There will be a cap on the number of deer and elk hunters allowed in the field again this fall, but licenses will be easier to come by. Also, those hunters willing to put in the effort can earn more time afield.
Those decisions came from the Saturday executive session of the Board of Big Game Control in one of its last official meetings. A new seven-person board is expect to take over duties in July.This year's hunt will be very similar to last year's, but with one big difference. There will be no complicated application to fill out. Licenses will be sold over-the-counter on a first-come, first-served basis.
The deer hunt cap will be 97,000 spread among archery, general rifle and muzzleloader. Hunters will need to choose one of the three. There will be no limit on the three hunts, but at 97,000 all sales will stop.
The exception to this involves passage of the much talked about "Dedicated Sportsmen" license, which was proposed by Don Peay of the Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.
Under the program, hunters will be working under a five-year license. To qualify, each hunter will need to complete 21/2 hours of hunter education each year and 8 hours of volunteer work on an authorized wildlife project.
The five-year license will entitle the holder to hunt, if he or she chooses, all three of the deer hunts - archery, general rifle and muzzleloader - each year. The options are: 1. Commit to hunting one of the five regions and being limited to taking only three deer over the five-year period (no more than one per year); 2. being able to hunt anywhere in the state and being limited to two deer over the five years.
If a hunter does not use all of the permits over the five-year period, remaining permits would be placed in a drawing and the hunter would be eligible to draw a once-in-a-lifetime permit.
"This is an incentive not to fill a permit just to fill it. It will give a hunter the opportunity to spend more time hunting and to voluntarily reduce harvest. Instead of trying to take five deer in five year, a dedicated hunter will take no more than two or three, and maybe not even that many," Peay said.
Officials are planning to have this program in place for this year's deer hunt.
The cap on the elk hunt will be 36,000. No more than 16,000 of those permits will be for "open bull" areas. The remaining 20,000 will be for spike-only and antlerless areas. The board also identified a spike bull as one with at least one side not being a branch antler or having more than one point.
Wes Shields, big game manager for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, told the board that hunter satisfaction and success was greater when hunter numbers were around 36,000 rather than the 41,000 hit last year.
The board also stepped back and set a goal of eight bulls per 100 cows for each of the state's elk units. The motion also stated that in the official count four of the eight bulls must be mature. Counts will be taken during the breeding season.
The archery deer hunt will be Aug. 19 to Sept. 8; the general rifle will be Oct. 21-29; the muzzleloader deer and elk will be Nov. 1-9; the archery elk will be Aug. 31 to Sept. 15; and the general bull elk hunt will be Oct. 11-19.
There was a recommendation to push the hunts forward, but the board voted to keep traditional dates with the exception of changing the general deer from seven to nine days.
Hunters will only be able to apply for one once-in-a-lifetime permit, that is for moose, buffalo, goat or sheep, and one limited entry deer, elk or antelope hunt, and may only draw out on one of the two.
The board also voted to change all archery elk permits to either sex and to increase the number of muzzleloader elk tags from 500 to 1,000.