Wyoming - Wilderness area distinction

[Deleted member 28227]

Look at limited draw allocation Colorado is far and away the most generous. It’s not even close.

With the exception of pronghorn it’s way easier for a non-resident to hunt elk and deer every year in CO, ID and WY.

Don’t get me wrong I love hunting WY but I can only draw a general deer and elk every couple of years. I think this the improves quality of the hunt and which CO would re-examin our system.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

That's the issue. Everyone in Californa and Texas comes to Colorado on vacation, so everybody in Colorado goes to Wyoming, and we are left screwed and cant even get a camping spot at Glendo, Gowdy, etc... due to all the green plates.

Been watching green plates go by with snowmobiles all winter, do yall not have snowmobile trails in Colorado? I mean I get the folks from Iowa who come out here but the CO folks drive by mountains to get to our mountains. Must be some reason.

Lol cause now I-70 traffic is so bad you can literally drive to Jackson from Denver in the same amount of time.

 

[PrairieHunter]

Look at limited draw allocation Colorado is far and away the most generous. It’s not even close.

With the exception of pronghorn it’s way easier for a non-resident to hunt elk and deer every year in CO, ID and WY.

Don’t get me wrong I love hunting WY but I can only draw a general deer and elk every couple of years. I think this the improves quality of the hunt and which CO would re-examin our system.

We have gone over this in other threads.

There are only so many tags in each state, and you can't have the best resident and NR hunting opportunities when other states have 1/10 the population.

So far you are just throwing out an opinion with no numbers to back it up. I am showing you how NR's get more tags in WY in the leftover draw than residents do because it's wide open.

I agree that due to OTC elk tags CO sells more bull tags, but overall I suspect Wyoming catches up on overall tag numbers with the leftover draw.

 

[wyoelkfan15]

Not even close, it’s certainly not the worst, NZ, WA, and NM buts it’s not in the top for NR tag allocation. #1 is CO then MT and ID.

15% of the elk and 20% of the deer and antelope tags is extremely generous comparably to other states. Montana non-residents can get up to 10% of the draw but this is rarely met.

Due to the number of CO hunters that come to WY to hunt I would like to see an additional fee added for residents of CO tags and application fees to offset the hunting trade deficit at the border. Colorado, Wyomings Mexico.

The Snowy Range opening weekend...

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Fact in the primary draw in both states non-resident tags are limited by a fixed percentage. 35% in CO and 20% in WY. Both state open leftovers to anyone, CO has unlimited OTC tags. Regardless of the final percentage of NR V R, as a nonresident you can 100% hunt bull elk every year in the vast majority of the state, as a non resident you can hunt bull elk in a smaller proportion of the state every 1-3 years depending on how you do in the random draw.

 

[El Jason]

Ive always thought a funny way to deal with this bullshit rule would be for wilderness areas in every other state to be off limits to Wyoming hunters. Similar to how trapping laws work.

Yes, it is a bullshit law. However, the odds of this outfitter subsidy ever changing are slim to none. Residents get a benefit from it, and you'll be hard pressed to find enough folks where this even registers on their GAF meter to make a change. It would be heavily opposed by WYOGA. I have a long time friend with Wyoming G&F, and I love busting his balls on this law. He just shrugs and smiles. He knows it's messed up, but also knows it'll never change. Que sera sera.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Montana non-residents can get up to 10% of the draw but this is rarely met.

That’s not an accurate comparison as WY and MT general draws are totally different. WY is more generous with NR when it comes to hard to draw units, MT is more generous when it comes to the general tag. I’ve lived in MT and CO and applied to ID, MT, CO, NM etc all I’m saying is I can resonable expect to draw an elk tag every year in CO, ID, and MT while every couple of year in WY.

My definition of generosity is if the state lets a nonresident chase bull elk every year.

 

[wyoelkfan15]

Just curious, I have never hunted elk in Colorado. Would you say that an OTC tag unit in Colorado is a better experience than a tag you have to wait two years for in Wyoming?

 

[Deleted member 28227]

On a average I think you have a better chance of harvesting an elk and a bigger elk on a general WY tag than an OTC CO tag.

On average WY is a better experience, that being said CO elk hunting is awesome and I’ve never not gotten into elk hunting CO.

Wyoming has a great management system, as does CO they just have different objectives.

 

[wyoelkfan15]

Interesting, that's what I have always thought about Colorado's system. I wouldn't mind trying an OTC archery hunt down there one of these seasons. Since we are WAY off the topic of the thread at this point I would just say that I think Wyoming's Wilderness law helps those surrounding areas that non-residents can hunt.

 

[Blackcats06]

On a average I think you have a better chance of harvesting an elk and a bigger elk on a general WY tag than an OTC CO tag.

On average WY is a better experience, that being said CO elk hunting is awesome and I’ve never not gotten into elk hunting CO.

Wyoming has a great management system, as does CO they just have different objectives.

Define getting into elk? Like are you seeing elk every day? every couple days? I'm one of those guys that haven't done CO OTC yet because most of what you hear is that you'll be lucky to find elk that aren't scared of their own shadow.

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Define getting into elk? Like are you seeing elk every day? every couple days? I'm one of those guys that haven't done CO OTC yet because most of what you hear is that you'll be lucky to find elk that aren't scared of their own shadow.

Thanks

To be clear I'm an adult onset hunter and I don't have decades of experiences like some of the guys on here. I took hunters safety and fired a hunting rifle for the first time in '12.

Real quick synopsis of my experience:

'12: First season, went with my dad a non-hunter, hunted 2nd rifle. Hunted 3 days and saw 1 cow elk on the second day from 500 yards. Second hunt ever, didn't kill an elk.
'13: Hunted a muzzy tag in a 0pt unit, hunted 4 days saw elk every day, called in a spike bull to 20 yards. Had 3 opportunities at cows under 30 yards. I believe the tag was branch antlered bull only, I didn't kill an elk.
'14: Moved to Montana hunted Montana like 10 days saw lots of elk, got 2 shot opportunities, fumbled the ball on the 1 yard line both times
'15: Killed first elk, in Montana, bull opening day of rifle solo
'16: Killed second elk in Montana, killed a cow after screwing up a couple of different opportunities at big bulls
'17 Part 1: Hunted a bear with a bow with my BIL and his buddy who had elk tags, OTC unit for archery, found elk on Friday night, had 3 shot opportunities Sat, they couldn't make it happen, buddy killed a bull Sunday morning at first light.
Part 2: Hunted 1st season rifle with my BIL in Colorado killed a good bull the 2nd day of the season, saw 3 different 5 points the first day, had an opportunity at one, but wanted something bigger, killed a 6 point on the second day of the season. Also had a cow at 25 yards who came into a call.
'18: Hunted muzzy season solo, first weekend didn't see an elk, but lots of sign and herd some crash away from me in the timber, following Thursday hiked in, killed a bull at first light Friday morning.

Packed out a couple of bulls not mentioned and hunted a bunch of random days with people, but these are the 5 elk kills that I have participated in directly.

I have hunted 1 OTC rifle tag and 1 OTC archery, the rest per above were 1st rifle or muzzy but in units that were 2nd choice, O points, or that you could expect to draw every year. I picked these hunts solely because of scheduling, also I have never hunted the same unit twice I hunted 6 different units in CO.


TLDR: If you do your home work and if possible scout the unit ahead of time, I think you can reasonably expect to see elk every day, shot opportunity depends on skill.

 

[sdkhunter]

Yeah, I agree the wilderness rules suck but the WYOGA is too powerful of lobby to get it changed in the foreseeable future. The only way I could envision it changing would be to somehow put enough pressure on the residents to want to change it, because otherwise why would they ever care enough to change it? for example if the other western states passed a reciprocal law on wilderness access so for example if your state requires a guide for wilderness (like WY has) that they would have to hunt wilderness with a guide in their state... imagine if CO, ID, MT, NM, AZ limited WY residents in wilderness - something like that could make a difference...

 

[wyoelkfan15]

for example if the other western states passed a reciprocal law on wilderness access so for example if your state requires a guide for wilderness (like WY has) that they would have to hunt wilderness with a guide in their state... imagine if CO, ID, MT, NM, AZ limited WY residents in wilderness - something like that could make a difference...

As I said above, I would be 100% okay with this. People bemoan this law so much but I would still argue the units that are available to non-residents, requiring 1-2 points to draw, which comprise the majority of the state, provide top quality elk hunts comparable to or better than other states.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I would still argue the units that are available to non-residents, requiring 1-2 points to draw, which comprise the majority of the state, provide top quality elk hunts comparable to or better than other states.

Now that I agree with 100%

 

[Irrelevant]

To be clear I'm an adult onset hunter and I don't have decades of experiences like some of the guys on here. I took hunters safety and fired a hunting rifle for the first time in '12.

Real quick synopsis of my experience:

'12: First season, went with my dad a non-hunter, hunted 2nd rifle. Hunted 3 days and saw 1 cow elk on the second day from 500 yards. Second hunt ever.
'13: Hunted a muzzy tag in a 0pt unit, hunted 4 days saw elk every day, called in a spike bull to 20 yards. Had 3 opportunities at cows under 30 yards. I believe the tag was branch antlered bull only
'14: Moved to Montana hunted Montana like 10 days saw lots of elk, got 2 shot opportunities, fumbled the ball on the 1 yard line both times
'15: Killed first elk in Montana, bull opening day of rifle solo
'16: Killed second elk in Montana, killed a cow after screwing up a couple of different opportunities at big bulls
'17 Part 1: Hunted a bear with a bow with my BIL and his buddy who had elk tags, OTC unit for archery, found elk on Friday night, had 3 shot opportunities Sat, they couldn't make it happen, buddy killed a bull Sunday morning at first light.
Part 2: Hunted 1st season rifle with my BIL in Colorado killed a good bull the 2nd day of the season, saw 3 different 5 points the first day, had an opportunity at one, but wanted something bigger, killed a 6 point on the second day of the season. Also had a cow at 25 yards who came into a call.
'18: Hunted muzzy season solo, first weekend didn't see an elk, but lots of sign and herd some crash away from me in the timber, following Thursday hiked in, killed a bull at first light Friday morning.

Packed out a couple of bulls not mentioned and hunted a bunch of random days with people, but these are the 5 elk kills that I have participated in directly.

I have hunted 1 OTC rifle tag and 1 OTC archery, the rest per above were 1st rifle or muzzy but in units that were 2nd choice, O points, or that you could expect to draw every year. I picked these hunts solely because of scheduling, also I have never hunted the same unit twice I hunted 6 different units in CO.


TLDR: If you do your home work and if possible scout the unit ahead of time, I think you can reasonably expect to see elk every day, shot opportunity depends on skill.

Now that is a quick learning curve. Took me 15 years to start killing elk semi-consistently.

 

[Jape]

Tough law but technically legal and not going anywhere anytime soon. As a NR I hunted it last year and it can be a notch about general tag areas, but it's still elk hunting and still requires a lot of hard work and ideally prior experience.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Now that is a quick learning curve. Took me 15 years to start killing elk semi-consistently.

I have been more luckily than good at this point.

 

[PrairieHunter]

Fact in the primary draw in both states non-resident tags are limited by a fixed percentage. 35% in CO and 20% in WY. Both state open leftovers to anyone, CO has unlimited OTC tags. Regardless of the final percentage of NR V R, as a nonresident you can 100% hunt bull elk every year in the vast majority of the state, as a non resident you can hunt bull elk in a smaller proportion of the state every 1-3 years depending on how you do in the random draw.

What you are skipping is the fact that although both states open up leftovers to NR's do you think there are more leftover tags in WY with 500k residents or in CO with 6 million residents. And due to the bad draw odds CO residents are much more likely to be looking for tags in the leftover draw as WY residents just get a general tag if they don't draw. Much different situation again due to population. 6 million residents going after around 55% of tags (35% to NR's and 10% to Landowners) leaves a lot of R's looking for leftovers. 500k residents going after 80% of the tags is a much different situation when it comes to leftovers. Advantage WY. We just give all the crappy tags to NR's after we take the best tags.

Hunting opportunities for R's in Colorado are terrible.
Would you rather have a
0 preference point or OTC elk tag in Colorado that is good for a week
General MT elk tag good for 4 moths with a chance for a limited unit
Genearl WY elk tag with chance for limited unit

I'ts not even close. Colorado R's lose at every turn. As you mention a high % of the good tags in CO go to NR's screwing R's. Then the landowner tag program screwed the R's and took more tags away. Then OTC units screwed even more of the state up for R hunters.

Again, this is why CO residents come to WY to hunt, fish, snowmobile, recreate, etc and WY residents go to Colorado to shop and eat.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Lol yep, you nailed it, although I bet a higher proportion of WY residents hunt than CO residents so it’s probably more like 25k residents in WY v. 140k residents in CO bought elk licenses.

No I didn’t look those up I’m throwing out wild guesses cause it’s the internet and I can.