pragmatic bunch, we drive the thread off the ditch most often when our posts are based primarily on conjecture rather than the numbers.

One fact that this particular "project" has illuminated for me is the fact that no state exists in a vacuum and that opportunity, allocation, season length, etc of any one state have a discernible impact on the others, this impact is especially true of the big NR states; CO, MT, ID, and WY. When I first started thinking about allocation I was leaning towards reducing NR tag availability or capping it at similar levels to MT/WY. What I hadn't considered until I saw all the number was how devastating this would be to overall elk hunting opportunity across the west. Colorado provides more than half of all NR elk hunting opportunity in the US, if CO decides to do something dramatic with allocation, this will not only drive up point creep and scarcity in our state but across the country. If CO caps NR tags at a gross allocation of 20% for instance, that would have the same net effect as MT, NM, and AZ getting rid of all NR elk hunting: If this happens I can almost guarantee WY general tags will take 5+ points to draw, MT will take 3-4, etc. etc. etc.

I would love to be able to have a WY or MT season in CO, but I also value NR opportunity. I think one of most important features of the NA model is NR DIY opportunity, while it's importance is hard to measure I think the national elk hunting community that CO's generous allocation has helped create is very important. I think CO residents need to think long and hard about this intangible and measure it up against whether or not 1. We get a tag every year and/or 2. Get to hunt more than 5-7 days a year for elk. 3. If we are willing to see a lots of out-of-state plates at the trail-head.

 

[jlmatthew]

My opinion on this is that Colorado is too generous. Now we are probably going to lose 2 days off our rifle season, which is basically the price we have to pay for this overly generous NR tag share. Everyone is complaining about crowding and elk piling up on private, so the CPW is now possibly cutting the 2nd & 3rd rifle season length. I’m sorry but that plain sucks! I’m hoping that residents will finally have had enough of this and start complaining to the legislature.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

My opinion on this is that Colorado is too generous. Now we are probably going to lose 2 days off our rifle season, which is basically the price we have to pay for this overly generous NR tag share. Everyone is complaining about crowding and elk piling up on private, so the CPW is now possibly cutting the 2nd & 3rd rifle season length. I’m sorry but that plain sucks! I’m hoping that residents will finally have had enough of this and start complaining to the legislature.

Any idea when we went to the 4 rifle seasons? Was it always that way or was there a single long one at some point.

Also I’m not sure if elk piling on to private is necessarily something you can fix by reducing tags. It takes only takes a few hunters to move elk around. Plus even if you cut elk tags by 20% you still have tons of deer and bear hunters in the woods.

It would be a total nightmare to enforce but I wonder if it might help if the deer and elk seasons were staggered, ie, on off weeks not the same week?

 

[westernslopehunter]

I think your data makes it clear that Colorado is providing too much in terms of non-resident hunting to the detriment of residents and the quality of the hunting experience. The statement that Colorado bears the brunt of most NR elk hunting in the west as a "pro" for the national elk hunting community bothers me. Our woods are literally overrun with people during our OTC seasons and the quality of those hunts have become pretty terrible, in my opinion. Exhausting the resource simply to allow people to come out here to elk hunt is unnecessary and CO, in particular, is suffering from people loving these particular public lands to death. The population here is far greater than many of our neighboring, western, states.

I have already participated in the survey for the 2020-2024 big game structure and I (along with everyone else that I know in CO) am advocating for anything we can do to limit NR OTC tags. Unfortunately, that is limited really to archery OTC for this next comment period.

 

[jlmatthew]

Any idea when we went to the 4 rifle seasons? Was it always that way or was there a single long one at some point.

Also I’m not sure if elk piling on to private is necessarily something you can fix by reducing tags. It takes only takes a few hunters to move elk around. Plus even if you cut elk tags by 20% you still have tons of deer and bear hunters in the woods.

It would be a total nightmare to enforce but I wonder if it might help if the deer and elk seasons were staggered, ie, on off weeks not the same week?

I don’t remember which year we went to 4 seasons, 15+ years??? and I remember when the season was 7 days, and the added 2nd weekend was a huge plus when we got it. I’m also one of “those” deer hunters and I wish the seasons were separated. Make 3rd season deer only and I’d be jumping over the moon!
This new season recommendation is terrible for resident hunter recruiting

https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Commission/2019/July/Item.16-BGSS.Final.Recs-July.2019.PWC.pdf