# Wasatch cow elk



## hazmat (Apr 23, 2009)

So we don't take away from *****' s thread. And since we have pretty much a full season under the belt.
What did you wasatch elk hunters encounter as far as elk. August til now?
Me personally I spend alot of time on the unit and care about where the unit is headed. I seen at the least 5 bulls to every cow kind of concerning.
I know alot of people are sick of hearing/ talking about it but I would like to hear some feedback from others on what they saw. it sounds like the dwr is gonna bring objective numbers up and hopefully it will rebound quickly.

And I am still seeing great bulls for now .but I am curious if the no control permit and private land tags had any effect on what everyone else's experiance in that beautiful country


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

I saw a good number of elk early in the season. Definitely less cows than before the control permit years. Getting ready for my daughters upcoming cow hunt and seeing tons of elk on private ground. Lots of cow/calf herds. 

Doesn't look like the 'friends and family' plan is doing very well at moving elk back onto public land.----SS


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## Tbowman25 (Jul 19, 2016)

This was my first year on the unit I saw at least 10 bulls 2. Spikes and 4 cows.


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## Tbowman25 (Jul 19, 2016)

And during July I saw 2 cows scouting so 6 cows to 12 bulls. 2 to 1 ratio.


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## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

A couple days scouting for the deer hunt and two days hunting deer in the Co-Op to CC areas, I did not see a single elk. I found a lot of deer and a couple moose. 

In the little time I've spent up in those areas in previous years I never saw any elk either, though. I've had much more luck locating elk south of Strawberry. I have not been hunting south of the Berry in a couple years now, though.


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## goofy elk (Dec 16, 2007)

For a few years now, I ask EVERYONE who hunts Wasatch elk,
'How many cows did you see"?
So asking ***** on the other thread is just something I ask everyone I see.

If finally feels like the regular Joe hunter is catching on.
IMO, we have a serious problem on the Wasatch.

The new elk herd recommendations going to the DWR Board on Dec 9th are CRITICAL!
Sure hope they pass so the rebuilding of herds (cows) on the Wasatch can begin........


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## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

Goof, in my opinion, that rebuild process has already started. No control tags this year. Other cow tag numbers were reduced. Private land tags hoping to push elk back to public lands where hunters can actually view the elk that are there. The new higher herd objectives will be another aspect to this, but I don't think you are giving credit to anyone here that has been a part of the process. 

Yes, I think almost anyone will agree (maybe not the ranchers?) that they gave too many cow tags on the Wasatch. There are people that definitely disagree with your sky is falling rhetoric for the last few years, but I think even those people would agree too many cow tags were issued. We talk of dire straits with this elk herd, yet the count last year showed that at least the areas flown were still over the current objective, so it can't be all bad. 

I guess what I'm saying is you have to at least give some others some credit here. Changes have already been implemented. More will be coming. People are working to fix the issues the unit faces. It's not all doom and gloom. And you aren't the only one that is or was aware of what was going on here.


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Regular Joe hunters?? Sounds like somebody is a bit elitist doesn't it? Good thing we peeons have such a benevolent authority to keep us informed.-O,-------SS


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## berrysblaster (Nov 27, 2013)

Vanilla said:


> Goof, in my opinion, that rebuild process has already started. No control tags this year. Other cow tag numbers were reduced. Private land tags hoping to push elk back to public lands where hunters can actually view the elk that are there. The new higher herd objectives will be another aspect to this, but I don't think you are giving credit to anyone here that has been a part of the process.
> 
> Yes, I think almost anyone will agree (maybe not the ranchers?) that they gave too many cow tags on the Wasatch. There are people that definitely disagree with your sky is falling rhetoric for the last few years, but I think even those people would agree too many cow tags were issued. We talk of dire straits with this elk herd, yet the count last year showed that at least the areas flown were still over the current objective, so it can't be all bad.
> 
> I guess what I'm saying is you have to at least give some others some credit here. Changes have already been implemented. More will be coming. People are working to fix the issues the unit faces. It's not all doom and gloom. And you aren't the only one that is or was aware of what was going on here.


Wait the Wasatch has some problems?? Says who?? This is news to me!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## martymcfly73 (Sep 17, 2007)

berrysblaster said:


> Wait the Wasatch has some problems?? Says who?? This is news to me!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Feel free to PM me and I'll give you the 411. After all you seem new to the unit.


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## hazmat (Apr 23, 2009)

berrysblaster said:


> Wait the Wasatch has some problems?? Says who?? This is news to me!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Hey berryblaster uI know you like to joke about it quit a bit. But on a serious note what did you and your staff encounter this year. I ran into a couple of your guides this year on the mountain like every year.also ran into a Mossback guy first time for that he was concerned by with what he was seeing. But the reason for this post was to get feedback from people who hunted it we all know it is not what it used to be. Just curious as to how bad or if I just happened to run into all of the hunters asking for help saying they havnt seen much.


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## gdog (Sep 13, 2007)

Had a non-resident buddy with the le archery tag this fall. Hunted an area I succesfully hunted for my le tag 3 years ago. We saw zero elk in 4 days of hunting the area. During my hunt 3 years ago, they were easy to find in the very same spots. I had scores of trail cam pics from my hunt. Not an elk expert by any means, but the elk had cleared out of this specific area and we covered some ground. Ended up making a big move (thanks to some forum members advice) and immediately got into elk further south, but certainly wasn't getting run over by them. He ate tag soup, but had some encounters finally.


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## robiland (Jan 20, 2008)

Okay, I helped my friends dad about 6 years ago on his Wasatch LE rifle tag. I had never seen so many elk than I did those few days. We were in Diamond Fork. There were bulls with herds of cows of 20-30+. We could see them literally on every ridge or side hill. It was a sight to see. We saw some GIANTS too. 

The following year, I helped my friend (the son) of the previous experience. So this was 5 years ago. Oh boy, did we see some amazing elk again. We sat on a ridge and glassed one morning and saw well over 300 elk. That may be conservative too. After that year, we continued to look for elk in this area and each year, it got worse and worse. This year on the deer hunt, both muzzy and rifle (for my 12 year old son), we hunted 10 days total and saw 1 cow!!!! Thats it, same exact areas as before. 1 single cow. And the funny thing was, she was with 3 bucks from the muzzy hunt until the end of the rifle hunt. She never left them alone. 

But to me its crazy to go from so many elk, hundreds and hundreds of elk to 1 single cow in a 5 year period. It needs to change and change soon.


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## berrysblaster (Nov 27, 2013)

hazmat said:


> Hey berryblaster uI know you like to joke about it quit a bit. But on a serious note what did you and your staff encounter this year. I ran into a couple of your guides this year on the mountain like every year.also ran into a Mossback guy first time for that he was concerned by with what he was seeing. But the reason for this post was to get feedback from people who hunted it we all know it is not what it used to be. Just curious as to how bad or if I just happened to run into all of the hunters asking for help saying they havnt seen much.


I don't think Doyle hunts this unit, but could be wrong. It sucked, we knew it would and the number of elk I saw was pitiful.

We are past problem stage, we have a pretty good grip on what's going on and are into solution stage.

Get to the wildlife board meeting next month and voice support for the management changes we have been working on!

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## goofy elk (Dec 16, 2007)

It really does come down to the DWR board meeting on Dec 9th.

Make or break decision right there for the future of the Wasatch elk herd.


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## USMARINEhuntinfool (Sep 15, 2007)

During the 5 days we spent hunting big bulls with my old man we saw about 120 Cows. Two large herds 1 of 35 the other of about 40, a few small herds of 5-10, and some singles or doubles. We saw atleast 30 different bulls in the same time frame. Probably half of the 120 Cows were this years calves. Of those, all but 10 of the elk were on public land. It's more than we saw last year and it looked like pretty good recruitment. It will take a few years but I think they are on the way back. During the limited scouting I did this year I saw more bulls than cows in the normal areas.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

robiland said:


> Okay, I helped my friends dad about 6 years ago on his Wasatch LE rifle tag. I had never seen so many elk than I did those few days. We were in Diamond Fork. There were bulls with herds of cows of 20-30+. We could see them literally on every ridge or side hill. It was a sight to see. We saw some GIANTS too.
> 
> The following year, I helped my friend (the son) of the previous experience. So this was 5 years ago. Oh boy, did we see some amazing elk again. We sat on a ridge and glassed one morning and saw well over 300 elk. That may be conservative too. After that year, we continued to look for elk in this area and each year, it got worse and worse. This year on the deer hunt, both muzzy and rifle (for my 12 year old son), we hunted 10 days total and saw 1 cow!!!! Thats it, same exact areas as before. 1 single cow. And the funny thing was, she was with 3 bucks from the muzzy hunt until the end of the rifle hunt. She never left them alone.
> 
> But to me its crazy to go from so many elk, hundreds and hundreds of elk to 1 single cow in a 5 year period. It needs to change and change soon.


My family has also been disappointed at the decline of elk in the Diamond Fork area. We had good hunting there for a few years, and got a spike and some cows. Now, we're not seeing anything. We don't hunt spikes there anymore, but still spend time on the unit hunting for turkeys and deer. I would love to see it come back to what it used to be.


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## Tbowman25 (Jul 19, 2016)

TeufelHunden said:


> During the 5 days we spent hunting big bulls with my old man we saw about 120 Cows. Two large herds 1 of 35 the other of about 40, a few small herds of 5-10, and some singles or doubles. We saw atleast 30 different bulls in the same time frame. Probably half of the 120 Cows were this years calves. Of those, all but 10 of the elk were on public land. It's more than we saw last year and it looked like pretty good recruitment. It will take a few years but I think they are on the way back. During the limited scouting I did this year I saw more bulls than cows in the normal areas.


I need to find out where you were at lol!


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## USMARINEhuntinfool (Sep 15, 2007)

Tbowman, if you have a late cow tag shoot me a PM I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. I should have also note that we covered a ton of ground over those 5 days riding horses, hiking, and driving.


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## bullsnot (Aug 10, 2010)

It's all a matter of perspective. The unit would suck now in the view of someone that was used to the unit being way over populated. Someone might feel especially strong about that if they might benefit either directly or indirectly from that situation. I'm not casting stones, I can understand that perspective 100%. 

This is my "home" unit and I certainly see less elk but I have no problems filling tags on this unit, personally anyway.

Remember guys, the increase in the population objective on this unit is only going to bring the objective up to the population that has been there for quite some time. If you think the objective change will bring about major change to the management of the unit I think you might be disappointed.

As far as the private land only tags I feel we need to give it more time to really assess the effectiveness.


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

I've never seen so few orange land carp in my life on that unit. I think all I saw this year were a hand full of bulls. One was 380 plus. We used to hunt this area years ago and would see hundreds if not more cows. 

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## martymcfly73 (Sep 17, 2007)

I hunt the North end exclusively and I've never seen so many elk. I've hunted this unit for 30+years. I'm even seeing elk where i never have historically.


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## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

Not to beat a dead horse, but a bit of an update on things here regarding the private land cow tags. The allocations for the Wasatch are as follows: 

Wasatch West: 3,000
Wasatch Currant Creek: 3,000
Wasatch Avintaquin-White River: 450
Total: 6,450 private land cow tags

Here is what remains as of this writing:

Wasatch West: 2,732
Wasatch Currant Creek: 2,807
Wasatch Avintaquin-White River: 389
Total: 5,928

So a total of 522 of the 6,450 allocated tags have been purchased this year. For this project of redistributing the elk back to public lands to work, there are going to have be a lot more hunters hitting the private lands. And some of the biggest tracks (most of them?) of land where the elk are hanging out are CWMUs already anyway, so this program does not apply to them. 

Anyone actually personally know someone that has purchased one of these tags and got permission to go hunt a place where they had a reasonable chance at shooting an elk? I don't know anyone that even bought one.


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## bullsnot (Aug 10, 2010)

Access to private grounds was the biggest concern I had and could really undermine this effort. Initial indications seem to point in that direction.

I personally know quite a few folks along the Wasatch and I can't get permission anywhere. I've had a few say they'd grant me access if I paid around $1000 which isn't worth it to me.

I think the DWR thought complaining landowners would be more receptive to this program.

One interesting thing about this program is the DWR said they would not facilitate putting willing landowners in contact with hunters. While I understand why the DWR is reluctant to do this I feel this is a critical piece of this effort if it is to work. I'm sure there are at least a few landowners that have an elk problem "this week" and would like to get some hunters there quickly but there are no ways to do that.


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## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

bullsnot said:


> One interesting thing about this program is the DWR said they would not facilitate putting willing landowners in contact with hunters. While I understand why the DWR is reluctant to do this I feel this is a critical piece of this effort if it is to work. I'm sure there are at least a few landowners that have an elk problem "this week" and would like to get some hunters there quickly but there are no ways to do that.


I don't expect the DWR to knock doors for hunters, but the way this program was described to us even here on this forum is that all stake holders, including private landowners, were at the table and agreed to this program. So where are all these landowners that liked the idea?

What I could see the DWR doing is this: Interested landowners could contact the Division and say we would love to have some hunters come and hunt elk here. The Division could keep contact information for those landowners, and then hunters could get that information from the Division. I understand this is some more work and a bit of an inconvenience for the DWR, but this is their program, if they want it to work, they will probably need to do more than just allocate ~6500 tags that nobody buys.


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## gdog (Sep 13, 2007)

Here's some hiding out on Red Ledges in Heber...this is from yesterday.




__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=740159432805771


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## KineKilla (Jan 28, 2011)

bullsnot said:


> Access to private grounds was the biggest concern I had and could really undermine this effort. Initial indications seem to point in that direction.
> 
> I personally know quite a few folks along the Wasatch and I can't get permission anywhere. I've had a few say they'd grant me access if I paid around $1000 which isn't worth it to me.
> 
> ...


I foresaw the landowners viewing these permits as an additional source of gov't funded revenue and doing exactly what you said. In return, people would simply not buy the tags and continue to hunt the public land as they've always done thereby undermining the entire effort.

I'd say you go ahead and give the program a year or two to become popular and see where it's at and what its effectiveness is, then choose to discontinue it or not.

I'd think that a letter sent to all landowners in the area, informing them that if they don't want to participate then they have no grounds to complain or to seek payment for damages from elk would be a good idea...there is a chance (albeit slight) that some landowners are not aware of the new program.


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## bullsnot (Aug 10, 2010)

Vanilla said:


> I don't expect the DWR to knock doors for hunters, but the way this program was described to us even here on this forum is that all stake holders, including private landowners, were at the table and agreed to this program. So where are all these landowners that liked the idea?
> 
> What I could see the DWR doing is this: Interested landowners could contact the Division and say we would love to have some hunters come and hunt elk here. The Division could keep contact information for those landowners, and then hunters could get that information from the Division. I understand this is some more work and a bit of an inconvenience for the DWR, but this is their program, if they want it to work, they will probably need to do more than just allocate ~6500 tags that nobody buys.


Yep. ^^^^ This.


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