Archery Vs Rifle

[Solanoslayer]

So i was taking a look at the tag allocation. i find it very interesting that for limited entry tags like the X zones. There is an excessive skew in my opinion toward rifle hunters. I hunt both archery and rifle and i know how much easier rifle hunting is. Why do you think CA doesnt give more opportunity to archery hunters or at least make the tag allocation closer to even? I mean the success rate of archery hunting is generally lower sometimes close to equal but what gives?

 

[chrisamx]

Also very limited late season hunts.

 

[Solanoslayer]

Also very limited late season hunts.

Well late season i can see.. but yea there are not very many good archery late hunts

 

[Homer]

get a rifle tag and bow hunt till your heart is content.....that's why

 

[Soj51hopeful]

There’s a much higher demand for rifle tags. You wouldn’t split tags 50/50 when you have 80% of applicants for a zone applying in the rifle pool.

 

[Solanoslayer]

get a rifle tag and bow hunt till your heart is content.....that's why

Terrible response to a legit question

 

[Solanoslayer]

There’s a much higher demand for rifle tags. You wouldn’t split tags 50/50 when you have 80% of applicants for a zone applying in the rifle pool.

Is that the reality or is it because people are weighing their points vs availaility

 

[Sierra]

There’s a much higher demand for rifle tags. You wouldn’t split tags 50/50 when you have 80% of applicants for a zone applying in the rifle pool.

I agree. CA probably has a much smaller percentage of bow hunters compared to total hunters than almost every other state. That’s probably because it’s hard enough to kill a good buck with a rifle in CA.

 

[Soj51hopeful]

Is that the reality or is it because people are weighing their points vs availaility

Drawing archery tags takes less points so for those that want to bow hunt technically can hunt a zone more often than a rifle hunter. So yes I would call that reality.

 

[Solanoslayer]

Drawing archery tags takes less points so for those that want to bow hunt technically can hunt a zone more often than a rifle hunter. So yes I would call that reality.

I dont know man lets take X2 and A4 as an example rifle 171 tags 9 years to draw archery 9 tags 7 years to draw. You dont think thats wild? 9 tags vs 171 with 2 years less wait i think thats bonkers but thats just my opinion

 

[Solanoslayer]

Drawing archery tags takes less points so for those that want to bow hunt technically can hunt a zone more often than a rifle hunter. So yes I would call that reality.

Addtionally i love archery hunting but if it was me i would wait the extra 2 years to up my harvest success rate by 30% and i think most people would. Theres not really an incentive to wait that long for an archery tag when you can wait 2 more years and get a rifle tag.

 

[Soj51hopeful]

I dont know man lets take X2 and A4 as an example rifle 171 tags 9 years to draw archery 9 tags 7 years to draw. You dont think thats wild? 9 tags vs 171 with 2 years less wait i think thats bonkers but thats just my opinion

Yes it seems a little skewed when you look at just tag allotment. But what is the trend over the last 10 years. Archery hunting has definitely gained popularity and maybe 6-7 years ago you could archery hunt it every other year. I don’t know, I’m not looking up the numbers cause it’s not my state anymore.

 

[willfrye027]

California hardly ever changes anything. I do not think the department really cares what hunters want.

I’m with you, would love to see more archery tags.

 

[chap_dog48]

I know many are talking about late or x zone tags but archery hunting in California is pretty awesome. There are 100,000 AO tags. You can hunt a ton of zones that are open A B D, and you can have a season for almost 2 months by bouncing to different zones etc. If you get a general tag you can archery hunt for 7 weeks in that specific zone. I think it's fair. I do it all the time. I hunt from roughly Aug 16 to Nov 10 every year here in California. I go to other states for maybe 5 days here or there when I draw a tag. So I'm not going to complain but I do see how some can feel slighted but in the big picture I like what I seen every year.

 

[Solanoslayer]

Yea i mean you can hunt Ao but during those times the bucks are mostly nocturnal. i use to get an AO tag but id rather hunt C or a Late hunt. Im just very surprised by the huge difference in between rifle and archery X zone tags late tags are balanced to some degree but X zone are bad its just opinion though.