Unit 27 Schedule Change Outcome ?

[Alpinebullwinkle]

ok, so don't throw stones at me for my comment but I think the trail cameras have been a detriment to the trophy bull population. those bulls that would go undetected and move at night are all caught on camera. every outfitter in AZ appear to have cameras set up on every watering hole in AZ along with the solo hunters that have time to do the same. those big bulls do not have a chance thus the population of big bulls has gotten hammered over the last ten years. same with the Deer up north. there appear to be fewer of those giant bucks killed than a few years back. just my opinion.

my wife had an early black powder hunt in unit one last month and had dreams of taking a 350 plus bull. she passed on may small bulls and we saw small bulls everyday, lots of them. very few cows!. She came home without a bull as we only saw one bull in the 350 plus range and could not close the deal. It was a great hunt as hunts go but the quality we expected to see was not there.

if there is a trophy bull in the woods the outfitters will have it on film and most likely kill it. cameras have changed the game to a point that I feel it is affecting the trophy quality and taking the edge away from the game. I feel that there are a lot of DYI hunters that are way more talented than most outfitters. They just have the advantage of spending more time in the wood with all the electronics the hunting world can provide them. Just my thoughts.

Interesting thought process. I maintain trail cameras but tend to disagree with your philosophy, at least considering the September hunts. I usually have trouble locating the monster bulls in September that I have filmed during the summer. Additionally I am aware of some monster bulls being harvested the last two Septembers that were filmed at least 2 miles away from their kill location earlier prior to the hunts. Perhaps you could be on to something though for the late hunts now that the elk habits have been modified by the 2011 fire, and a greater portion of the herd remains above the ridge now during the winters due to the fire nutrients.

[dcshorthairs]

To badd. Makes Me sick. Have the Wolves got heavy in unit 1? or more so in 27? Thanks. Good responces to this topic Guys . Keep em coming.....................BOB!

I had my cameras out in unit 1 from May to August. I checked then every two or three weeks, each time had two to six wolves on them. One pack of 4. All were collared. I don't think we have seen the effects of their devastation yet, but I am sure it's not going to be good for us down the road.

[Alpinebullwinkle]

 

ok, so don't throw stones at me for my comment but I think the trail cameras have been a detriment to the trophy bull population. those bulls that would go undetected and move at night are all caught on camera. every outfitter in AZ appear to have cameras set up on every watering hole in AZ along with the solo hunters that have time to do the same. those big bulls do not have a chance thus the population of big bulls has gotten hammered over the last ten years. same with the Deer up north. there appear to be fewer of those giant bucks killed than a few years back. just my opinion.

my wife had an early black powder hunt in unit one last month and had dreams of taking a 350 plus bull. she passed on may small bulls and we saw small bulls everyday, lots of them. very few cows!. She came home without a bull as we only saw one bull in the 350 plus range and could not close the deal. It was a great hunt as hunts go but the quality we expected to see was not there.

if there is a trophy bull in the woods the outfitters will have it on film and most likely kill it. cameras have changed the game to a point that I feel it is affecting the trophy quality and taking the edge away from the game. I feel that there are a lot of DYI hunters that are way more talented than most outfitters. They just have the advantage of spending more time in the wood with all the electronics the hunting world can provide them. Just my thoughts.

Interesting thought process. I maintain trail cameras but tend to disagree with your philosophy, at least considering the September hunts. I usually have trouble locating the monster bulls in September that I have filmed during the summer. Additionally I am aware of some monster bulls being harvested the last two Septembers that were filmed at least 2 miles away from their kill location earlier prior to the hunts. Perhaps you could be on to something though for the late hunts now that the elk habits have been modified by the 2011 fire, and a greater portion of the herd remains above the ridge now during the winters due to the fire nutrients.

 

I'll take exception to my own comments if the topic is coues deer instead of bull elk that move to the dance floors more so during their rutting activities. I shot my 124+ coues buck with only a 1/2 day of archery hunting (after filming him a few times prior to the hunt) while I am still trying to achieve my goal of a 400 bull still, even though I usually have 1-5 of them located pre-hunt annually. In other words...... trophy coues deer bucks have a much tighter range than trophy bull elk. At least that is what I have been taught and experienced as well. For that reason I believe trail cameras are more effective as a hunting tool for coues deer than they are for bull elk.

[trphyhntr]

I put a camera in 1 hoping to get a pic of the wolves, got pics of everything but a wolf. But maybe the coyotes I got pics of were Uncollared wolves

[dcshorthairs]

I put a camera in 1 hoping to get a pic of the wolves, got pics of everything but a wolf. But maybe the coyotes I got pics of were Uncollared wolves

"I swear officer, it looked like a big coyote!". In all seriousness though, I couldn't believe the number of wolf pictures I got. Disheartening

[Alpinebullwinkle]

Again, excellent comments by all. Thank you for your input. I finally located my data spreadsheet focused on cow and bull tags issued between 1987 to 2016. Unfortunately I did not save the hunting guidelines for the years 1973 to 1986 which I participated on for most of the bull hunts also. I was surprised to see what the Hunt Guideline data revealed for all these years.

 

In summary...... unit #27 had only 700 bull tags each year from 1987 to 1990. From 1991 to 2003 unit 27 averaged 1,271 cow and bull tags total, with the exception of the anomaly year in 2001 when AGFD granted 2,350 total cow and bull tags for the unit. From 2004-2010 unit 27 averaged 881 cow and bull tags. Since the fire in 2011 the unit has been allotted an average of 1,237 cow and bull tags each year (a 40% increase).

 

As I recall from memory, the AGFD openly communicated the desire to reduce the Arizona elk herd from an overall herd estimate of about 30,000 for the state to a desired level in the 20,000 to 22,000 level. This likely was about year 2000 when the Elk Management Plan was renewed and AGFD expressed their desired action to respond to complaints from ranchers, rural residents and other business owners to act upon the negative elk impacts on their personal lives. Perhaps someone from AGFD can add some more details to the data I documented from their annual Hunting Guidelines. After what most of us has observed post Wallow Fire it will be interesting to see if AGFD is making any changes for next years hunting seasons in units 27 and 1.