Colorado/Wyoming/Utah

[Sickforit23]

I need help deciding on where to go this year. With all the Elk knowledge I've found on this site over the years i figured a few of you could help me out!


I've never hunted Wyoming or Utah (for some reason Utah is a huge goal of mine) but i have hunted colorado before. I saw a good amount of elk on the Colorado trip the first time but also a lot of hunters. I was early in my elk hunting career at that point and made the mistake of "leaving elk to find elk".


My father is my hunting partner and he has a buddy that is a wyoming resident that has invited us to hunt with him, however, we dont have any preference points and i know its getting harder and harder to draw even a general tag. Wyoming is definitely at the top of my list for Elk hunting destinations though and being able to hunt with a guy that knows a lot about the elk population in certain areas is definitely a draw.


If i had to choose right now, i'd probably go over the counter in colorado and go back to the place i'm familiar with. However, i'm a person that strives off challenges (one of the reasons i archery hunt for elk) and the idea of exploring either wyoming or utah is a huge draw as well.


Let me know what you all think! i would be archery hunting by the way.

 

[cohunter14]

I don't know a lot about Utah's system and how it works, but as far as Wyoming goes I think it's a long shot to draw with no points. If it were me, I would put in for Wyoming and if I don't draw, I'd go OTC to Colorado this year and know that I've got a preference point to go hunt Wyoming next year. Those definitely sound like the top two options given your knowledge of Colorado and help in Wyoming.

 

[Wyo67]

Concur with cohunter14.  Recommend putting in for Wyoming and purchasing a preference point. 

You are correct in that it is getting harder for non-residents to grab a general tag.  Last year, it took 3 points to guarantee getting drawn in the regular draw.  2 points was down to 58% and only about a 14% chance in the random draw. 

If you're willing to pony up the extra cash for the special draw, you still need at least one preference point to draw, but your chances in the random draw go up to about 30%.

 

[UtahJimmy]

You may be able to draw a WY unit without a point that is mostly made up of wilderness rather than going general. Being that your father's friends is a resident, I would take advantage of the obscure law that they have!

UT vs CO... CO has 3x the elk. As a result they have a lot more hunters. UT it may be easier to "get away from the crowds" but you may not see an elk either. But UT you can hunt spikes in the LE units. So depending on your goals, you could go see giant bulls that you can't shoot but you'll be almost guaranteed to be in elk every day!

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[Wyo67]

You may be able to draw a WY unit without a point that is mostly made up of wilderness rather than going general. Being that your father's friends is a resident, I would take advantage of the obscure law that they have!

You're correct in that he may be able to draw a tag without a point, but since he mentioned General, I assumed he was trying to get a bull tag.  He could draw a Type 6/7 in the cow/calf draw without using points or a Type 4 (full price antlerless) in the regular draw depending on the area. 

The wilderness rule shouldn't have much to do with it.  My local areas 7 and 11 had 100% draw rates on type 4's with zero points and there's no wilderness areas in either of those. 

 

[UtahJimmy]

You may be able to draw a WY unit without a point that is mostly made up of wilderness rather than going general. Being that your father's friends is a resident, I would take advantage of the obscure law that they have!

You're correct in that he may be able to draw a tag without a point, but since he mentioned General, I assumed he was trying to get a bull tag.  He could draw a Type 6/7 in the cow/calf draw without using points or a Type 4 (full price antlerless) in the regular draw depending on the area. 

The wilderness rule shouldn't have much to do with it.  My local areas 7 and 11 had 100% draw rates on type 4's with zero points and there's no wilderness areas in either of those.

Gotcha. Without digging into the draw odds are there no units that can be drawn for bull tags with 0 points?

I thought I remember looking last year and the odds were much better for wilderness areas.

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[Wyo67]

Gotcha. Without digging into the draw odds are there no units that can be drawn for bull tags with 0 points?

I thought I remember looking last year and the odds were much better for wilderness areas.

[/quote]

I haven't dug to deep into, just doing research for my non-res Dad and Brother, but off hand, I would say that unless you get lucky and get picked up in the random draw with no points, there's no way you can get a bull tag with 0 points in the regular draw. 
** Note - I'm talking about the regular draw.  Have done very little research into the special draw.  I do know that it required at least one point to get a General tag in the special draw last year.

Quite a few of the wilderness areas around Yellowstone are General areas.  The Bighorn areas have a couple General areas (36 & 37), and the limited quota areas (35, 41, & 45) all required a minimum of 5 points (45 took 10).

 

[fez]

Do you have any points built up in Utah?

My plan would be to try for a Wyoming tag.  You will get those results before the Utah deadline.  If you strike out in wyoming, try for a utah tag.  IF your draw a LE unit, great but if not, you can always fall back to colorado OTC. 

If you want to hunt utah, you can hunt some LE units OTC with a spike only tag. This way your learning areas that you potentially might hunt with LE tags once you draw 

Lots of options in wyoming for cow tags etc. 

Good luck

 

[Elk Arrow]

Thank goodness for Colorado and their OTC tags