Harvest numbers

[rosscrazyelk]

Do you think with the uncany weather we had this year harvest numbers for big game are way down?

[270Shooter]

I think they may be down a little bit, but not as much as everybody thinks it will be. I just did my hunter reporting yesterday, good thing I remebered . Personally I saw more elk this year than ever, of course I have only been elk hunting for 3 years now, but I saw over 55 elk in 3 days which I think is pretty good for modern firearm elk season. I even got to shoot at a spike this year, but I missed .

[fc2038]

I think in some places it will be. I know in the area I rifle hunt for elk the warden said success rates were down by 75% compared with the previous year. We normally do really well. We did get two elk this year but the sign that we normally see was not there. we put in tons of boot tracks and it paid off.  I cannot attest to other areas just the area I hunt.

[WDFW Hates ME!!!]

I talked to a few people during the late hunt that said the rifle season was a freaking zoo. And that they did very well.
I will say that we hunted alot of days in the late season and we saw way less bulls than we normally see. My brother in law spent the first 2 weeks up there every day, and he say 1 bull on opening day, and not another one untill the saturday of the last weekend. I personally saw 5, my father in law saw 2. But we saw over 200-250 cows. I think the bulls got hammered during the rifle season.

[fish affender]

i don't know if they will or not. i do know i did not see even close to as much sign or fur as usual. on the other hand maybe they just were'nt in my area as much and others did better 1 ridge over.  we did get 2 in our camp which proves you only need to be in the right spot once. from what i gathered from other hunters and friends the common thing was tag salad.

[Elknut1]

 I believe here in Idaho as a whole, you'll see stats will show the harvest numbers will be considerably lower than other years. The heavy snowfall last year could've been a large contributor for sure! There's a large group of aprox 15 hunters through the course of archery season that camps right by our base camp every year, this year they took one elk in the group, generally they take 4-6 bulls, their take & opportunities were lower than expected. Maybe that will discourage some from wanting to get their out of state tags from that group! (grin)

  ElkNut1

[bucklucky]

There was a pretty good winter kill in Idaho last year wasnt there? Looks like it might be the same this year too?

[fc2038]

Sure starting to look that way the snow is piling up and there seems to be  no relief in sight. The east side is still getting pummeled with snow. Hell almost 60 inches in Spokane

I hope not but it sure is getting deep everywhere