UBA RAC Proposal

P

proutdoors

Guest
"Archery Elk season to open on the third Saturday of August with a 5 day extended Limited Entry Bull Elk Archery hunt period, and a 12 day extended Any Bull Archery Elk hunt period"
(Proclamation Section R657-5-43)

The Utah Bowmen's Association would like to propose the following:

1)That the General Archery Elk Hunt and Limited Entry Elk archery hunts opening day be moved forward and open on the third Saturday of Aigust. This would then open on the same day as the General Archery Buck Deer hunt.

2)That the General Archery "Spike Bull Units" elk hunt (archery elk hunts on spike bull only units) would be a 23 day hunt period (same as current hunt period) which would then close on the 4th Sunday after opening day.

3)That the Limited Entry Archery Bull Elk unit periods be extended by 5 days to become 28 day hunt periods closing on the 4th Friday after the opening day. This would end the same day as the General Archery Buck Deer Hunt.

4)The same rules and restrictions will apply on elk harvest according to Spike Bull Units and Any Bull Units.

This proposal has no significant down side for any management group. The overall success rate for Archery Elk hunters remains relatively low. By moving the opening of the Archery Elk hunt to coincide with the Archery Buck Deer hunt opening, the general bowhunter intending to hunt both species will realize a more enjoyable hunt opportunity. The (12) day extension for Any Bull units and the (5) day extension for Archery Limited Entry bull units would greatly improve the hunt enjoyment and overall satisfaction of these hunters by eliminating the Spike bull and antlerless hunter conflicts during the last 5 days of the Limited Entry Bull Elk archery units and by allowing the Any Bull Elk hunters to hunt closer to the rut. Due to relatively low historical archery success rates, these additional days of hunting opportunity may only slightly increase the mature bull archery success rates, which would be insignificant in total. Neither of these changes would create any new conflicts in existing General season rifle, spike, muzzle loader, or any Limited Entry any weapon or muzzle loader seasons.

PRO
 
Why would you want to open the elk hunt any earlier. If anything it needs to be pushed back. YA, I can see more days might increase the odds to harvest, but by pushing it back a week or two would put the archery hunter in the peak of the rut and give them even better odds. In my opinion this proposal Stinks. Archery hunters should be able to hunt the elk when they are rutting, the way it is know is that the rifle hunters get the elk rutting. Makes no sense when a rifle hunter can blast a bull at 300 yards.
 
You may want to reread the proposal. It is moving the dates forward for all, but the Limited Entry hunters get the same end date as NOW, they just won't have spike/antlerless hunters competing with them the last 5 days. The archery hunt can NOT be moved later w/o moving the rifle hunt back, you come up with a plan to do that, and get it passed, and I'll buy you dinner at ANY steakhouse in Utah.

PRO
 
That is a whole other subject. Right now on the 15 LE units that issue spike/antlerless tags the success rate was 13.2 percentage points below those units that did not issue spike tags. The gap was bigger in both 2004 and 2005. This proposal is meant to give the LE archery elk hunters on the units taht have spike/antlerless archery hunts, 5 days to hunt w/o competing with them.

The moving the archery hunt later into the rut has NOTHING to do with this proposal. Like I said, I agree with moving the archery into later in September, but that will take a miracle to get passed, and most certainly will NOT be done this year. UBA's proposal will get passed this year, making the LE archery elk hunt more enjoyable for those who draw a tag on the LE units that also issue spike/antlerless archery tags.

PRO
 
Ok, Move the hunt up so that it only makes it harder to try and pass moving it back later. makes alot of sense. I would rather compete with the spike hunters.
 
The LE archery hunts will end the EXACT same time as now, there is no "moving it back later". It still will end the day before the LE any-weapon hunt starts, NOTHING will change on that. The only thing is those who like to deer hunt and elk hunt can now have both start the same day, and the LE tag holders get 5 days w/o spike hunters in the field, why is that a bad idea? You want to compete with spike hunters, DO IT, you get 23 days to compete with them, only five days for those who prefer not to. Sounds to me like you are getting the better deal already.

PRO
 
I like it. I know we would all like to see a rut archery hunt. That will not happen this year and may not for a long time if ever. I see an opportunity to help the LE Bowhunters get a few days without the huge numbers of cow/spike hunters making it more difficult than it already is. Thanks for posting this Pro.

Chad
 
I have to agree with what bckcountrybuck was saying. I don't think those changes are going to make a signficant difference in the overall success of LE tag holders. If they agree to make the changes the UBA are requesting, then they will feel like they are doing something to improve the hunt for archers. If the UBA is going to be asking for changes, ask for something that will make a difference. We all agree the dates need to be moved back. I would rather see all efforts made to be towards changing that.
 
>I have to agree with what
>bckcountrybuck was saying. I
>don't think those changes are
>going to make a signficant
>difference in the overall success
>of LE tag holders.
>If they agree to make
>the changes the UBA are
>requesting, then they will feel
>like they are doing something
>to improve the hunt for
>archers. If the UBA
>is going to be asking
>for changes, ask for something
>that will make a difference.
> We all agree the
>dates need to be moved
>back. I would rather
>see all efforts made to
>be towards changing that.

Success rates were 13 percentage points HIGHER on LE units w/o spike tags than those with them in 2006, in 2005 it was 16 percentage points different, in 2004) (the first year of LE archery tags) it was 22 percentage points. So, I see this as a MAJOR improvement if you are a LE tag holder. Just because we are proposing this does NOT mean we are not working on other issues and other ways to make the LE archery hunt a better experience.

PRO
 
PRO,

You are missing the whole point of how this discussion began with 4_Plesur on Oct. 5th...

That is great you want to propose that we extend the LE archery hunts 5 additional days, BUT NOT EARLIER.

The whole point of the discussion was to make it so the archers have a better chance to hunt elk in the rut and moving the other hunts forward the same way!

There are way to many LE elk being slaughtered by the rifle hunters because the LE hunt for them starts at the time the rut sets in... If people are complaining about having to compete with the spike hunters in the LE units, then they should put in for units that do not have spike hunts!!!

For example, I have hunted the past three years in the Book Cliffs for LE Elk and all three years were the same result; hard to hunt, call, spot & stalk, etc. because the elk are not interested. Then, the rifle hunt and rut begins right after the archery and the rifles slaughter them!

I have to agree with bckcountrybuck on his statement. Make the change for the hunt to start earlier for archery and it will be a cold day in hell to ever ask again for the archery hunt to start later in the season when the rut is on.

In reading all of this, it seems that the UBA wants to make a proposal so they can get something changed FAST (within a year)! Screw that! This isn't the answer! UBA should push for a long term proposal and propose the archery hunt to start later. If it takes longer for that to happen with DWR, so be it.

Yea, I know you said that this way will be longer to get approved but I can assure you if we go the route you want to propose now, we will never get them to approve the other later. I know how the DWR thinks, they will simply say that "they have already made consolations for the archers by approving your "move it earlier" method so why would we want to make another approval in the future for archers?"...

I SAY DO NOT GO IN WITH YOUR PROPOSAL. START A LONG TERM CAMPAIGN FOR THE HUNT TO START LATER!
 
This proposal is NOT the product of ANY conversation from this forum, it has been in the works for months and was well researched and thoughtout by those involved, I was NOT one of the authors of this, I am merely a supporter of it. I have been spending every spare minute I have working on I400(the main part of which is season date changes), and the drawlock device changes that will be allowed to be used by dis-abled archers in 2008.

You say to just put in for LE units that don't issue spike tags, guess what, the majority of LE archery tags are given on units that issue spike tags. I can see no VALID reason to NOT give LE archery hunters FIVE days to hunt w/o competing with spike hunters.

PRO
 
Pro,

Glad to hear you were not one of the authors of this and are spending all your time with I400. Makes me think a bit higher of you....

Guess what, I don't care that the majority of LE archery tags are given on units that have spike tags. Those that want to whine about it need to put in draw areas that do not have a spike hunt with it. That's all I'm saying.

I still disagree with the current proposition. The effort that UBA should be doing is about proposing that taking to many big bulls (97% success ratio)with rifles during the hot time of the rut is not good for LE units! That's why I still say the archery LE elk should start when the rifle does and move rifle and muzzy later than that!

I'm just nervous that if UBA proposes the 5 day earlier idea, we as archers will never see a change in the LE elk archery dates to later so we can hunt in the rut. The DWR will feel they have done enough for the LE archery hunters and won't make another change later. Please fill us all in if you have some inside information that the DWR will not have that attitude later on...
 
So the main focus of this proposal is just for the LE bow hunters?

But taking away opportunity for our fellow spike bow hunters?--Now they have to travel to a Gen-Any Bull unit for any last week bow elk hunting?
There are a hell of alot more gen. bow elk hunters than the 200 -ish LE bow bull hunters in spike units, that may or may not be in the field that last week--all week.

Starting the gen bow elk hunt a week earlier is fine I guess? but does nothing for extending our bow dates into the rut.

I don't add up that the majority of LE bow bull tags are only issued via spike/cow units?

Robb
 
I have no problem extending the general bow elk and LE hunt one week longer and having to wear BLAZE to be able to bow hunt some rut dates while the Youth rifle hunt takes place in Gen units and the LE rifle hunt is in the LE units....

Thanks for your thoughts/input.

Robb
 
Robb, do you think the rut helps spike/antlerless hunters?

The LE archery hunters will NOT be hunting with the LE any weapon hunters are.

PRO
 
Here is the proposal as it will be presented:

UBA Proposal (#1a)

?Archery Elk season to open on the third Saturday of August with a 5 day extended Limited Entry Bull Elk Archery hunt period, and a 12 day extended Any Bull Archery Elk hunt period?
(Proclamation Section R657-5-43).

The Utah Bowmen?s association would like to propose the following:

(1)-That the General Archery Elk Hunt and Limited Entry Bull Elk archery hunts opening day be moved forward and open on the third Saturday of August. This would then open on the same day as the General Archery Buck Deer Hunt.

(2)-That the General Archery ?Spike Bull Units? Elk Hunt (archery Elk Hunts on Spike Bull only units) would be a 23 day hunt period (same as current hunt period) which would then close on the 4th Sunday after the opening day.

(3)-That the Limited Entry Archery Bull Elk unit hunt periods be extended by 5 days to become 28 day hunt periods closing on the 4th Friday after the opening day. This would end on the same day as the General Archery Buck Deer Hunt.

(4)-That the General Archery ?Any? Bull Elk hunt periods be extended by 12 days to be 35 day hunt period closing on the 5th Friday after the opening day. This would extended one week past the end of the General Archery Buck Deer Hunt and coincide with the youth Bull Elk Hunt.

(5)-The same rules and restrictions will apply on elk harvest according to Spike Bull Units and Any Bull Units.

This proposal has no significant down side for any management group. The overall success rate for Archery Elk hunters remains relatively low. By moving the opening of the Archery Elk Hunt to coincide with the Archery Buck Deer Hunt opening,
The general bowhunter intending to hunt both species will realize a more enjoyable hunt opportunity. The (12) day extension for Any Bull units and the (5) day extension for Archery Limited Entry Bull Units would greatly improve the hunt enjoyment and overall satisfaction of these hunters by eliminating the Spike bull and Cow Elk hunter conflicts during the last 5 days of the Limited Entry Bull Elk archery units and by allowing the Open Any Bull Elk hunters to hunt closer to the rut. Due to the relatively low historical archery success rates, these additional days of hunting opportunity may only slightly increase the mature bull archery hunt success rate, which would be insignificant in total. Neither of these changes would create any new conflicts in existing General season Rifle, Spike, muzzleloader, or any Limited Entry Bull Elk any weapon or muzzleloader seasons.

PRO
 
redman wrote-

"I still disagree with the current proposition. The effort that UBA should be doing is about proposing that taking to many big bulls (97% success ratio)with rifles during the hot time of the rut is not good for LE units!"

Help me understand something that i'm obviously not getting.

First off i'm not biased towards either weapon.

My question-

"What does it matter what the percentage of kills are on the LE units, don't they figure in a 100% kill when they issue the number of tags allotted for those units?
Anything less than 100% is a win for the unit...right?"

If they issue 100 tags for one unit, don't they plan on that many being taken in the first place??

Just a question i'm trying to understand, not meant to be an argument. :)





Skull Krazy
"No Bones About It"
 
I don't like the extremely high success rates, that were 89% in 2006 not 97%, either. I am all for moving the rifle hunt out of September, but that has NOTHING to do with this proposal. This proposal is addressing the conflict between archery spike hunters chasing bugles and the LE archery hunters.

PRO
 
Thanks Bart, going over an '08 calander and de-coding the 4th saturday 5th friday ect....Whew that is tough reading! ha

I am seeing that the General Any Bull units indeed go a week longer into the overlap with the Rifle Youth hunters.

Wearing blaze is no big deal as we do it when chasing Wyoming bow elk as the Rifle deer hunts start on Sept 15th in many-many of the bow elk units... blaze is okay by me for an extra week to bowhunt.

I hope I may finally have it correct on the 2008 calender match-up!

Thanks for your patience on this..........

Robb
 
Thanks for waiting for me to give a decent answer Robb. I'll see you at the RAC. I'll have a couple of Bowstrings for you and Gordy, and I will get your addresses verified AGAIN, please be patient with me on this one, I am truly working on 'fixing' the bugs.

PRO
 
LAST EDITED ON Oct-23-07 AT 09:22PM (MST)[p]I like it. You have my support. I'll remember the snickers and mt. dew.

I don't think everyone understands exactly what this is doing. Some are complaining of things that don't exist in the proposal.
 
Ralf8,

We that are complaining (I guess?) about the exist proposal understand perfectly that our argument is not in the existing proposal. Maybe I am just not explaining myself good enough.

All I am trying to get across is my fear that once (or if) the existing proposal gets approved, we will never be able to get the rifle hunt out of September and let the LE archery elk hunt go more into September during the rut in the future. The DWR will feel that they have already done their part for us with the exist prop. and not do anything else for us.

Pro,

I am very grateful that we have sportsmen like you working their butts off to make better experiences for all of us and I thank you for that. Just concerned that this will be the only item we will ever get approved. If I am missing something, please let me know. Better yet, PM me with your phone contact and I would like to talk to you more about it.

Not trying to argue, just expressing my concerns.

Red
 
Red-- I know what you are talking about the 'Fear of the Past' us bowhunters have been thru.

I do think this will be better than what we currently have and I think the LE bow bull dates may have some movement in the future on certain LE bull units.

Robb
 
The problem here is that you will never get the rifle hunt out of Sept. in Utah with the current management plan. If you move the hunts back two weeks as all bowhunters would have it, you end up with 30 - 50% of the bulls getting broken horns before the rifle hunt starts. You can't have 2/3 bull to cow ratios and move the hunt back even a week.

The bottem line is that a change in philosophy in Utah is required before you can move the LE anyweapon hunt back. I don't forsee that happening any time soon.

As for the LE archery hunters on spike bull units, they're not getting the type of hunt their long wait deserves. I know that most if not all of them that I've talked to have been disappointed with the circus that goes on with spike and deer hunters constantly calling and working the elk.

The object is to provide a quality hunt. Right now that is not possible for the majority of the LE Archery permits available. Every LE elk hunt gets the field to themselves with the exception of the LE Archery hunters. This is a simple move to provide a short 5 days without the circus to those LE archery hunters on spike bull units.

Again barring a massive change in managemnt philosophy, the hunt schedules for elk can never be moved back as we would like to see. If you don't believe this, you've never been out there on a LE unit the first of October!

Cheers,
Pete
 
Good post Pete, thanks.

Food for thought, Pete brought up many good points, one was all the broken bulls. I say this is a result of bull/cow ratios that are way out of whack. A herd that has a 30/100 ratio is less likely to have busted up bulls than a herd that has a 60/100 ratio. The 30/100 herd would roughly have one herd bull for every 10 cows with 2 satellite bulls, while the 60/100 herd would have one herd bull and 5 satellite bulls for every 10 cows. 5 satellite bulls are more likely to mix it up with each other and the herd bull than 2 satellite bulls. So, lower the bull/cow ratios closer to where the Elk Management Plan calls for (20/100), instead of the 60-80/100 that we see on several LE units, and fewer bulls will be busted up, meaning healthier bulls going into the winter which leads to BIGGER antlers the following year. Arizona takes some monster bulls EVERY year, and they have ZERO herds with 80+ bulls per 100 cows. Utah has no good biological reason to have these insane bull/cow ratios, it is 100% based on antler greed, ironically this greed is 'holding' back many bulls from reaching full potential and is busting up MANY quality bulls before the hunters get to hunt, I see busted bulls during the archery season every year. Now we have a 'management' tag that will allow hunters to kill quality bulls that are busted up w/o losing their points. How is that helping anything, killing quality bulls under a 'management' pretense?

PRO
 
I know I'm late in responding to this but wanted to give my take on it. It is clear that it would take an miracle to change the opening date of the LE Any Weapon hunt for Elk to a later date. Obviously in resent years the opportunity to hunt a Limited Entry Bull Elk in the State of Utah has become a Once-In-A-Lifetime hunt. So the guy who wants to pursue this opportunity with archery equipment needs a good opportunity just like everybody else.

I agree that the problem is in those LE Units that allow spike elk hunting. Rather than starting the elk hunt earlier so as to end it earlier for the spike hunter they need to Separate the general any bull units for archery from the archery LE units. Which they have done, except for those units that have spike hunting only.

But there lays the problem, If you haven't hunted a LE unit with a ?big bull tag? in your pocket on an archery hunt where spike hunters are running all around it SUCKS! I know some guys have things fall in place and shot some real monsters with archery equipment on a LE unit with general spike hunters. But it is rare and I don't think it needs to be as rare especially with how many bulls are on some of these units (Noting the bull/cow ratios). Look at his scenario:

Here are the current dates for elk hunting for this past year 2007

General Archery Elk August 23?September 14
General Season Spike Bull Elk October 6?14
General Season Any Bull Elk October 6?18
General Muzzleloader Elk November 1?9
Youth General Any Bull Elk September 15?25

The Youth hunting is very important and I support this whole heartedly, but it's the youth that get the prime hunting dates in the general areas for elk. And they can hunt with rifles. Why not extend the general season archery Any Bull Elk hunt to the 25th of September and then allow the youth to rifle hunt them up until the opening day of the general season. This would give the archery hunters that don't have LE permits to hunt Any Bull for an extra 10 days which can dramatically change the success of the hunt.

A solution for those area that allow spike hunting on LE units would be to end the general season archery spike bull elk hunt 5 days before the opener of the LE Any weapon hunt. This way the LE archery hunter can have the 5 days you are referring to without compromising the goal of getting the archery elk hunt extended. So it would look like this:

General Archery Elk August 23-September 25
General Archery Spike Elk August 23 - September 9
General Season Bull Elk October 6 - 18
General Season Spike Elk October 6 - 14
General Muzzleloader Elk November 1 - 9
Youth General Any Bull September 26 - October 5

LE Archery Elk August 23 - September 14
LE Any Weapon Elk September 15 - September 25
LE Muzzleloader Elk September 26 - October 4

This way we as archers gain during the general archery season and move our position that much closer to getting the LE Archery Hunts extended a bit more into September.
 
. Pro, and the UBA went to a lot of work to get things changed for the better. Yet no one on here gives them any credit. If you want to hunt the rut with a bow , go to any other state in the entire western US. In my opinion there is no better family type hunt anywhere, than Utah's LE rifle hunt. Utah provides a great opportuntiy for families to hunt together, with good weather while the elk are active.
 
The only other States that you can hunt Rutting Elk with a bow without having to wait a hundred years are Id, Co, Wy but you still need to draw a tag in some of those States. And if you do they aren't going to be hundreds of 350 class bull running around. I agree that the rifle LE ELK tag is sweet and I'd love to have a tag. I question here is whether we as archers push for more opportunity to hunt the elk deeper into the rut. My point is let work on the General Season opportunities first and then maybe the archery hunt for LE units can be extended a week or so deeper into the rut as well. The Any weapon hunts will still be there and will still be sweet on the 20th rather than the 15th.
 
Broomer---

Your dates of suggestion overlap the Youth Rifle hunt dates or the muzzy deer dates...and some mzzy cow elk hunts.

I think we have so many hunt opportunities that it is almost impossible to 'add' anything with out some restrictions----bow hunting with blaze on during the Youth rifle dates for example.

It certainly does not hurt to share an idea or your thoughts.

Robb
 
Part of our original proposal was to add one week to the end of the archery hunt for the any-bull areas, this was voted down at EVERY RAC and we had NO chance of getting ANY of our proposal through with that as part of it, so we pulled that part out and got five extra days for the LE hunters w/o losing any days for general archery hunts. THe main reason the extra week was not liked was the Youth elk hunt, the other was the perception that archers already have too many 'perks'. UBA/I WILL be looking at other options/ways to give archers more time in the rut.

PRO

Define, develop, and sustain BOTH trophy and opportunity hunts throughout the state of Utah.
 

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