Let’s start with the changes… there are a handful. Some will have a much greater impact than others for sure. If you open up the 2016 Big Game Application Booklet you’ll notice on the first couple pages that there is an extensive list of items listed under the “What’s New?” heading. I’ll not go into each of these items… only the ones that I think could have an immediate impact on the application trends that I have tracked since 2006.
Over the last few years there have been a number of additional hunt opportunities for limited entry deer. These opportunities are for muzzleloader hunters with dates that coincide with the general muzzleloader elk hunts. I think this is a great opportunity to spread some point holders around, but ultimately I don’t think that it does much to affect the top point holders at all. Last year was the first year of this new hunt opportunity in a select handful of units so I don’t have any data currently to make any speculation on trends. Suffice it to say, in my opinion, if the DWR really wants to make this a viable option and really potentially affect those top point holders… they need to extend the hunt so that it corresponds more with the mule deer rut. As it currently stands the hunt is in the pre-rut with this year’s dates being the latest they could be (you’ll hear a lot about this year’s hunt dates as we work through the breakdown of the different species) but it still seems to end a bit early to really get much into the rut. If the DWR were to move this only slightly, pushing it back by a week or two, I think you would really see some significant interest from guys/gals that have higher numbers of bonus points.
There will be a few new hunts on limited entry elk units this fall that will share the same hunt dates as the general rifle spike hunts. These hunts will be available on the following units: Box Elder, Grouse Creek; Paunsaugunt; Plateau, Fishlake/Thousand Lakes; West Desert, Deep Creek. There was considerable talk in the Wildlife Board Meeting when this was approved to include the Central Mountains, Manti and possibly even Wasatch Mountains units in this program but it was determined to pilot the program this year in these four units to determine its viability. Although this new hunt provides what I would consider a unique opportunity to bring back a large “family camp” with a limited entry tag holder hunting with family members who are also hunting spikes, I don’t see this hunt really affecting the top pointholders in the application and dramatically affecting the drawing odds for the more popular early rifle hunts on those units. I would anticipate the biggest draw for these hunts probably coming from the late rifle hunts with the archery, early rifle, and muzzleloader draws largely remaining unchanged.
A couple of hunts will be discontinued this year. The two that could pose the most impactful are the closure of the Beaver nanny mountain goat hunt and the closure youth late any bull hunt. Those applicants hoping to shorten their wait for a once-in-a-lifetime (OIAL) mountain goat tag by applying for the nanny tag will now only have one option, Ogden. This could have some pretty serious impact on the drawing odds for the Ogden nanny hunt. For the youth late any bull tag, it’s just unfortunate to see an opportunity for young hunters go by the wayside. But I understand that much of the area that this hunt was held in was private property, and there is still the early youth any bull which is still a unique OIAL experience for young hunters.
And finally, the regulation limiting muzzleloader hunters to a fixed power, non-magnifying aiming system has been lifted. Hunters are now free to use the scope of their choice on their muzzleloader regardless of magnification. I don’t see this change affecting the limited entry (LE) deer and pronghorn draws too much. The deer application trends show that archery, rifle, and muzzleloader bonus points pools are so close together that there would really be no incentive to switch from rifle to muzzleloader. The elk drawing on the other hand is where this change could absolutely be a game changer. As it currently stands it takes an average of four fewer bonus points to draw a LE muzzleloader elk tag compared to the same LE early rifle tag, and with the LE elk dates still providing hunters the chance to chase rut crazed bulls, this could be a huge incentive to make that switch. Additionally, electronic rangefinding devices attached to bows are also now legal. I don’t see this affecting any of the other (rifle, muzzleloader) draws and causing a real deviation from the trends for the archery applicant pool, though.
Some interesting changes to be certain and I will be interested to see how these changes affect this year’s application pool and compare them to the historical trends.
For those of you looking for any little tidbit of information, or possibly tips, to increase your chances at drawing a tag this year… let’s take a species by species look at this and break it down. I will not discuss the CWMU units at this time.
LE DEER
I don’t see anything that would lead me to believe that the trends will change for this year. This is how many bonus points I think it will take to draw each deer tag:
| RESIDENT | NON-RESIDENT | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Archery | Any Weapon | Muzzleloader | Multi-Season | Archery | Any Weapon | Muzzleloader | Multi-Season |
| Antelope Island | NA | |||||||
| Henry Mountains | 17.4 | 19.3 | 19.0 | 20.0 | NA | 21.6 | NA | |
| Paunsaugunt | 12.7 | 14.8 | 12.8 | 16.0 | 20.1 | 20.1 | 18.2 | |
| Book Cliffs | 8.7 | 9.6 | 11.0 | 12.9 | 12.8 | NA | ||
| Book Cliffs, North | 10.7 | 13.9 | ||||||
| Book Cliffs, South | 10.7 | 15.0 | ||||||
| Fillmore, Oak Creek | 6.8 | 14.6 | 11.7 | NA | NA | 21.6 | NA | |
| La Sal, Dolores Triangle | 8.6 | 13.3 | 13.7 | NA | ||||
| San Juan, Elk Ridge | 14.1 | 13.3 | 13.9 | 13.0 | NA | 18.5 | NA | |
| South Slope, Diamond Mountain | 10.0 | 11.7 | 10.1 | 12.0 | 9.4 | 13.6 | 12.8 | |
| West Desert, Vernon | 7.5 | 12.8 | 10.1 | 13.0 | 8.5 | 12.8 | 11.2 | NA |
| North Slope, Summit | 0 | 0 | NA | |||||
| Cache, Crawford Mountain | 12.7 | 14.9 | ||||||
| Chalk Creek/East Canyon/Morgan-South Rich | 9.0 | NA | ||||||
| Kamas | 6.0 | NA | ||||||
| Nine Mile | 6.0 | NA | ||||||
| Pine Valley | 11.0 | NA | ||||||
| Southwest Desert | 14.0 | NA | ||||||
| Zion | 9.0 | NA | ||||||
“NA” means that there has historically only been one tag offered so the tag is issued through a lottery style drawing. “Blank” means that there have historically not been tags offered for this unit.
I expect a little bit of fluctuation with the muzzleloader only units (Chalk Creek, Kamas, Nine Mile, Pine Valley, Southwest Desert, and Zion) simply because I only have one year of data to reference. I also expect some fluctuation with the Multi-Season hunts as well since last year (2015) was the first time these hunts were offered. In the coming years I expect the trends to become more clear for these hunts as more data points are obtained.
LE ELK
The permission now of magnifying scopes on muzzleloaders I think will have the greatest impact with the LE elk drawing. I can only speculate, but I would anticipate an increase in applicants for the muzzleloader tags. One thing that may even out the applicants somewhat are the season dates… these season dates are the latest dates that are possible under Utah’s hunt date system. This year I would expect to see a spike in archery applications as this year the archery dates are the “best” they could be for hunting during the first part of the rut. Applicants for the early rifle tag should remain relatively constant… not much changes with these rifle hunts because of their popularity. The muzzleloader hunts may see a slight drop off because of how late the season starts (September 28 compared to last year’s opening date of September 23), however this potential slight drop off could be completely wiped out by the magnifying scope change! The late rifle hunt is where I think most guys/gals will jump from to potentially hunt the new October hunts during the general spike hunts. This is how many points I think it will take to draw each elk tag:
| RESIDENT | NON-RESIDENT | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Archery | Early Any Weapon | Late Any Weapon | Muzzle loader | Multi-Season | Archery | Early Any Weapon | Late Any Weapon | Muzzle loader | Multi-Season |
| Beaver, East | 11.8 | 20..3 | 15.0 | 18.1 | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
| Book Cliffs, Bitter Creek South | 5.9 | 17.7 | 10.3 | 13.2 | 19.1 | 13.7 | 18.2 | 14.3 | 15.7 | |
| Book Cliffs, Little Creek Roadless | 6.3 | 17.3 | 13.5 | NA | NA | 20.0 | NA | NA | ||
| Box Elder, Grouse Creek | 14.5 | 8.7 | NA | |||||||
| Box Elder, Pilot Mountain | 18.4 | |||||||||
| Cache, Meadowville | 0.7 | 4.3 | 2.1 | 0.7 | 23.0 | NA | 10.3 | 3.0 | NA | |
| Cache, North | 0.4 | 8.7 | 6.5 | 4.0 | NA | NA | 10.2 | NA | NA | |
| Cache, South | 3.6 | 13.5 | 9.7 | 9.4 | 17.6 | 6.3 | 13.5 | 9.0 | 12.5 | |
| Central Mountains, Manti | 4.5 | 14.5 | 8.8 | 10.7 | 18.7 | 10.7 | 15.0 | 11.1 | 13.6 | NA |
| Central Mountains, Nebo | 3.2 | 12.1 | 11.3 | 5.2 | 16.1 | 9.3 | NA | NA | NA | |
| Fillmore, Pahvant | 13.3 | 21.8 | 15.8 | 18.3 | 22.5 | NA | NA | 13.2 | 20.0 | |
| La Sal, Dolores Triangle | 15.1 | |||||||||
| La Sal, La Sal Mountains | 3.5 | 13.4 | 7.2 | 9.2 | 18.0 | 12.9 | 16.9 | 13.2 | 18.0 | |
| Monroe | 13.6 | 20.9 | 17.1 | 18.1 | NA | NA | NA | NA | ||
| Mt. Dutton | 3.6 | 14.9 | 12.1 | 11.7 | 19.3 | 14.4 | 17.5 | 15.1 | 13.0 | |
| Nine Mile, Anthro | 2.8 | 14.7 | 11..5 | 12.1 | NA | NA | NA | |||
| North Slope, Three Corners | 6.5 | 15.1 | 6.5 | NA | NA | 14.8 | NA | |||
| Oquirrh-Stansbury | 4.1 | 13.4 | 10.3 | 9.4 | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
| Panguitch Lake | 6.7 | 16.1 | 11.4 | 12.2 | 20.4 | 12.4 | 20.2 | 13.3 | NA | |
| Paunsaugunt | 2.3 | 10.9 | 7.0 | 4.5 | 13.1 | 8.8 | 14.4 | 11.0 | NA | |
| Plateau, Boulder/Kaiparowitz | 11.6 | 18.3 | 14.0 | 16.5 | 21.9 | 16.0 | 19.8 | 17.8 | NA | |
| Plateau, Fishlake/Thousand Lake | 3.7 | 13.4 | 10.4 | 9.1 | 17.3 | 10.2 | 16.6 | 13.7 | 13.8 | NA |
| San Juan | 16.3 | 21.6 | 15.0 | 19.9 | 22.6 | NA | 22.4 | NA | NA | |
| South Slope, Diamond Mountain | 4.5 | 11.5 | 11.2 | 8.0 | NA | NA | 15.1 | NA | NA | |
| Southwest Desert | 7.7 | 18.9 | 12.1 | 14.4 | 20.2 | 13.5 | 20.2 | 16.6 | 17.9 | |
| Wasatch Mountains | 4.3 | 14.4 | 11.7 | 8.4 | 18.9 | 8.6 | 13.8 | 11.3 | 11.2 | 15.2 |
| West Desert, Deep Creek | 2.5 | 13.4 | 10.7 | 8.7 | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
Again, “NA” means that there has historically only been one tag offered so the tag is issued through a lottery style drawing and “blank” means that there have historically not been tags offered for this unit.
I do expect to see some change to the trend in the muzzleloader applications this year, but the extent of the change is unknown. This will be the most interesting thing to see when the results for this application cycle are released.
LE PRONGHORN
Much like with the LE deer drawing, I don’t see anything that would lead me to believe there will be any changes in the trends that I have observed. This is how many points I anticipate it will take to draw a pronghorn tag:
| RESIDENT | NON-RESIDENT | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Archery | Any Weapon | Muzzleloader | Archery | Any Weapon | Muzzleloader |
| Beaver | 2.0 | 4.7 | NA | |||
| Book Cliffs, Bitter Creek | 2.6 | 7.1 | NA | |||
| Book Cliffs, South (Cisco) | 2.6 | 5.1 | NA | 10.8 | ||
| Box Elder, Pilot Mountain | NA | 8.3 | NA | |||
| Box Elder, Promontory | 0.3 | 3.9 | NA | |||
| Box Elder, Puddle Valley | 6.8 | 6.8 | NA | |||
| Box Elder, Snowville | 2.0 | 5.9 | NA | |||
| Cache/Morgan – South Rich/Ogden | 0.8 | 5.6 | 3.0 | 7.0 | 5.3 | 6.0 |
| Fillmore, Black Rock Desert | 4.9 | 6.3 | NA | |||
| Kaiparowitz | NA | |||||
| La Sal, Potash/South Cisco | NA | |||||
| La Sal, South Cisco | 4.7 | 8.1 | ||||
| Mt Dutton/Paunsaugunt | ||||||
| Mt. Dutton/Paunsaugunt, John’s Valley | 3.2 | NA | ||||
| Nine Mile, Anthro | 2.7 | 5.7 | 7.9 | |||
| Nine Mile, Range Creek | 8.6 | NA | ||||
| North Slope, Summit | 8.0 | |||||
| North Slope, West Daggett – Three Corners | 3.6 | 6.1 | NA | 6.8 | ||
| Panguitch Lake | 5.8 | NA | ||||
| Pine Valley | 3.1 | 5.0 | NA | 6.6 | ||
| Plateau | 1.1 | 4.2 | 0.9 | 2.7 | 6.0 | 7.7 |
| San Juan, Hatch Point | 7.8 | |||||
| San Rafael, Desert | 9.3 | NA | ||||
| San Rafael, North | 4.2 | 9.3 | NA | 16.8 | ||
| South Slope, Bonanza-Diamond Mountain | 4.0 | 8.6 | 6.1 | |||
| South Slope, Vernal | 3.0 | 6.8 | NA | |||
| Southwest Desert | 2.4 | 5.1 | 1.0 | 6.9 | 10.9 | 9.0 |
| West Desert, Riverbed | 6.8 | 11.6 | NA | NA | ||
| West Desert, Rush Valley | 5.9 | 10.6 | NA | |||
| West Desert, Snake Valley | 4.6 | 10.1 | 13.5 | |||
The muzzleloader pronghorn hunt has only been around for a couple years and it looks to me like it still hasn’t quite caught on yet. That makes the muzzleloader options great “easy” draws if a guy/gal would be interested in chasing pronghorn with a muzzleloader… and with the scope magnification restrictions now lifted I’m hopeful that these hunts become more popular and the DWR opens muzzleloader seasons in other units.
Check out the species specific analysis pages for more information on the LE deer, elk, and pronghorn draws. Also check out those same pages for more information on OIAL species.
