Unit 21 third season deer.

Muzz16 · Nov 2, 2020

Ill be there saturday for about a week checking the unit out for maybe getting rid of points next year., any1 with deer tag let me know. Family has hunted it religiously since 60s up until 2001. Curious to see whats running around there this time a year again.

elks96 · Nov 3, 2020

prepare to be disappointed. You will see a few bucks but nothing like it was in 2001. I will be in 22 for the 3rd helping my cousin and that unit has fallen as well. Good luck scouting. There are still a few good bucks, but expect to find tons of elk hunters etc. The drought and horses have really hurt the deer in 21.

Muzz16 · Nov 3, 2020

elks96 said:
prepare to be disappointed. You will see a few bucks but nothing like it was in 2001. I will be in 22 for the 3rd helping my cousin and that unit has fallen as well. Good luck scouting. There are still a few good bucks, but expect to find tons of elk hunters etc. The drought and horses have really hurt the deer in 21.

Cringing about it! Yea that’s what I’ve heard a while ago about the horses. So still a problem huh?

TELDER · Nov 3, 2020

santabarbarahunter said:
Cringing about it! Yea that’s what I’ve heard a while ago about the horses. So still a problem huh?

Horses are out of control. I hunted 22 2nd for deer. Between the pressure and horses it was pretty rough.

Muzz16 · Nov 3, 2020

TELDER said:
Horses are out of control. I hunted 22 2nd for deer. Between the pressure and horses it was pretty rough.

yikes...im hearing 22 4th season could be descent. Hunted it late 90s with dad and saw a bunch of little guys. Must be doing ok? later season.

TELDER · Nov 3, 2020

santabarbarahunter said:
yikes...im hearing 22 4th season could be descent. Hunted it late 90s with dad and saw a bunch of little guys. Must be doing ok? later season.

It's like anywhere, as it gets deeper into the rut some of those big boys show up out of the thick stuff, but definitely downhill from where it was. I hunted pretty hard for 4 days, live and work in the area and the buck I took was by far the biggest I saw. Not a bad deer, but definitely no monster.

Muzz16 · Nov 3, 2020

Yea i hear ya.. i guess next year should be later too. could help but its going to be what its going to be. Nice buck btw...

elks96 · Nov 4, 2020

santabarbarahunter said:
yikes...im hearing 22 4th season could be descent. Hunted it late 90s with dad and saw a bunch of little guys. Must be doing ok? later season.

I grew up in 22 and spent every season in 22 since 1992. Last year my wife and I both had 22 4th tags. We never saw a single buck over 150. We hunted hard entire season and looked at tons of doe. We saw 18" 3x3 breeding the doe. We never saw a buck over 4 years old and the only buck I felt was 4 years old was a heavy 18" 4x2. On the last day of the season over 30% of the deer tag holders were still hunting and had not seen anything over 160. We found 2 bulls over 300" and my daughter killed an elk, but never did see a buck over 150. Unit 22 has no chance as most of the deer in the unit migrate in from surrounding units and those units all saw nearly a doubling of tag allocations as the CPW again wants to kill all the bucks.

elks96 · Nov 4, 2020

santabarbarahunter said:
Cringing about it! Yea that’s what I’ve heard a while ago about the horses. So still a problem huh?

Still a problem? It was never fixed and it has only gotten worse. In both 22 and 21, I feel like the Horse population is up over 200% in the last 10 years. The HMA (Horse Management Areas) are a damn joke. The fences are completely worthless, the horses have spread through out every corner in the units. The ranchers are seeing their cattle allocations cut every year. Sadly the BLM has no plan. There is nothing they can do. They fight hard to pull as many horses off as they can but by the time all the lawsuits are settled and all the court BS is cleared they need to even more. When I was a kid in the early 90s we would see a few horses in a few spots. A trip into 22 would mean seeing 10-20 horses a day if travelled a lot are were in the right places. Today you can easily see 200-300 a day not even trying.

Muzz16 · Nov 4, 2020

What’s the point of keeping them around? Must be like the cats here in Cali, we can’t hunt em and they do more damage than good. I remember the same in late 90s we’d see a handful of those horses in 22-21.

coloradoman · Nov 4, 2020

Sounds like it’s time to SSS

huntindad4 · Nov 4, 2020

santabarbarahunter said:
What’s the point of keeping them around? Must be like the cats here in Cali, we can’t hunt em and they do more damage than good. I remember the same in late 90s we’d see a handful of those horses in 22-21.

The horses are a problem in every state their in. Kali is bad in most of rhe x zones. They round em up every year or so then put them up for sale then return the ones that don't sell. The law says they are supposed to cull the ones that don't sell the enviros and the courts say put wm back....sad deal.