CO bowhunting changes on the way

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Mar 2, 2013
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378
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Lakewood, CO
Just went to the Commission meeting today at CPW. Commission voted to approve changing several OTC units to limited units. Not because of good quality which is the norm for limited tags, but because of struggling herds so they want to limit the no. of cow tags. So, to me what it's going to do is for those that are familiar with these units and see that they will be limited to hunt only that GMU, they'll go to other units. Thus, other units will now be more crowded than before. It was really too late to make any comments today since the commission voted yes or no on the proposals and they vote based on CPW recommendations so it passed.
 

cstab

FNG
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Oct 15, 2019
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Yikes. It will definitely crowd the remaining OTC units.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
 

cnelk

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Colorado
Lets just hope they remove the antler restrictions in these new limited areas.
 
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cnelk

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I cant believe that archers were slaughtering all the cows in these areas to deplete the herd so much!
Man I was missing out
 

CJF

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"Creating limited, sex-specific (limited bull/limited cow) licenses for archery elk hunting in E16, E-24, E-30, and E-31 (p. 116-118). "

This is the exact wording from the meeting agenda.

Why would they limit archery, but not 2nd and 3rd rifle?
 

Bearshirt

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Feb 27, 2016
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Michiagn
So what do the E numbers mean? Are they combining units to make one larger unit?

Any guesses how many points you will need to draw one of these?
 
OP
COLOelkman
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Lakewood, CO
I heard they were limiting these units to create limited cow licenses. Thus either bull or cow tags were setup. I also thought, why limit cows for bowhunters but I heard it was to sort of make it more fair to rifle hunters. Rifle hunts already have limited cow specific tags. The SW units are 70, 71, 72, 73,711,74,741,75,751 and the Central units are 44,45, 47 and 444 between Vail and Aspen which is in the White River NF. These had a special restriction last year in that an OTC allowed you to only shoot a bull (thus it was not an either sex tag if you were hunting these areas last year). I wished they'd have kept that restriction on it so you could still hunt them. They are really a low harvest area so if people are not aware and think that are getting a "quality" limited entry tag, they will be sorely disappointed! A guy from Co. Bowhunters Assn. was there and commented on it but I think the public comment slots are really not worth anything at this stage since it was a meeting to vote after CPW made their recommendations. I think theres a long story on this topic but that happend a while back and I wasn't aware of that comment period.
 

5MilesBack

"DADDY"
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Why would they limit archery, but not 2nd and 3rd rifle?

Because the cow numbers weren't the reason for the change......regardless what they said. IF the depleted cow numbers were the issue........then they could have easily just cut back on all the rifle cow tags, and gone to OTC antlered elk tags like they did last year for 44, 45, 47, and 444.

Plus, this last year there were no cow tags at all for archery season in 44, 45, 47, and 444.........yet they want to change those units to draw only now for archery "because of the depleted cows"? That makes no sense at all. There's a herring in there somewhere, I just haven't figured out where yet.
 
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May 6, 2018
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Shenandoah Valley
Any idea when this info will be published for the public?

I have friends that still hunt these units. Going to have a pretty big impact on their trips.
 
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