It comes as no surprise that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources needs to change the structure of Utah's general deer hunt. This year's hunt was a bust - $1.2 million to be exact.

So, still smarting from the fall hunt, and recognizing urgency is imperative, the DWR announced plans Thursday for changes in both deer and elk hunting.Those being:

Hunt dates change to better suit conditions. The archery hunt would be later, the last weekend in August, and would run 14 days; the general elk hunt would be kept around the same time, but limited to nine days; and the general deer hunt would come about a week earlier, and would run for nine days. Regions would have two options on the muzzleloader hunt - one early, in September, before the elk hunt, and the second later, around the first of November.

The three suggested hunt structures would be:

1. A statewide cap of 100,000 to 110,000 hunters that would include 10 percent of the tags for non-residents. There would be no allocation of permits by weapon type, region or hunt area.

2. A cap of 100,000 to 110,000, including 10 percent non-resident, with a choose-your-hunt format. Permit allocations would be made for rifle and muzzleloader, but not for archery. The theory being that archers have the least impact on the deer.

3. There would be no set cap, but numbers would be determined by specific hunt area. Eventually, the state would be divided into 18 areas instead of the current five.

Wes Shields, big game program coordinator for the DWR, said in making the presentation Thursday to the five-member Board of Big Game Control, that the preferred option is "No. 3."

Setting limits in areas, according to conditions, he said, "will allow hunting opportunity for substantial numbers of hunters, far more than typically are allowed to hunt traditional limited entry units."

Under all three plans, licenses would be sold over-the-counter, not through a drawing as was done this year, and would be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

It would take three years to fully implement this program. During the first two years, hunts would be run about like last year's. A cap of 100,000 to 110,000 hunters would be set and hunters would need to select a specific hunt and region. By 1997, the 18 managed areaswould be in place.

Shields said the three plans were developed after gathering "a lot of information from the five Regional Wildlife Councils. The main points they presented are in these proposals."

Shields also listed several objectives of the DWR in presenting these plans. One of those was establishing a "realistic sex composition ratio" for deer and elk. This would be 15 bucks per 100 does, and five to 10 bulls per 100 cows.

Another objective of the DWR is to reinstate hunting as a family and/or group activity. The drawing process for licenses this year took that part of the hunt away from many sportsmen.

The proposals, along with those made by the regional councils, will be reviewed by the five board members and will likely be acted upon during a special session called for mid-January.

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Jerry Mason, who represents the sportsmen on the board, also asked for recommendations on the elk plan. Shields said the DWR was not ready at this time, and that a clearer picture of overall objectives was needed. Elk hunt recommendations, he added, would be presented at the January meeting.

There was also some confusion on the part of the board as to the next step in the decision process. That is, whether the DWR proposals would be returned to the regional councils for review, or merely reviewed and acted upon by the board. The final verdict was that everything was now up to the board, and that all input with respect to the deer and elk hunts has been delivered.

Shields also talked about encouraging youth participation. One way, he suggested, might be to allow those hunters between 14 and 16 to get a buck tag and hunt all three seasons - archery, general rifle and muzzleloader - instead of just one season.

There is a great deal of interest in deer hunting because of what are being called "big mistakes" made this past year. Participation dropped from around 200,000 hunter to around 90,000. The poor sale of deer permits, mainly by non-residents, resulted in a $1.2 million shortfall this year.

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