What does crowded mean when hunting out west

[antlerradar]

Deer season in many Eastern states is 2-3 months long. I hunted deer with a rifle from October to early January. Archery started in Sept. I never saw a one week tag until I moved to AZ.

After googling the many of the mid western states I see that rife seasons are generally two weeks or less. I think the southern states are much longer but I didn't look all of them up. I was using the one week to five week as an example because the math is easy and not referring to any specific state.

 

[LaSportsman]

Not familiar with mid-west. I was going off east. I know NC, MD and LA (south). I googled PA to hit a different region and it was long as well.

 

[kmott]

there are times you can make the crowd work in your favor. especially if you hunt the same unit year after year and know the animals/herds escape routes.

 

[8andcounting]

Crowded is Colorado OTC tag and two hunters shoot bulls from a herd at first light that they’d scouted. Both bulls obviously hit and will go down soon. Two other hunters put “kill shots” on these wounded bulls and claim the kill.

I’m not driving 1,000 miles for crowded. I can get that at a WMA around here.

I woulda got wardens and lawyers involved

 

[Dave N]

Good luck with THAT!

 

[Davetats51]

Thanks again guys for the responses! This gives me a better feel for what I will likely encounter.

 

[KipCarson]

Western seasons are generally much longer than those of the eastern states.

Im not so sure you’re on the mark here, there are some eastern/mid west states that do only have week long rifle hunts but overall our seasons are waaay more generous on the amount of time. Archery hunting often goes from October-January straight with different shotgun/rifle/muzzleloader and primitive firearm seasons peppered throughout. Many eastern states have almost 4 months of straight hunting with 2+ of those months being firearm season.

Unfortunately elk don’t seem to have nearly the tolerance for any amount of intrusion. The amount of actual hunting pressure that would make elk go to a different county would only cause a whitetail to cross into the next 40 acre property.

 

[stealthy_bowman]

Here in NJ our archery season opened last week and will run through mid February.
Muzzleloader starts the Monday after Thanksgiving and runs through first week in Feb.
Regular firearms starts second Monday in Dec. and runs through first week in Feb.
All told, you can deer hunt for about half the year in NJ, shoot unlimited does and get 6 buck tags across all seasons.
If you like to hunt Whitetails, NJ is actually pretty hard to beat in terms of deer numbers. However, the buck age class and buck to doe ratio is horrid.

 

[sneakem]

Crowded = Known to residents of Colorado as the "Pumpkin Parade".

 

[fishing4sanity]

My experience is you can often put your boots to work and get away from most of the crowd, but it can truly get crowded. I use and like the GPS chips, but it has made some small pockets get hammered. Here in Washington I had a small spot of public I used to hunt that was frequently hunted by several others also. I hadn't been to it in a few years, I decided to take my son there and found it wasn't a relatively unknown spot anymore. An area that 2 guys would cover in the past, now had 23 guys that we counted as the sun came up. When some deer moved through and the shooting started, we left, it was dangerously crowded.

 

[JLS]

I woulda got wardens and lawyers involved

Why? Elk belongs to the person who reduces it to possession. It’s shitty but it’s legal.

 

[NYyotekiller]

Crowded out west = 1 truck every 5 miles....crowded in the northeast = 5 trucks every mile. That’s been my experience.

 

[manitou1]

The areas I hunt in Wyoming are more crowded than public in Missouri in my experience... until you put the leather down and escape. It can be a zoo in N.E. WY. During rifle seasons it isn't uncommon to see 4-8 vehicles at each of the main trailheads and encounter trucks and four-wheelers every minute or two.

 

[mtmuley]

Ahhhhhh.….. The internet. Interesting some from the East call it crowded. mtmuley

 

[manitou1]

Yeah, I know Mtmuley... it's a two-edged sword. It wouldn't be that crowded if all of us non-residents would stay home, but it is just too beautiful out there and more fun to boot.
17 more months and I will be a resident of a western state... well, 29 before I will be an official tag resident.

 

[hank4elk]

Not crowded here,but not many deer. NM has 5 day hunts. I have run into crowds in spots & just go someplace else.
Now my last UT deer hunt went from no one to full orange on atv Zoo.....

 

[88man]

Crowded is when you see your camp spot on a TV show and the FS road sign. About 13 years ago we hunted 3rd season deer in a colorado unit you could draw 2nd choice and we were killing really nice bucks. Well the following year the road traffic & Human activity in the unit before the season started was crazy and I just knew it was all over. We hiked in to a spot we always had great luck and when It got light out there were people everywhere.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Dirtclod Az. You got the wrong State . I'm talkin Colo. for Deer.You got any tags this Year ? I have Coues in 36 A day after thanksgiving too......BOB!

Your right Bob,Wrong state.Was talking to someone about Az.and it carried over.
I normally hunt 36B but it's overrun with Snowbirds wanting Desert Adventures.
Last year at the trailhead there were 16 trucks from out of state pulling trailers from
ATV rental companies.New Years Day was the opener.most of them stayed for the week.
Don't know where to go from here.I used to hunt outside of Globe 20yrs. ago.I may just go OTC
Deer up near our cabin outside of Payson.

 

[noharleyyet]

It means you’ll drive over a thousand miles to improve the state and nearest community’s revenue stream.

 

[stealthy_bowman]

Curious from the Montana folks as to what is perceived to be the reason for crowds increasing over the last few years?
If we look at purely hunter numbers, they have been relatively flat for 10 years, thus my guess is that hunters are either hunting different areas because of decreased game in their historical hunting districts (e.g., as would be the case in HD's hardest hit by wolf predation) thereby increasing pressure in other districts , or loss of access to private which has led to increased pressure on public.
Same question for the Colorado folks, who have experienced a net decrease in hunter numbers over the last 10 years, yet the perception is that hunting pressure is going up.
AZ and UT, on the other hand, have experienced a staggering increase of hunters over the same period, thus I can only imagine that things there are even worse in terms of pressure.

Thought I'd share some data below which I had posted a while back on a different thread which I thought was interesting,. Make of it what you will.