Fall set for spectacular hunting

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series on the region’s big game hunting forecast.

By ROGER PHILLIPS

Contributing writer

Coming on the heels of an all-time record white-tailed deer harvest in 2015 and the highest harvests in more than a decade for mule deer and elk, hunting this fall should be spectacular.

Let’s take a quick look at the 2015 hunt for mule deer and elk.

Mule deer

Mule deer hunters in the southern and eastern parts of the state, and where the animals

overlap with whitetails in northern and central Idaho, are also seeing healthy herds in most areas. Mule deer hunters will find a mix of general season hunting opportunity and controlled hunts that offer excellent success rates and chances for mature bucks.

Mule deer hunters should see hunting comparable to last year.

“I don’t see any indicators that mule deer harvests will decline,” Rachael said.

The wild card for mule deer hunters is usually fall weather since most the hunting seasons take place in October, especially general, any-weapon seasons that account for the most of the harvest.

Warm, dry October weather can make hunting challenging, which often reduces the harvest. Conversely, wet weather and early-season snow storms mean better hunting conditions, and storms can also drive deer out of the high country and into more accessible areas, which usually increases the harvest.

Elk

Despite a record whitetail season, improved elk hunting in Idaho may be the biggest news.

Elk hunting fell on hard times from 2008 through 2013 when annual harvests ranged between 15,155 and 17,470 elk, which were the lowest numbers since the mid-1980s. But elk hunting came roaring back in 2014 when the harvest topped 20,000 for the first time in seven years, and 2015 easily topped that with 24,543 elk taken.

Idaho’s elk harvest could top 25,000 this year, which has only happened three times in the last 40 years.

Elk tag sales have shown steep growth in the last four years, jumping from 71,634 in 2012 to 86,175 in 2015, and resident and nonresident tag sales are strong this year. The reason for all this is simple: There are more elk.

“Elk are not doing as well as we would like everywhere, but in most of the state, numbers are stable or have been increasing over the last few years,” Rachael said.

Hunters are seeing more elk, and there also are more complaints from farmer and ranchers who are dealing with large herds of elk on their agriculture lands and asking for relief. This is an important detail for hunters because Fish and Game issues controlled hunt tags to deal with that situation.

“It’s no surprise that harvest went up last year,” Rachael said. “We issued more elk tags in areas where landowners have been experiencing conflicts with their crops and rangeland to provide relief from those depredations.”

Most of those are antlerless (cow) tags, which have a much higher success rate than general season tags for bulls, so they can quickly drive up the overall elk harvest.

But that doesn’t mean only hunters with controlled hunt tags are getting elk. The success rate for general-season hunters increased in 2015, and a respectable 31 percent of the elk taken during general hunts had six or more points, which likely means there are plenty of mature bulls out there, too.

Fish and Game is doing more intensive elk monitoring to track population trends. It recently expanded its winter monitoring to include both elk calves and cows. Crews radio collared and tracked 274 calves and 607 cows in different regions of the state. Calf survival was 74 percent, and 96 percent for cows through winter.

He noted elk are less susceptible to winter conditions than deer, so if deer survival is better than average, “elk are probably going to be doing even better.”

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Roger Phillips is a public information specialist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.