Sangre de Cristo Early Timberline Mule Deer

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Aug 3, 2012
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San Luis Valley, Colorado
Anyone have experience with the early "timberline" rifle hunt in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Range?

DOW says that in 2012 a resident hunter needed 6 points to draw this hunt. I have 7 points for mule deer and just applied for this hunt. Does that mean I'm a shoo-in for a tag?

Man I hope so . . .
 

armyjoe

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I've never hunted it but as far as the points go its not always a shoo-in even with one more point then the minimum. Take a look at the DOW statistics and look at the "hunter recap" - its the first column and I recommend looking at the last 3 years to average it out. It will show you how many tags were available in that unit and what the points were for everyone who applied. Example .... because I'm not sure exactly what unit number to look it up for you... There could be only 15 tags for that hunt and 6 points is minimum but 30 people applied with 6 or more points so its now a true draw and not a guarantee.
 

Aron Snyder

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Anyone have experience with the early "timberline" rifle hunt in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Range?

DOW says that in 2012 a resident hunter needed 6 points to draw this hunt. I have 7 points for mule deer and just applied for this hunt. Does that mean I'm a shoo-in for a tag?

Man I hope so . . .

Call me....
 
OP
CrzyTrekker
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San Luis Valley, Colorado
This is how to read hunt cap reports (from the Colo Div Wildlife site). Based on this, I would have drawn the tag last year. Everyone with more than 6 points got the tag, and almost everyone with 6 points got the tag. Nobody with less than 6 got the tag. Finally makes sense to me...

How to read Preference Points

0 1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11+
193 138 189 134 19 6
3 2 0 0 0 0

The top 2 columns, 0-11+ is the number of Preference Points. The columns wrap which is confusing. The bottom 2 columns are the numbers of hunters with those preference points that applied. So, in this example, 193 hunters applied with 0 preference points, 138 applied with 1 preference point...(next column), 3 hunters applied with 6 points (bottom row, far left column), 2 with 7 points, and no one applied with 8 or more points. To see how many preference points it took to actually get the license - look at the Quota (from table above), which was 125 total licenses issued, then count backwards under Preference Points (bottom row, far right side 1st, last number listed) until you reach 125. You count starting from the hunter who applied with the most points to see how many points you needed to get the license that year. Thus, you would add 2 + 3 + 6 + 19 + 134 = 164. So hunters with 7,6,5,4 and some who had 3 points all drew that license. The hunters with 2,1, and 0 points did not draw. These are only tallied for the 1st choice, in this case.
 
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Its not to difficult, I went from sea level to 12,000 on this hunt last year and never really skipped a beat... that is until we had some cliff climbing to do!!!
 
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Feb 25, 2012
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I think you are off on your points/chance of getting drawn.

It looks like about 40% drew with 6 points last year as a resident. 7 hunters didn't get drawn with 6 points last year. I think you must be looking at the wrong hunt code if it says hunters with 3 points drew.
 
OP
CrzyTrekker
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San Luis Valley, Colorado
I think you are off on your points/chance of getting drawn.

It looks like about 40% drew with 6 points last year as a resident. 7 hunters didn't get drawn with 6 points last year. I think you must be looking at the wrong hunt code if it says hunters with 3 points drew.

The example above is given by the DOW to explain how the system works - it's not the unit I am trying to get into. Last year everyone with 7 points drew a tag for the Timberline hunt, and several with 6 points drew a tag. I've got 7 points so I'm hoping for the best . . . :)

Of course, I need to check how many tags are available for the unit this year. If the DOW reduced that number for biological reasons then I may not draw.
 
OP
CrzyTrekker
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San Luis Valley, Colorado
dirtytough, let me know if I misunderstood you. I'm really excited about doing this hunt and will do it this year, next year, whenever I can get in there.

I was down there several years ago to climb the fourteeners in the Crestone Group. I went with two buddies and we had a great time. The fishing was good and we had some great wildlife encounters including some ewes that passed through our bivy camp one morning. Stupidly, I did a lot of trips back then without packing a camera.
 
Joined
Feb 25, 2012
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I misunderstood you. I thought you posted that guys with 3 points drew that hunt last year.

I have always thought about doing this hunt, and even talked to the bio about it. Was thinking of scouting it this year. If I do scout it this summer and you draw I will let you know what I see.
 

a3dhunter

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Feb 26, 2012
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Colorado Springs,CO
I spent about 10 days in the unit late summer and first weekend of archery season there last year.
If a fat boy like me can hunt it anyone can, you just have to get your head right before you get there and know it's just one foot in front of another, and you might take some rock climbing gear with you. ;)
Out of approximately 40-45 bucks I saw, only two were above 160". They are there, but you might die finding them.

What I do like is the early rifle tag is good for both sides of the top, not so with archery.
Some pics:
DSCN0922.jpg

DSCN1026.jpg

DSCN1044.jpg

DSCN1055.jpg
 

bobhunts

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Jun 16, 2012
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Colorado Springs,Co.
I am not sure regarding the pp's required now but a friend of mine did draw two years ago with 6 pp's. He and his dad did a horse pack trip in and he shot a 180 ish buck in velvet. Bob.
 
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