EP 232: Colorado Mule Deer in the Gunnison Basin

let's maybe rewind the clock a little bit pre 99 98 there are a lot of good deer but you weren't sorting through 190 inch deer and it wasn't that way it's not that way and it's never gonna be that way anything to do with western big game welcome to the epic outdoors podcast powered by under armor hey everybody jason carter adam bronson chris peterson coming at you from southern utah bronson we've got a lot of weather out there we've had some we could use more but we sure take everything we get yeah it seems like we get one inch and we're applying everywhere yeah what's that about 0.05 0.005 inches of moisture hey we'll take it's legit anyway uh well before we get started we want to thank under armor we appreciate them they support all of our podcasts and everything we do here at epic outdoors you might go take a look at uh under armor ua.com check out a lot of the

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when you're ready to buy some anyway we got some great guests lined up here today yeah we get more questions probably throughout the year on colorado mule deer than anything else but one thing that we thought we'd do and one area in particular is the gunnison basin mule deer hunting and we're going to talk to brandon diamond era area wildlife manager uh currently there who's been there a long time been a terrestrial biologist and a wildlife manager there as well as cody dice who is a member of the gunnison wildlife association president actually and a guide there for lazy up our outfitter so going to be a good discussion about all things mule deer in a very key area of colorado the gunnison basin yeah everybody's talking about gunnison of course there's a lot of big deer taken especially in unit 54 it

appears but anyway we're going to hear it from the horse's mouth so to speak we're going to get these guys on the phone okay here we go good morning this is brandon hey brandon adam bronson jason carter with the epic outdoors podcast how are you doing today i'm doing good how are you guys we're doing great do you got cody there with you or is he we got to call him no he's sitting here i dug out my our little conference call speaker so hopefully it sounds good on your end yeah sounds fine well that works good well how's things in gunnison this morning uh sunny and cold it's a beautiful day we finally got a little sun brownson yeah we did we've had some weather we'll take all we can get we've been dry over here how's your how's your winter been up till now haven't doesn't seem like it's probably been anything too significant

no in the scheme of things it's been fairly below average i mean some of our high country's getting a lot of snow uh which is a good thing we'll have some water coming down um but it's pretty it's pretty light which is good for big game but uh a little bit concerning going into the spring and summer yeah for sure cody can can you hear us okay i can't can you hear me yeah we got you got you yep loud and clear well we teed it up slightly before we gave you guys a call but maybe before we dig into what we really want to talk about and that's mule deer in the gunnison basin uh why don't we have each of you just do a quick introduction of yourself kind of what your role is now and i know brandon you've been there a long time in different hats but have you maybe brandon go first and then cody as well and then we'll just kind of go into maybe start back i don't know 20 plus years

or so with the gunnison deer and then kind of how it's evolved over time but let's introduce yourselves sounds great well we appreciate talking with you guys this morning i think cody and i we love talking about mule deer and so we appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast um my name is brandon diamond and i have worked for the division of wildlife and colorado parks and wildlife now full time since 2001 and i'm currently the area wildlife manager in gunnison so i supervise management and work across the gunnison basin as well as in the norfolk valley uh so paonia hotchkiss and cedar ridge um so we have a big area um prior to this position i was the wildlife officer for um the west elks and so my world was was pretty much game management unit 54 um before that for about 10 years i was the terrestrial biologist so i had big game management

um responsibilities across our area um for for mule deer elk sheep goat moose pronghorn bear mountain lion um and was also engaged with a lot of our uh non-game species like gunnison sage grouse and before that i was the district wildlife manager wildlife officer in the nucla district so my world was unit 61 uh and i got a i got love for the uncompagre plateau too i did a lot of seasonal work there with mule deer right after i graduated from college so appreciate it you've been there a long time 20 20 plus years it sounds like yeah yeah i know we're we're dug in our roots are deep here now uh and my wife and i don't plan on leaving anytime soon it's a wonderful place to be and a lot of a lot of good memories and a lot of adventures here locally over the years yeah you've seen a lot i mean since 2001 all the way you know from nucla to paonia to gunnison to about everything

it seems like so that's awesome got a lot of great experience and and uh we you know bronson and i we've hunted gunnison and then we've also hunted out of nucla quite a bit and that's pretty awesome country over there yeah it's neat country and i'm also a western alumni i went to western state college back when it was western state now it's western colorado university but been here since the mid 90s really and and um uh even before that some of my best memories as a kid we're coming here to hunt elk with my family uh in the 80s and kind of since a special place and it's it's changed a lot we certainly have a lot of challenges from a wildlife management perspective like a lot of places in the west but we're doing the best we can to to preserve some of the the wonder that's here in terms of wildlife you bet well cody go ahead uh tell us a little bit about what you've got going on there

and some of your history yeah um you know i was born and raised in pier south dakota grew up in kind of a hunting paradise uh similar to gunnison uh with lots of different opportunity and kind of bounced around and made my way to gunnison in uh 2001 and so got here uh and kind of just stumbled into the resource i was a mule deer guy even though i kind of was raised in white tail heavy country um uh mule deer always fascinated me and so i came here and uh you know they were so prevalent uh that i i kind of felt like i landed in paradise on accident um and so immediately my my interest and appreciation for the resource uh uh started to grow and and and has since so i've been here uh since 2001 um and have been guiding uh mule deer hunters uh for the last 17 seasons and so have had an opportunity to

be uh on the landscape for a lot of days a year uh and so not just guiding but scouting and shed hunting and everything else and so uh have have developed an intimate relationship with the deer herd here and and and kind of rode the influx throughout the years um and so uh you know extremely passionate about deer but also all wildlife and public lands which has led me to um a role as the president in the gunnison wildlife association and so um you know that's probably uh one of the greatest things that i've gotten involved with is having an opportunity to bring folks together and and and and talk about uh wildlife and and public land management uh in a constructive way and so which is fairly difficult so anyways the one thing uh uh that i can say and i kind of point the light back to brandon

is that you know i think it's unique um that brandon has had the opportunity to play the role of the biologist uh and then dwm or game warden and now area wildlife manager out of the same office for that period of time which i think is unique to most uh wildlife managers and and and how they you know kind of live out their careers and so um the the fortunate part for me about that is i've been able to develop a relationship with brandon over the years um that has allowed us to kind of have two different perspectives and exercise that back and forth on on kind of how things uh are perceived from an agency standpoint and a public standpoint so i think it's really helped us to exercise our dialogue and and kind of try and figure out where we're at and and what uh you know kind of a quote unquote reality is um as far as

wildlife but particularly mule deer um so you know uh i think that's what's fun about having this opportunity is that we can kind of speak from both sides of the table and we do have that uh dialogue that's been there where we don't always agree um but we know kind of you know where where the middle is and and what some of the realities are of what we're uh kind of you know seeing and and working with on on both sides agency versus public and and that and that sort of thing so you know i i think that's significant uh that you know we've had that shared commitment together and continue to try and perpetuate uh a good attitude uh when it comes to being thankful for the resource that we have here despite i'll say what people's perception is well yeah that is a very unique perspective a sportsman's organization division of wildlife you know marriage yeah interaction courtship whatever you

know they're very dynamic we have them in here in utah every state has them you have good times bad times um but in general yeah very passionate in both on both sides about in this case mule deer and mule deer in a very very uh high profile i guess we'll just call it that uh part of colorado very you know you know a lot of people have seen the potential there and that's what what makes the passion what makes the deep interest in on both sides of it and um maybe to kind of i guess get us in talking about that and the gunnison basin we we can't really start talking about it without maybe some historical context prior to what i think modern day hunters think of and talk about the last let's just say 15 plus years in terms of big deer in gunnison basin but let let's maybe rewind the clock a little bit pre 99 98 in terms of you

know back when things were over the counter i know that maybe predates you guys both slightly being there but but you guys have you got there right after that i guess and so right when the transition if you will happened you know what what things look like then population wise trends wise buck doe ratio wise and then as we went to draw unit by unit what we saw happen you know rather quickly i guess over that five or six year period before we saw one of our first real severe winners and so i'll let you guys maybe talk about that well and just just right before we jump into that i think it's super commendable that that we can have you both on the same podcast you guys obviously have a huge respect for each other the organization versus game and fish and and that's very unique and i think it's awesome um anyway it's it you know brings kind of the social aspect with the biology and uh kind of

managing for the for the good of everything and so anyway there's there's a lot of passion we can tell already from both sides and and i think it's just commendable that we can have you both on here and you guys are obviously working together and and and have a respect for each other so yeah brownson as you as you talked about pre 99 i i mean from the hunter's perspective we always talked about the eastern plains back then and like pinion canyon unit 142 and some of that because there was not a lot going on that was the draw areas we didn't have very many of them that's right so so there is a lot of history there and so i don't know who wants to lead out on on that uh you know pre 99 discussion sure and i'll i'll start it off um and i appreciate your point jason you know i give i give uh before we start in on

that i'll give cody a lot of credit when he took over the role as president of gwa i mean i'll be honest with you our relationship with with gwa was a little bit more adversarial in the old days and i think that cody has realized and i've certainly realized over my career you know no no good really can come from an adversarial relationship between state agencies and wildlife managers and the hunting public you know we have too many things uh to deal with in 2022 whether it's colorado or utah or montana to be fighting amongst ourselves and so while it's important that we have a good dialogue and debate things you know we still got to stay friends if we're going to accomplish sort of the the longer term objectives of keeping critters on the mountain and um you know so cody gets a lot of credit and we

appreciate this opportunity for sure so um going back to the 1990s in gunnison i actually have a little bit of a snapshot there because when i was at western um it was a whole different a different paradigm of management at the time most years uh and i grew up hunting with a bow and so when i was in college you could drive to walmart and buy an over-the-counter elk license and an over-the-counter mule deer license and there were some years uh several years where me or a friend would pick up a leftover gunnison basin pronghorn license for archery and uh we essentially had the run of the whole basin because at that time all five of the game management units around gunnison were over the counter with with very little restrictions uh really the only limited licenses at that time would have been cow licenses during rifle seasons and otherwise everything was over the counter so things have

changed pretty dramatically since then um so in 1999 um you know over over the 90s there was there was certainly a lot of interest in mule deer across western colorado because deer herds were generally in a state of decline uh for lots of reasons some of the same reasons that we still experience today but based on those declines and also based on um a desire for higher buck to doe ratios i think those two things sort of set the stage for a whole different look at mule deer management across the state and in 1999 the division of wildlife at that time took a major leap and all mule deer license licenses across the state went to totally limited and so you had to apply in the draw um a certain number of licenses were allocated each year and so it was really a fundamental shift in how we had done business for

a long long time you know and certainly you know you you talk to the it's always interesting and i'm sure you guys do this too when you talk to old timers uh in in the places you live in the places you hunt it's always fascinating to kind of look at that snapshot of how things looked in the 40s 50s 60s 70s and you know the gunnison basin always had a strong mule deer population in fact when you talk to the old there's there's folks in this valley a lot of them are unfortunately passing along these days but you know they ate so many deer in their younger days that they couldn't they could need another here in the modern era and you know like a lot of places also there was there was very few elk so we had lots and lots of deer very few elk um and deer were a strong part of the culture and then over time

mule deer numbers generally declined elk numbers increased lots of changes across the landscape in terms of what people were doing and wildlife was doing and so we're in a little bit different place now uh but presently um you know all licenses are limited uh following the 1999 limitations obviously we had the ability to manage for different sex ratios and population objectives and different parts of the state took different approaches on that in 1999 um in the gunnison basin largely because we have so much local public interest and a lot of willingness to to sacrifice hunting opportunity honestly um managers at that time actually cut buck licenses by 90 percent from what the three-year historic average was and so we were issuing a very small um number of licenses there in the in the late 90s and early 2000s

and that paired with some mild winters and favorable conditions year round we didn't have radio callers out to the degree we do now but it would have been interesting to have that information in hand but we had some really favorable years for deer and our deer herd essentially erupted um very minimal hunting pressure deer herds growing buck doe ratios were going through the roof at that time and for for for quite a few years there and it was a different time also in terms of technology and information you know it was a it was a well-kept local secret and uh what pushed the change like what pushed the change was it social where the hunters were wanting to see quality was it game and fish saying we need to do something or a combination what kind of push that change yeah i think it was it was a

combination of all of that you know i mean the the division of wildlife at that time certainly there was a significant economic impact from that change in management because you know a lot of people when we went from over the counter to limited i mean people were like well i'm not applying for a license you know so we had a significant number of hunters that just dropped out uh that didn't want to take the time to apply weren't used to that um of course we cut licenses to a great degree so there was less opportunity there um and then yeah there was and and again you know gunnison the philosophy in gunnison was probably a little bit different from other parts of western colorado but there was a desire at that time um you know to increase our buck to doe ratios to increase our our deer populations um because of what had gone on on over the previous decade and what people had observed

in the in the 1990s in some of our units we had buck doe ratios that were were sometimes less than uh five to 100 you know we had single we had single digit buck to doe ratios in some units and um certainly there were people that were interested in increasing those and so that was a conversation we're we're initially i guess in 99 or whenever that that drastic i guess you guys at the time were estimating how many over-the-counter tags you were selling for the gunnison basin area and because you mentioned cutting that by 90 you had to have some general idea but so that that was part of it but what was the metric for buck to doe ratio that that those units fell within where did you say this is where we want to try to be 30 40 or where was that from the you know whatever 10 or 15 or whatever you were

and did it change was that different region to region it was it was different region to region i would have to look up what those um because there were management plans written around oh one oh two um and you know it immediately started the discussion you know gun as you as you guys know the gunnison basin is a really challenging place to manage deer because we experience those severe winters about once a decade and so that's always in the back of our mind um at the time we went limited you know we'd it was kind of uncharted water at that time because with with winters in the back of our mind and and all the variables that go into growing the deer herd it was uncertain you know where that buck to doe ratio should land and you know how what the potential of that buck to doe ratio could be and so i'd have to look at what those

initial management plans what the objectives were what i can tell you is that when i uh got here it was 05 or 06 i i revised the first set of deer management plans in the basin and at that time we set the ratio i believe for 40 to 45 per 100 that's kind of what i was generally remembering was about 40 ish or something yeah which is high i mean that's a very high buck to doe ratio and uh i'm i suppose that from 99 to 05 because of the reasons you've indicated 90 cuts hardly any permits being drawn wild winters all those things you guys were getting top heavy fast and you know to add one thing to most listeners when you alluded to winter loss in the gunnison basin as the name implies it is a it is a basin it's a it's a big valley where all these high country kind of a high elevation basin but it's

it's it's eight eight thousand eighty five hundred brandon roughly is i mean you don't get much lower than that right for wintering deer uh so the gun the gunnison proper i believe is seventy two hundred okay seventy four hundred it's uh so we're a little bit under eight thousand uh but that's the low end but yeah that's what i mean it's a lot of places that summer range and you guys that's as low as your deer can get seventy four hundred feet up to you know say eighty five hundred feet roughly yeah yeah and it seems to me like just from a hunter's perspective we hunted gunnison then and it seems like oh five oh six oh four to oh six was just um unbelievable it was unbelievable it's well what's in a lot of people's minds still today and we'll get to that we just we're trying to repeat that i'm not

sure where to do it it's just it's hard everybody remembers those days and of course that if you you know most people had started applying and gaining points for deer you know in 99 2000 so by the time 2002 three four came on you had a first little batch of points to use somewhere and it was phenomenal and we can get into that you know a little bit later in terms of that may never look like that again but but yeah during this area it was a period of building building building building bucks yeah you jumped in what oh oh five ish is that what you were saying oh five ish i got here as biologist i think in the winter of oh three oh four oh okay yeah okay and so when we set when we set those objectives of 40 to 45 bucks per hundred does we were already over them uh you know there we at the peak we were we were

pretty well in the 60s to 100s across the basin i remember i just don't see a problem with that

i don't see a problem let's talk about the winter of 0708 and then and then we have a heavy winter and there's a lot of wasted wildlife i totally get it but i just don't see a problem with those high ratios well you know it's funny uh i the back in that day when i was uh even more green than i am now i i just simply spent a lot every minute that i could get in the field i was in the field just kind of overwhelmed by the the the resource and how many deer and bucks and big bucks and you know the whole thing but the one thing that i realized after a couple seasons of just observing this is prior to guiding uh just observing and then shed hunting is that you know you drive around post hunt uh and observe deer and each deer group had a number of bucks and sometimes multiple mature bucks and it was awesome to see but what you saw by the end of the rut is a lot of really fatigued deer and then

you you get on to the to the post winter range or shed season and you're finding a lot of these old mature deer dead uh have have had shed their antlers but you know just i actually came into the office and was talking to the biologist at the time going hey you know i i i see this as a phenomenal thing but these deer are current killing themselves as a result of this buck high buck to doe ratio and so as neat as it is you can see that there's an issue that these deer are actually a detriment to themselves as a result of these high concentrations of bucks so you know i mean it's just all how you want to see it because i thought it was awesome too and why would you ever not want that forever but at the same time that i think there are a lot of animals going to waste makes sense yeah there there

is such thing as too good of a thing is what you're saying i mean there is such there is a capacity there and a limit and uh you know that totally makes sense and i think it's great to bring that out so well and it's it's an important point jason because that you're making in terms of the people that hunted here prior to seven you know their their bar will will always forever more be where it is and it it ties the issue there is that it ties into current modern day management uh but there's at the end of the day there's a reason why we manage the way we manage now and some of that is lessons learned from the 07 08 winner um but yeah having that bar and those experiences in the back of your mind definitely sometimes short circuits us a little bit when we're talking about current management no doubt but

i guess unless there's a little bit more you want to talk about leading up to this period of building let's discuss a little bit the magnitude for some of those listeners that don't remember or not aware at all about that 07 08 winner what it looked like i remember a lot of the pictures we kept getting it was it was rough feeding programs i mean yeah we want to paint that picture a little bit about whether it's statistical or just what it actually looked like and what you what the result was in terms of adult deer loss fawn law all that yeah um so it it was certainly a one in a hundred year winter uh the gunnison basin is is prone to severe winters but the 07 08 winner was was the one uh in recent history you know we've had other bad winters uh 78 79 83 84 96 97 was a little bit rough but yeah the 07 08

winner was one of a kind at least in modern history um a little to give you some reference and i i misspoke a minute ago gunnison is actually 7 700 feet in elevation but at our office yeah yeah yeah and at our office in gunnison um we had over 100 inches of snow measured so at the very bottom of the valley in town we were over 100 inches of snow so you can translate that to how it looked out on the on the landscape um severe cold we we definitely had below average temperatures to go with the deep snow one of the biggest issues we had that year was in december and i it was christmas-ish or just a little before we got this really bizarre heavy wet snow that just blanketed everything and it was it was substantial it was six plus inches as i recall basically encased the whole landscape and then it

got extremely cold like negative 20 cold and so that that initial snow we got persisted as a rock hard crust throughout the entire winter and it just kept building and building and building and building um you know winter feeding programs for big game are a whole topic in and of itself to discuss the implications of that um you know that that winter we we had a multi-million dollar feeding campaign going here across the gunnison basin at the peak of the feeding program we probably had close to 10 000 deer on feed grounds um so it was it was exceptional um but but what you would expect to happen uh happened you know we we started seeing mature buck mortality and fawn mortality right off the bat um despite our best efforts and we kept some deer alive but you know mature bucks definitely took a beating that winter we lost nearly our entire fawn crop for that year um we also had some pretty

extensive feeding going on for elk trying to keep them off of feed lines and things um and we were also feeding pronghorn that winter which was quite an experience there they're tough to get on feed grounds and our effectiveness there i'm not sure was uh you know economically viable but it was it was extraordinary and you know obviously you can look at whatever data you want to look at whether it's population estimates or sex ratios or license allocation you know we we lost probably somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of our deer herd that year um despite the feeding program um and you know it wasn't proportionate those were the best survivors uh bucks and bonds were were the poorest survivors and so obviously that had some pretty significant implications for years to come um you know the following winter the the uh one of the best things that came from the 07 08 winter

was that we implemented a survival monitoring area in the gunnison basin so every year we deploy or we keep a sample of 90 plus does on the landscape with radio callers and 60 fong um and so that program was started because of all the discussions and debates we had on the heels of the 0708 winter so now we have a tremendous amount of radio caller information that's benefited us in lots of ways and will continue to benefit us but we have local survival estimates and and if we do have another bad winter we're poised to to to have real data uh coming in live stream from those radio callers but that winter was tremendous um in terms of managed longer term management implications uh you know we in 2013 or so uh i revised the there was there was we were compelled to revise those management plans again and so we did that

in 13 i think those plans went final and one of the lessons learned from the 0708 winter which we still talk about a lot you know these days you know we we set our objectives a little bit lower we set our sex ratio back a touch and then we uh are managing intentionally for smaller deer populations because at the end of the day you know we love we all love seeing big groups of deer across the landscape uh but when you get into one of those winters um and it doesn't necessarily even have to be an 0708 winter we had the winter of uh 16 17 here recently which was not even close to 708 but it was significant and when you see the the what actual carrying capacity is of our winter range here during those bad winters um there there has to be a nexus to our management um so we've we've we've learned a lot over the years

we've tried to adapt our management um accordingly uh while also trying to provide you know a great experience for hunters to draw a license but it certainly looks different now than it did pre 0708 can you talk about i guess currently then since it does look different what what are most of the sex ratios there instead of the 40 plus buck to doe ratios where where do you try you guys trying to maintain most of those now and i know that's that's just that and where the population numbers is a completely different thing because of you know habitat and things like that but through social and and other things you know not wanting to quote waste a bunch of bucks in the in the next hard winter where does that currently sit in the management plans so it's actually it's not it's not all that lower than it was previously in terms of the sex ratio but it's our current management objectives

for all three herds in the basin are 35 to 40 per 100 post hunt so we're still managing for for an exceptional buck to doe ratio uh over the last few years just because of our herd performance um we've been over that and so that and these are post-season right post-season uh we're talking yeah everything we yeah most of what we look at in terms of those metrics is all post-season yeah for those listeners that's we're talking end of november on after all the hunting season's over this is what's still left so everybody got their chance to take home what they want to take home and this is what's this what's going into the winter at december roughly yeah exactly and is that that's a bit is that a bit higher than say other parts of the state say you know nucla meeker you know rangely country eagle or you know are you privy to that info or or can speak to that a bit i think i

think we're i don't know where everybody's managing here presently you know like the eagle corridor unit 44 and that that management unit i'm sure they're managing for a fairly high buck to doe ratio 30s 30s 25 to 30s seem to be a little more common than they were 15 years ago but i still think we're probably on the higher end as far as a specific objective for managing 35 to 40 um you know and i it's it's hard you can't compare apples to apples necessarily just because every everywhere in the state is dealing with with just different management issues you know in the northwest part of the state chronic wasting disease as an example is is much more at the forefront of their management these days and whereas in the southwest we haven't um it's not quite we don't have as high prevalence rates at this time so anyway we're still at the higher end of the spectrum and it seems to me

and cody you might even speak to this a bit too um there's a very vocal sportsman's groups obviously gunnison wildlife association but it's been extremely vocal for 15 plus 20 years you know and and the the the locals there in gunnison are extremely passionate about the deer especially it feels like and and have fought and clawed their way to you know and and and worked with the game and fish to a degree and maybe even have been at odds at times on maintaining you know high ratios age class things like that and fought for quality and and it's awesome to have you both on here but maybe speak to that a bit i feel like i feel like the sportsmen are very passionate compared to other areas that i've seen well you know that's interesting uh and we've been kind of uh talking about that and examining that uh you know just over the years and particularly the last few years i think you know what

the fact of the matter is is that there are there are very passionate uh sportsmen out there but i don't think that they actually represent the whole you know and i think you know we can speak to this in any aspect of uh social dynamics that you know there's there's the outspoken that are a percentage but usually the majority is somewhat content and so um i can say uh being a part of that group of that uh the the folks that have been uh outspoken and and involved in this group are folks that spend a lot of time in the field um and have developed preferences over time for what they desire and you know i think the the double-edged sword with what we've got going here and uh to kind of speak to a lot of the folks that have been involved is that uh whether we realize it or not uh we there was a bias created as a result

of uh what i refer to as the wonder years pre-07-08 um when when you got to see that and experience that consistently for years it's easy to let that become your desire or have that be the bar of of where you want to uh maintain um but the reality is and i think this is i'll be careful to speak for everybody but just uh just my perception of the tone of the group has changed realizing that we we can't maintain uh at that level for for ecological reasons and the other thing is and and we saw this happen as in the folks that have been here and and been involved and passionate and in the field is that uh with those kind of deer populations and dynamics uh there's other implications that come with that that are undesirable and from a local bias uh is you start to attract a lot of people that are seeking

the same thing you know and so then that changes the hunting experience dynamic and uh that type of thing and so pressure and interest and types of hunting and all that so you know i think uh what i can say is as far as the group is that we we all desire to have um the opportunity to go out and observe uh what a lot of people would call trophy uh trophy deer you know and obviously that's different for everybody but mature age class deer with uh preferable genetics you know and i think that's becoming more common um uh but you know that is the the the harsh reality is that there's two sides to it is that uh that's a wonderful thing to experience but it's a hard thing to share too um and so and that's obviously speaking like i said with that local bias but you know so that's one aspect of it the other is just

trying to uh relate to uh relate to what's reasonable for for managing uh versus what what our desires are and you know i think that there's a lot of gray there uh that people in general don't really have a full understanding of what goes into my management how it's done models that type of thing you know there's just a disconnect there and so i think uh you know that's one thing that brandon and i have developed in and having you know that's been part of the respect that we've generated is that uh we understand there's two sides to it so you know i think that's where some of the the rub has been in the past is that it's kind of this subjective perspective of of what i see out there or what i perceive that i see and what i want to see uh versus what we can have reasonably uh ecologically and so you know i think that's

what has been one of my goals as president of this group is to try and bridge that gap a little bit so that number one we can foster a better appreciation for what we do have and i know you guys have spoke to it in regards to gunnison before is that we do have some of the highest buck to dole ratios in the states so we can complain about how many big bucks we do or don't see mostly don't see uh or we feel like we don't see but we still have an outstanding deer herd and so you know there's some biases if you were here and got to experience that but the reality is there's a lot of people that still come here and even came here right after 07 08 and we're having better experiences deer hunting than they had in any other western state you know so it's it's kind of all how you want to see it but in speaking back

to the group and and that type of thing you know i think the realization has come is that we can't maintain there will never be uh pre-07 08 will not happen again we can't do it it's not worth it and you know i'll speak just a little bit back to that winter and in a field perspective of going out there shed hunting and coming across drainages where deer were stacked up on top of each other like mummified uh never touched by a predator or scavenger um you definitely saw a waste there was a waste uh that that not even nature was absorbing uh what happened there and so you know when you have that perspective and i think you know it's something that not a lot of people can afford and that's a lot of time in the field to really get an intimate relationship with how nature works and the dynamics of of mule deer and their trends and that type of thing um so you know i i think we kind of

got to take our manager's word for it a little bit and be satisfied with what is good instead of always focusing on what is not desirable for us based on our uh experience whether that's uh two weekends in the field or multiple weeks depending on what your commitment is but i think that's the thing is there's a big perception disconnect and and i've found that with respect through uh inter interacting with folks in this group is that uh what we commonly do is we talk about what we don't like but but what we commonly don't is talk about what we do like you know and so i think that that is something i think all people can consider is that you know even when it's not exactly what we want we have to consider what what still is good and you know i'll speak to the present circumstances and i shared a little

bit with you guys at the show about you know some of what happened here this year that you know for some people it was awful they didn't see any other you know didn't see enough deer didn't see enough big bucks but then there's a there's a pretty large uh number of guys that left here with bucks of a lifetime too you know and so it depends on who you talk to on how what the status is here you know and i think that's the biggest thing that i've learned through this group is that though we're a gwa and in the past members we're passionate but we're also biased you know and so i think that's created some rub but it's also given us an opportunity to kind of challenge ourselves and and and talk about the reality of how good things actually are despite not being pre-07-08 like we would all want just like

you said jason i mean who doesn't want 60 bucks to 100 does i mean that's dreamland that's paradise but the reality is is it's not possible nor do we actually truly want that we just don't back then my biggest complaint was we'd harvested a 220 buck and there was they didn't have eye guards

so there you go there you have it that's the perfect if you only had eye guards it'd be the perfect i remember talking to people about the genetics of no eye guards in gunnison basin but and that's not necessarily true i've seen a few bucks with eye guards nowadays but anyway go ahead bronson there's we have quite an opinion on there's a lot of variables on on the dynamics and and with the hunters and different things but go ahead lead out well that you know like you alluded disneyland fantasyland dreamland whatever you guys terminology wise call it from let's say 2002 to 2007 dear heaven it was it was as good as it got and whether people hunted it and saw it with their own eyes they heard about it afterwards and and even people that didn't quite have enough points or weren't on the ball enough or didn't even hadn't even started applying yet to colorado to build points

prior to the winter they had heard about colorado and they heard about gunnison basin then the winter hits and and for some people they never saw what it was like before they just heard the the stories uh and so now we're now we're dealing with people that that either have are going back for the first or second time um or second or third time in some cases and burning their points as non-residents as points required to draw some of these particularly third season or any four seasons have gone way up uh perception or expectations are through the roof but but i guess as you guys were talking it i've been thinking about some of our premium the best limited entry deer units that we have in utah we're not managing them much differently than what you're you currently say your management plan is there for

gunnison yet you guys have much higher overall deer numbers and obviously much higher tag numbers and multiple rifle seasons and archery and muzzleloader and all that and hunting them in november and i'm just thinking wow here like the henry mountains for instance in utah we have about 50 deer tags a year on all seasons combined and our buck to doe ratios are in the 40 to 50 range and there's also other indices in there to you know on harvested bucks that have you know certain percentage of five years and older and all that so there's a few other metrics in place but it's also a mountain range that is not prolific in deer numbers it is not so we we're talking about certain indices um that are comparable but others in terms of overall deer numbers of two or three thousand deer on the henry's versus you know

tens of thousands collectively on all the gunnison basin units combined but but overall i'm still trying to you know people's perception of a henry mountains tag or a poncegon tag or a fillmore oak creek tag or all a Arizona strip are are these quote once in a lifetime tags right if you want to hunt gunnison even as a non-resident if you don't just hold out for thirds and four seasons you can hunt there every two to four years if you want season second season you know or in some cases the archeries or muzzleloaders now there's you know there's ways to go on it and the resource or the potential to hunt like you alluded a deer of a lifetime is there and and it's not just oh there's one alive in a unit in a unit no i mean we if we talked about the numbers of 200 inch bucks you know killed and say a couple

units there this year it was it was incredible it was amazing it wasn't a one and done you know 200 inch you're here and that's what it shows you can do it was multiple multiple maybe it doesn't for for not having a quote once in a lifetime type weight to go hunt there i i just want to talk about that it's people are maybe somewhat spoiled wanting the old stuff but you still got really good in front of you right now if you just adapt your mindset realize hunting more often but not waiting for only third season let's face it all those units now for non-resident fleas take 15 to 20 plus points to draw a third season tag so it's not it's hard to say i'm going to start and wait for that today if you're close to it maybe that that's one thing but it's not well and i i think you make a lot of great points we get to hunt the henry's once in our life or the arizona you know once in our north of

grand canyon once in our life or whatever and you go you know as far as you know the rifle hunts and then you you look at places like gunnison or or a lot of other desirable units in and around the state and it's and you can hunt them fairly regular and so you know the one thing we've seen is guys get a tag and they think that entitles them to a 200 incher and i know guys and like or like equate it yeah or points equate 20 points means i i've i deserve a 200 incher and and cody like you said i mean guys are out there the same guy i i have a a really good friend hunted gunnison and didn't see a buck necessarily over 170 but it's not because he doesn't know how to hunt and it's not because he doesn't know the unit because he does he knows it as well as anybody i know it was just it was just happenstance it

was luck and some of the great bucks that were taken were taken right where he hunts and so you know it's his experience he walks away with a different experience than say the guys that you talked about and adam's referred to and that are in our publication that walked away with the once in a lifetime buck and so you know and there's also some intangibles that um it's one thing to give out a hundred tags in unit a but if unit a now is one of the best areas in the state those hundred tags will be allocated to a more intense hunter a trophy hunter somebody that's holding out that's maybe taken more of you know there's more big deer taken per hundred tags now because these guys are smashing incredible deer or willing to hold out for that and so there's a lot of intangible how do you manage for that as a biologist yeah there's no non-resident wise there's no meat hunters going to hunt deer

in gunnison no that you don't go there to hunt for me no that's not i mean there are a few exceptions but they're taking meat home but they're not going there to fill the freezer yeah it's like the old days cool the old days the guys that you said founded on venison and now they can't hardly even eat one those days are yeah i mean gunnison at least there's people i'm sure locals and all that but non-resident's coming using points coming there they're going there and looking for mature deer and you alluded to it earlier cody it's hard to share the awesome resource you have and but the the type of hunter i think targeting areas like eagle targeting areas like gunnison is different than it was in and the equipment is different and and cody you've seen this over guiding i mean you know this right

people people come there saying why not me what are what's what are we doing wrong i should have hired somebody else whatever the case may be yeah no doubt you know i i i mean you guys hit on a lot of things that i think we could speak to uh right there just in that little section uh i think one of the one things that stands out to me you know being a a guide you know brandon and i uh deal with folks that desire to come here and hunt in different ways i get to actually go with the guys that drew and you know you see a plethora every every guy is different um and what their expectations are um but you know the one thing i guess and i was hoping to have the opportunity uh as we're speaking about gunnison and my experience of being in the field a lot of days a year from archery muzzleloader all the way to

four season a lot of days scouting a lot of days hunting uh and i try and tell this and i'd love for anybody interested in gunnison to hear this and hear this well that the reality uh from my perspective and granted it's just me but uh you can come to gunnison and feel fortunate if you see a deer over 180 inches and now take heed that deer might be 181 or he might be 210 you know and so i think to calibrate people's expectations before they come to a place like this like you know what i've experienced there's been a a lot of guys come and think we're going to sort through 180 to 190 inch deer uh and hold out for that 200 where the reality is that's not the case with iguards it wasn't multiple iguards would be nice if you guys could help us out and you guys can speak to this pre-07-08 i mean there were a lot

of good deer but you weren't sorting through 190 inch deer and it's not that it wasn't that way it's not that way and it's never gonna be that way you know and so i think it's important that people kind of calibrate their expectations in coming here uh that you will see a lot of deer you will likely see a lot of bucks and and what you got to be thankful for is the resource the country and the opportunity and experience and i don't want to sell short you know uh our our pursuit for that dream deer uh but to think that that those points uh warrant anything is a fallacy um it really doesn't mean that and so uh i think what you got to do anywhere you hunt and particularly in gunnison is know they exist and hope you're the lucky one i mean the reality is uh that you can hunt hard you can glass uh you can

spend time scouting pre-season and because of the dynamics particularly in the rifle seasons it's a wild card no matter what so you you just gotta hope you're the lucky one and that's the reality of it but that by no means does that mean that you shouldn't hunt hard that type of thing so then so so there's that aspect of it which i hope everybody hears and understands but then that can kind of take us into the dynamic shift of hunters and hunting pressure and technology and information and that type of thing out there what's changed and what we've got to observe uh how things have shifted and how that's impacted deer movement and distribution location that type of thing i mean so this is where you know back going back to some of the things i said before and often uh reference this double-edged sword thing you know i mean there's there's two sides of it always and so um you know i

think that that is one thing that we look at and talk about now more than ever uh and in regard to what our population are what our buck to doe ratio is and what the perception is out there based on people's experience you know and i think that there are more hard hunters and just like you guys are talking about uh you know folks coming from out of state or not coming for meat um you know i think that that is a truth that is not likely to leave this basin um but that that would also um you know to me bring up some of the stuff that uh i would like to make a point of is that you know these people come here uh with trophy expectations and uh then go home with younger deer and you know i don't know if this is a taboo subject or not but it's something that i'd like hunters and particularly folks who categorize themselves as

trophy hunters is that if we desire to have that kind of resource then we have to be uh bought into the hole uh versus uh our what what works for me because what i'm seeing is it is that there are a lot of people who come here with those high points that have to leave with the deer and what's happening is we're not seeing the type of deer that we want and so we end up shooting 170 inch three point that is our future 200 incher because what what the heck i'm not ever going to be back here so why not shoot this deer and and what we're ending up with and seeing a lot more of a particular in some units more than others is deer that a quote unquote trophy hunter would consider insignificant which is a three point uh uh you know uh would be three on top of however you want to put it but i think everybody knows what

i'm talking about and we're seeing ancient old three by fours and three points uh that nobody will shoot because they're too proud and so we're harvesting our young uh up and comers and um you know we're we're kind of working against ourselves as as far as that goes you know and yeah i don't want to focus solely on trophy hunting but because gunnison is that high profile area i do think these are real things that we should talk about and consider in in the folks that do have this kind of trophy uh or quality deer preference if that makes sense oh i think it's all i think you make a valid point there we you can't i can't even tell you how many guys we talk to that you know will go and but they have to bring home a buck the last day they're smashing something that they wouldn't kill on the first second third day

and they have to bring home a deer and and your point is hey you know maybe maybe we eat tags and by the way i i eat so many tags i'm tired of eating tags but um you kind of it's okay to eat a tag you know if you didn't see what you wanted to eat you know eat a tag versus taking home a gorgeous you know four point with great genetics that's a a young 150 buck you know is that kind of where you were headed with that as guys are shooting you know trophy hunters are still shooting bucks you know guys you know older guys that have seen the heyday and they're still you know have to take home a buck but yet they're they're trophy hunters and expecting trophies yep and you know the cool thing is here is that you know and i'll speak to this uh you know the the current herd management plans were done uh by brandon in his

biologist days and you know i think the uh and i think i i really love this to be acknowledged and it's something that i uh perpetuate more in my conversations all the time is that brandon and i'll say the state but this was a lot to do with brandon we want he tried to hit a sweet spot with opportunity and uh quality and and you know you guys spoke to it you know i mean you can burn 21 points here or you can burn three you know and and you can have both opportunity and quality experience and and normally those later seasons have less tags and so the quality comes in the fact that there's less hunters in the field i would be my perception um versus you know the opportunity for the bucks is there no matter what season um but you know weather rut all that stuff obviously plays into it but the thing to me and the

success that i'll tout for brandon and and and i don't think he would so i will uh is that we he's actually been able to maintain an outstanding balance of opportunity and quality and so i think that's the neat thing is is that the gunnison basin does cater uh a little bit to and intentionally unintentionally to the trophy experience but there's also a lot of opportunity for folks out there that just want to go harvest uh for meat or they're not worried about antlers or that it's important to have an opportunity to get young people in the field or to be able to continue multi-generational traditional hunting with uh a child and uh you know and grandfather type of thing and so you know i think that's one thing that i would like to highlight to people and and speaking to the whole uh because there is more than just trophy

hunters or strictly meat hunters there's a it's a broad spectrum and so you know that's the one thing to me uh that is significant in the management of gunnison that i think commonly gets over overlooked and underappreciated is that both exist and that is unique to very few places and so you know i think uh the the success over the years of of and and uh i'll say satisfaction of the whole is probably pretty good you know and there's a few uh that have the high expectations and leave disappointed and really that that that that's just kind of to you know we all create our own expectations and our disappointment comes from uh our own perception but you know that isn't management's fault and i think that's that's something that's been a conflict for a lot of time is to automatically point the finger at the managers

for me not having the experience that i set the expectations for you know and and and that's not fair it doesn't lead to any kind of constructive conversation um and so it really doesn't get anybody anywhere but it is a reality to some folks but you know i think the the biggest thing to me is people understanding management and what the objectives are and what how success is truly measured from a management perspective versus a public hunting experience uh perspective you know so you know i i think to me and working with brandon working as a as a wildlife group leader is you know it would be awesome to change the tone with folks in the greater hunting community to appreciate our managers and and how hard management is what aspects uh go into working against that and and the success that is there despite it

not happening for everyone else if that makes sense yeah well i guess i have a unique perspective myself as having been in somebody like brandon's shoes as a wildlife biologist over here in utah and i haven't been so for many years you know 15 or so now but i i it's it's a thankless job most of the time uh there are the moments there are the you know pat on the backs that come here and there but it's hard to do some you can't please everybody but sometimes it feels like you can't please anybody that i felt like that a lot at times um especially during tough times whether it be drought you know we have that probably we're in southern utah so our drought years are super harsh on our deer herds um both from a population and obviously recruitment fawn perspective and we can get blamed for stuff that mother nature has

taken from us you know easily which is more silently in drought than it is in a hard winter when you see deer stacked up like cordwood over there in draws and it's just obvious to everybody wow this winter was out of everybody's control and it crushed us um so yeah i've seen both ends of the spectrum and i'm obviously a very avid hunter and sportsman and you know over here jason and all of our crew here at epic outdoors are and we try to maintain that perspective and i think one thing that maybe helps us a little bit as we do deal with individuals like yourselves in all these western states and everybody has their own challenges and it's there's not a one-size-fits-all approach um but as we get maybe into the latter phase of this podcast to try to help people maybe understand a little bit more of what an expectation should be

because a lot of people still have never even set foot in gunnison never hunted it and it's still a destination they've heard about it or you know they still hear a podcast like this about it and are intrigued by it but um we've talked a lot about be realistic with expectations these aren't the glory days and i guess so maybe in these last roughly 10 years that we are now kind of under the maybe we'll call it the new normal of how deer herds are being there managed in the gunnison basin in terms of a little bit lower thresholds for buck to doe ratio and you know managing a little bit more in mind for the next big winter so that we don't just waste a bunch of resource that we've built for and put on the shelf and it got taken away from us brandon or cody whoever wants to dive into this first you know

we're talking mainly you know about units 54 55 66 67 551 and i i know you all you both know a lot about all of those units and i don't know how we want to whether we really need to go unit by unit probably not but but what are differences between some of those what are current things trends looking like in those units what are you seeing both from a biological standpoint and a you know eye test standpoint right now why does why does the quality differ a bit well so i can get us started maybe um maybe just a general point too before we get get too deep into that um it's interesting talking about the henry's and when i i'm always learning about different places and different management strategies across the west but you know the reality in gunnison is that we are uh we're sort of in a boom and bust system here in terms of our deer and it oftentimes when we increase

licenses it leads to a lot of scrutiny and questions and contention and uh but you know fundamentally during those times when we can offer more licenses it indicates that we're in a boom or an increasing phase and really it's it's cause for celebration that we have the ability at that time uh to issue a few more licenses give a few more folks time in the field um you know and our deer herds are performing well so it's it's uh it's not a bad thing if we increase licenses it does come with some different perceptions and expectations and scrutiny but you know we have to in our environment and you know drought situations i would imagine that when you have a super droughty phase your managers are reducing licenses or taking action as necessary but you know kind of enjoy it while it lasts sort of philosophy and celebrate when our deer herds are doing well

well i just wanted to make that point and then you know also to sort of intertwine into our next conversation you know i think there's uh management from a manager's standpoint and i i had gone through the evolution from where we had like the big briefcase uh cell phone plugged into our truck you know to where we didn't have smartphones or we didn't even brick we barely had we barely had emails when i started my career you know so it was a whole different environment out there on the landscape where there were secrets uh there were secret hunting spots you know you couldn't get the information that you have here now um technology was different and i bring this stuff up because i know you've you've both you guys are talking about this on your podcast and it's something important we should be

talking about because in totality you know management of these big game resources now especially if you're talking about maintaining older animals in the population older males it is incredibly challenging now compared to what it was even 10 years ago and 20 30 years ago was an entirely different world and so our ability to sort of maintain and keep up with hunters expectations is getting harder by the year because we can't grow these animals as quickly as hunters have the ability to to muck them out um and this is a conversation that spans across the west probably across the whole country but you know what it takes to grow six-year-old mule deer bucks it's a very special thing and it takes a lot of luck and a lot of intention and you know it is getting more challenging to maintain those across

the landscape and cody cody hit it even you know i have spent who knows how much time in a helicopter in the gunnison basin and literally have individually classified tens of thousands of deer and even pre-07-08 you know you would fly and i would i would classify animals till my throat was dry and i couldn't hardly talk anymore and you know out of a whole day in the in the helicopter you know you'd remember two or three bucks that were like dang look at that one you know and um you know they're really they're not behind every bush by any stretch and you guys know this better than anybody anything recent any anything recent come to mind

unfortunately now that i'm more of a desk jockey i don't get that opportunity all right you saved yourself you know i see the smile on hunters faces when they when they take them out of the woods yeah no but yeah i mean growing what it takes to grow those animals and put them on the landscape and it doesn't matter if you're talking about 400 inch bulls in utah or you know 200 inch bucks in colorado i mean it it is hard to maintain them and with our technology and our information if a big deer or a big bull is visible he's found and he's in trouble uh people are better hunters yeah people are better hunters too more dedicated the gear dedicated yeah exactly and you know co one of the things we talk about a lot in the gunnison basin is quote unquote crowding um and i think crowding is different to everybody and and that translates into the

quality of their hunt but you know and i was telling cody last last night i was just reviewing some of my da youth my herd management plans just for to kind of refresh my memory and in 2007 as an example in in unit 54 we issued 770 buck tags uh and there was also 250 300 doe licenses at that time so we would have we would have had a thousand deer hunters in the woods in 07 uh last year with a license increase that we did we had 580 total deer hunters in the woods and last year probably was one of the i heard about crowding a lot um in unit 54 in different places and it's a sign of the times with all the information you know people know where to go they can get that information from friends or consultants or internet and you have sort of disproportionate hunter distribution across the landscape um you know you pair that with side by sides and optics and uh you know lots of commitment

long-range guns all that sort of stuff and it's it's a whole different management environment and the reason i'm even bringing all this up and i'd love to talk to you guys more about it uh you know it's just that it does influence what a hunter can expect out there when they draw a license license and you know those 20 preference point licenses there is no equation that you know goes from 20 points to inches of antler um as you well know and i know you guys probably talk about this daily weekly monthly yearly all the time um but hunters hunters are just bombarded these days with pictures of big deer and big antlers and it it gives this impression that that's what you can expect when you get out there and obviously that's just not the case so i don't know how we recalibrate our expectations but it definitely there's a management implication there that's very real

and we've dealt with it for a long time here in the gunnison basin and watched the evolution of it um so that that didn't answer your your preliminary question at all about the different units but well i think it tees it up though a little bit in terms of your and i don't know how the other four units compare but you've got from 15 years ago you have half the deer hunters that you had this last year versus 20 in 2007 but yet maybe heard of more crowding issues than you have because the 500 and something deer tags that you had last year has been on a general increase as like you've alluded earlier deer numbers have been doing well you've had light winters or moderate winters and you're adding tags because you have the deer there to do it but that's not without a consequence you know people are noticing i i drew this tag with two points as an unripp but man i saw a lot of orange

i'm just i'm disappointed i'm disappointed you know and that's i think i think it's one of the most significant points of the podcast is everything you brought up six-year-old bucks and a boomer bust herd uh you know let alone everything you know being able to use everything have unlimited time and resources feels like people are allocating more time and resources you know to these hunts they know exactly it's a it's a information age they know exactly where to go they're prepared they do a lot of study at home phone calling whatnot consultants the game has totally changed you know there's you know it's just i don't know i'm just you just want to go back to you know no pressure draw often use all the technology i want and kill giants every time and it's just not it's not possible you know the

social media does make feel guys feel like that they're one of the few yeah everybody's doing it but me i'm one of the few and only and and the repost and the different angles and you know it's it's nauseating to a degree and and it's not reality and and then and then brandon we want to put your your head on the chopping block and wonder why why why things are different why why did i have a bad experience you know cody cody did that point exactly and it's it's you know it is what it is you know we we we take our licks and we we try to maintain our relationships and friendships and which again is more important than ever between state management agencies and and sports people because we're all we're all we got these days and there's a lot of other forces out there that are not necessarily in our best interest but you know it's if you don't have the experience you think you should have had

then it's automatically a flaw with management and that that immediately starts us off on the wrong track we've got to blame somebody brandon we've got to blame somebody

well right and that's why like my coat would think with cody's help and there's a lot of other good folks that are engaged with gunnison wildlife association and just folks here in the gunnison valley you know we've we've we've been working really hard on just educating educating one another um and sort of basing our our conversations at least on the facts to start because we can all get in a room and throw our opinions uh at each other and and uh describe the world but at the end of the day you know in my role and in the staff here uh we have a great staff that really has tremendous investment and passion in all this as well you know we we have to make decisions and we have to be accountable for those decisions and base those decisions on the best science and and information that we have and that's that's where we start um you know and we're when we're doing the best we can with all

the competing interests out there on the landscape but if if we can have fact driven and science driven conversations it gets us a lot further because at least we can understand each other on a level level playing field all all good stuff and it and it does it does those are great sideboards for you to bring up brandon because that those are reality things those are pressures those are those are things that are going on in the background all all while we're now at the point we're filling out applications before april 5th and then we want to know where to put in where we make our hopes and dreams come true we have all those other pressures all i want to go to dear heaven i want to go to dear heaven that's right and uh but maybe to the extent possible then to try to try to maybe give our listeners something to give you know something to chew on ruminate on between now and april 5th

let's maybe discuss a little bit of i guess trends gut feel actual you know trends whatever in terms of the units in the gunnison basin you know compared to you know the recent past we'll just we'll just talk about it with the recent past but where we where are we right now um i know you guys are not to the point you're setting permit numbers for this year yes we're not really get trying to get that specific but unit by unit or what units you think are on the upwards trend and and and where the challenges might lie that's right i'll go ahead and take that uh from kind of the hunter guide perspective field perspective and and just kind of having our finger on the pulse and you know working for steve with lazy f bar uh we hunt multiple units and then of course just our network of folks that we interact with we you know

we we've got a general finger on the pulse of of what's going on throughout the basin and so i'll i'll do my best to speak to that to kind of give folks a kind of that overview of what i perceive is going on based on my own experience and then interacting with other folks so um i'll start out by saying uh you know i think uh through the last several years even post 07 or even 07 08 to present i think the south units came out of the winter better and have had a better um rebound and sustain uh sustaining herd health uh versus the north units now can you define though for can you define it for everybody i mean i'm assuming you're talking 66 67 551 as a south and 54 55 is the north is that what you're talking yeah i would you know if 551 is kind of unique because it's it's split by highway 50 and so it's

actually has a good portion of country on both both sides so it would be the hybrid that falls into both and it feels like it's all it feels like it's it's feels like it's the forgotten stepchild over there it really is it's unique uh and it's outstanding country but there is uh some different dynamics um obviously there's a little bit of trade uh that happens through the migration from the neighboring units i think most of uh 55 and 551 exchange uh uh uh through the migration and you know i think that one of the things that's and i'll be careful to say this but uh one of the things with the new season dates is is folks have been uh observing different uh population dynamics with those later dates on where where the deer are when and and how many there are in each unit based on that and we have that dynamic

dynamic throughout the basin um you know in in between 66 and 67 and then 54 55 and then on into 551 where they you know one deer will actually be potentially in every one of those units um during an uh just a period of a hunting season you know so you know each unit doesn't have its own exclusive deer because of the migration but there are obviously our residents and and deer that stay there so you know that's one unique thing that we have here that you can't really pin down uh because they not only migrate off of the summer range but then throughout the winter based on a lot of the caller data which there's a lot of now more than ever um would say that they exchange throughout the winter as well so it's really quite interesting and that's kind of a whole another topic uh that that really uh you know i think the more

data gets out there it's going to give off folks an opportunity to see that but going to just observe field stuff and and harvest trends that type of thing you know um i think the deer numbers are the most apparent and and bountiful in 66 67 i'll call that the south units um and so good deer numbers i think one thing that uh has happened down there is that has continued to be kind of the highest profile uh areas particularly 66 for a long time and that's shifted throughout the years a little bit but um you know that's one area that i feel like i've seen uh a lot of these deer because of the number of points that are going into it a lot a lot of the hunters who are harvesting these deer that are are the future you know um there is uh it seems to be an observed prevalence of three-point type genetics

in 66 and 67 that people speak to and are dissatisfied with and so you know i it's hard to say if that's hunter created you know can we really uh you know create genetic uh prominence like that i think we can but to scientifically quantify that i don't think it's possible or is something that uh managers uh focus on but uh regardless i think those are some of the tendencies down south so what folks are seeing down there is more more deer numbers uh good buck to doe ratios um but not the number of more mature deer with the antler genetics that they desire and like and like you said the hunter feel the feel from the hunter is is that 66 was the best um for a number of years and adam like decade 15 20 years 66 was always looked at as that and then somewhat disappointing results but disappointing meaning

i've talked to guys that surveyed 280 bucks you know in the course of five or six days and yeah and and they're just like we and they say they say it you know we we have it on paper this is what we saw and the biggest one was 188 or or whatever but uh but a good portion of of you know four point type bucks very nice bucks bronson you've been there recently yeah i mean you can even speak to that too lots of deer lots of bucks um yep did not do i'm not seeing quite as many of those yeah like you said the elite bucks that are taking 20 plus points that people are hoping to find there and that wasn't my expectation there right but yeah um i still didn't see them and maybe the same could be said with 67 kind of lumping those two together i think so yeah but then but there's a lot of bucks coming on that are alive right now and i think that's what you're saying to a degree cody there's a

good condition good numbers yep another year age another year age you know who knows and it's been hard it seems like the the hot unit in gunnison the last five years nothing has been the same more than like a year or two in a row and then it's now we're talking about 55 and then now it's now it's 54 it's just kind of moving chasing that yeah moving goalpost you know yeah i think that's accurate you know and i think it i don't think that's i think it's just a happenstance it's not really by design by management it's just that's what nature is provided you know the one thing that i can speak to uh you know for the south units and probably 55 too in the north is that accessibility you know i can speak to just 66 i've spent a lot of time guiding down there and it used to be you know that country from the lake south to the highway was not as desirable for some folks and you could go and there

were trails that had maybe one set of tracks on them by the end of third season and now by the middle of second season every road and trail is powder you know guys are hammering it and you're we're going into some of these spots and i interact with some people and a lot of times i don't but you know i can't help but wonder how some of these people know what they know and you know you just like what are you doing here you know what brought you here uh and oftentimes it's uh you know tapping into the network of being a part of uh a hunting consultant or that type of publication and so you know i want to go back to brand i want to i want to go back to blaming brandon i don't want to blame i don't want to blame the consultant i don't want to blame the consultants totally okay yeah this is our this is our podcast this is our podcast here chris cut this

no you know i mean it's a beautiful thing though again and and i'll and i'll just use this uh uh to death but it's that double-edged sword thing you know so it's getting guys where they need to be and some guys are successful but your odds go down when we're we're hunting country like that and we're all hunting the same stuff uh you know the the odds just start to stack against you when we're all hunting the same places that have been traditional um you know uh areas that have produced and so you know that's the one thing that i feel like that 66 67 and 55 have have seen and parts of 54 and 551 is kind of that anomaly uh that doesn't i think fit into the mold as much as kind of the four primary units that most people are aware of and desire to hunt uh for that matter um but it's it's our impacts and how we hunt you know um the deer still frequent those areas but it's less there's less

concentrations we're observing less deer numbers uh during those times of the year and and we got guys that you know there's there's places that uh you could sit on a point uh for days and never see another person now guys are like stacking up multiples uh and then sorting out through the day where you know uh there there's just the country is being pounded and and that's exactly what we intend to do when we go out there is pound it i mean we're hunting hard you're doing you're doing your job and and even guys that are going self-guided are working as hard as they can work you know yep armed with knowledge and resources and yeah and so i we're we're kind of our own worst enemy you know uh we're working against ourselves uh trying to achieve the same goals and so you know i think that is changing the dynamic of

the experience and you know i mean it's one thing to sit on a spot all day and glass and not see what you want to see it's another to share it with a half a different guy half a dozen different guys throughout the day and then have them driving or walking through the country that you're glassing and you know so i think those are the type of things that shift our perception of the quality of experience that we're having and and i think that doesn't you know obviously doesn't have anything to do with management that falls back onto us and as much as i hate to say it you know i've had to come to grips and humble myself that i'm one of those guys too you're part of the problem we're part of the problem brandon's part of the problem for sure yeah totally mostly

i'm sensing a theme here boy well i what i like about some of these units are easier to hunt and it feels like there's no escapement and then there's places and you know in 54 i've hunted it and i like 54 but there's a lot more there's a bit more escapement there's as you know there's a lot of you know high elevation thick trees uh you know less roads and parts of it rougher country some guys can go to 10 000 feet still fine deer some guys can hunt near town fine deer there's just you know and so there's some escapement and at time that will lend itself to a six-year-old plus deer as well as other units so there's private and 66 arbors six-year-old plus deer as well as you know other tougher to get to areas and so you know when you go five six seven eight years without a heavy winter you're starting to see some good bucks

and i feel like we're we're seeing some of that yep totally and i think that's it we are you know the the cool thing about gunnison and i'm careful to tout this but i can't not and especially in light of of of kind of your guys's focus and and and all that and the reality of it is is that gunnison will always produce big deer you know um the one thing we have is uh abundant summer range um genetics are one thing uh but genetics are everywhere but you you've got to have the habitat feed and conditions to foster that you know i think our big winners uh help with natural selection only the strong survive so there's an element of that and so that's the cool thing about gunnison and that's what probably has lended us the reputation that we have and will sustain that is that we will always grow big deer you

know and so i think you know anybody can expect that any time as as as a reality that they do exist here now uh finding them killing them that type of thing is a totally different deal but where we're at now i don't think we're in any kind of uh necessary uh big buck boom uh we're in a we're in a deer boom which naturally by percentage offers uh you know more bucks um but we also have more tags and so i think some of the harvest that happened this year was not uh not that we had more more big bucks on the landscape we simply had more hunters hunting them uh you know and then you know uh teamed with the technology information that the success was solid and so i think we can probably expect that in the future but going to you know i'll go back to i couldn't make this point enough but uh of what i said earlier about coming to gunnison and my experience of hunting days upon days upon days in

the field over the years basically the past two decades that you know to have an expectation to see more than one deer uh over 180 inches is is about as much as you could hope for and not even completely expect and so you see better than that you had what i would consider a good experience yeah yeah and so you know i think that's what you can quote unquote expect when you come to gunnison is hope to see 180 inch deer and he may be 181 or he may be 210 230 you never know i mean we we go 230 230 whoa 230 did make a front cover all right keep going well um so 54 i think uh definitely seen a harvest this year uh a probably uh stronger percentage harvest which you know is funny i think it may allure more guys to it but from a personal standpoint i i think that's just kind of the kind of the fool's errand

stuff just happened because they harvested a bunch that there's going to be that many there again and they're they're kind of they're kind of dead cody they're kind of dead now yeah i mean there's a there's a few left we're not going to lie but but but same point you know that was last year's results so yeah and so you know i think uh the one thing that seemed to be missing to me in 54 is the up and comer population that you want to see where the south units have a little bit more of that 55 is seeing that same thing 551 again i'm just going to call it the the black sheep because it really doesn't well i don't even want i don't even really want to talk about 551 yeah let's just pretend when was the last 230 buck taken out of 55 it's got an extra digit in its number it's like doesn't even it's got three it's

like we're not used to that so brandon kill them all over there just teasing just teasing the reality is that's a and and like all these units it's a it's it's there can be it's a hunter's hunt it's it's wonderful country it's awesome to hunt um but the the deer numbers aren't there and and there are more big deer coming out of there than i think people know but i think that's also relative to kind of the type of guys that hunt that because it is an anomaly guys go out there that are not outspoken and they go and they continue to have an experience and like kind of what i feel like you guys are promoting in some of these less desirable areas that guys are putting in this different commitment and coming up with uh good deer that are not to be expected out of those areas and you know and i i don't think that it's getting uh the hype just because of the dynamic of the hunter and that and

that's just a subjective opinion but yeah i think there's a reality to that so you know speaking to 54 um you know i think there was definitely a good harvest i don't see there's a as good a succession in up-and-coming bucks as there are in some of the other units um i think 55 uh was expected to do a a little better this year and um and just didn't produce what people thought even though there was some good deer that came out of there uh you know that is one one unit that i feel like gets a lot of pressure uh in the country that had traditionally produced big deer that those deer uh and i'll say particularly i think and this is just my my my opinion uh but i think the does the old does are getting tired of getting hammered on by all this traffic and they're just stepping into the trees a little bit more and so our bucks our does are there we're just not seeing them as much and and

guys aren't getting out uh as much because you know i think we can consistently kill them with by you know using glass spot and stock but the the dynamics of of of our hunters and and how they hunt these days is is kind of gravitated away from that traditional go out get in the field and go hunting to sitting behind glass which i think is great and and is personally my preference but i'm learning too that you know uh we may not be able to continue to bank on that if we really want to have it go out and harvest the deer now if we just love sitting behind our scope which i do and i'm fine with and not seeing big bucks all day but for the guys that are super hungry i think uh it's it's going to be in people's interest to get out there and and and go find them where they live and and and be hunters

and track deer and and use our traditional methods versus just relying on our technology and and that type of thing and so you know i mean to each their own but i do believe that's something that is necessary in order to continue to have the opportunity to harvest and to to help our distribution you know i mean i think if we get out there and stir them up a little bit it's going to make a difference too you know it's all speculation oh there's a lot of watching it there's a lot of intangibles just like you're saying a lot of a lot of a lot of changes and and things that are affected that you wouldn't think about per se um one thing i wanted to ask brandon we're good friends i feel like we're really good friends now so brandon i just want to ask because this is on people's minds the date change and

everybody thought it was going to be an absolute slaughter cut tags everybody be care you know game and fish should be careful at the end of the day we've been through a season just tell us your opinion on that a little bit um obviously there's high success rates in a lot of these november rifle seasons anyway but kind of you know what's your perspective on that and uh in relation to tag numbers managing for quality and having the the date shift sure yeah and i'll get right back to that jason i just want to circle back real quick to a comment you just made because i think it's really important uh for all of your listeners and everybody to digest on you you threw out the term security and i think security uh areas for these animals um and and those are essentially places where they're you know less vulnerable to human disturbance i guess we could

define it that way i think that's a really important point because that also contributes greatly to the quality of animal you may encounter within a hunting unit and you know a lot of folks tend to bow up immediately when you know a federal agency starts talking about travel management restrictions and things like that but i would encourage all of us and your listeners to really think about what that means because if if our desire is to maintain critters on public lands and and quality animals on public land we have got to take travel management planning seriously and the notion that we can have motorized access to all nooks and crannies uh across the geographic area i think is is not in the best interest of those objectives so i just wanted to circle back and make that point because you know these days again with our technology

everybody's rolling into town with one or more ohvs and and you can buzz around country all day long and it is impacting management it's impacting animal distribution and there's a lot of things going on there that are important so i i really i really appreciate you bringing that up and we we tend to agree the i think the hunter the general hunting population out there we've seen uh wildernesses pop up in places we maybe maybe weren't suited for it per se and so you feel like and and these areas are now really not accessible we have there's country that's you know 15 miles each way to of walking in you know desert area arid environments that you know and there's just things i think there's some apprehension about travel management plans so to speak from the hunting public and but but what you're saying is

constructive plans that make sense not just you know we're going to take this entire unit and you're all going to walk from one end to the other you know what i mean and so we've seen right there's been some of that happen and not not from you guys just there's been some that happened blm over in parts of our country and it makes us a little apprehensive to do that but it's needed in parts of the country for sure right and travel travel management planning is always controversial no matter where you are and there there is such a thing as reasonable access but i think now more than ever uh for the hunting community we've got to be looking 10 20 50 years down the road because you know colorado uh i grew up here i've seen the change you know in 20 more years what is it going to look like here and

how many people are going to be on the landscape and where all these people are recreating and doing their thing on public lands is going to impact our management ability and at the end of the day the number of licenses and hunting opportunity we can provide so just before you get too bowed up you know think about that in the short and the long term and what that means to the animals that are out there that we all cherish so um and then to circle back to your your question on the season date so we're in year this will be year three of our five-year season structure and the dates this year again are awful late uh compared to what they've traditionally been um you know the decision was made by our commission uh to set the season dates the way they were and so you know in in on one hand it's it's

water under the bridge i i think of the next five-year season structure planning um process which will probably kick off in the next year or so uh for the public but um i don't anticipate us having as late dates again at least in the southwest part of the state um that i'm most familiar with and have spent my career in you know the dates are late and they present uh again it's sort of the the the two sides of the coin on one hand you know i look at it from a management perspective and i knew as soon as those dates were were set you know that there was going to be a lot of discussion about mule deer management and mature buck vulnerability and all of those things that you've talked about um and probably had hundreds of conversations with with your with your folks and clients um and then as far as elk

management goes we're also we talk a lot about that as well because you know the northwest part of the state uh in many places is still an elk factory uh they can grow a lot of elk and they're still over objective is my understanding in some units whereas in the southwest part of colorado you know the general trend has been declining calf cow ratios we've intentionally reduced our elk herds over the last 20 years you know we're at or in some cases below management objective and so the later season dates for the in the season structure definitely increase elk vulnerability to to harvest depending on the conditions um at least that potential is there and we're sort of an environment where we don't need to kill more elk uh we're trying to maintain mature bucks in many places um and so these late season

dates certainly add a layer of complexity to our management that we're trying to navigate through and the way i've approached it you know whether we agree on it or not you know it is what it is and we just have to talk factually about what the management implications are uh and sort of proceed forward it's not going to be forever it's not going to be the end of deer and elk in the state uh you know we'll regroup on the next five year season structure and adapt adapt that to what we've learned uh here in the last few years and and move forward but um it is you know weather weather potential especially in the gunnison basin that's sort of where the rubber meets the road and the later those season dates push out the more potential we have for legitimate storm events uh and you know over my career the the bottom line is uh you know weather cold and snow is what makes mature bucks

vulnerable um yeah and certainly tips the scales in a hunter's favor and so you know if we get those years we're gonna we're gonna kill a lot of deer we'll probably kill continue to kill mature bucks um perhaps at a little bit uh you know greater proportion than we have previously but we'll see you know last year the weather just didn't shape up the way it could have um and so some of the earlier seasons were some of the better hunting honestly because the weather dried out and it got hot and warm again the deer went in the trees and that was that uh but if we get prolonged cold starting in october and deep snow you know uh but you can also look at that from a through a hunter's lens you know for a guy that has a tag in their pocket uh you know there's a lot of potential there to have a great

hunt so it's been interesting to watch it especially last year because everybody knew those season dates were what they were and they were going to be late and there was a lot of concern expressed about it but a lot of people were vying for those tags and wanted to get in on that at the same time right so it's um it's interesting and it has been it's led to a lot of additional conversations but again you know we'll we'll get through the next couple years and learn from it and uh adapt accordingly i mean for from a manager's perspective we we plan for very high success rates so you know our heart is well even going into these dates you know we we made some adjustments anticipating some high success higher than average success rates and here we have very high success rates anyway on on any given year

but we were planning for high success and so our license allocation and management prescriptions are very intentional you know there's no there's no unknowns um you know we we put everything we have and all the information we have into those decisions and if we don't hit the mark you know if something goes a little askew we'll just adjust the the next year and adjust those licenses accordingly and try to keep going on the path where we're uh we're headed on and and that is to achieve the management objectives prescribed in our management plans yeah so that's kind of where where it's all headed on any given year is just to stay within the sideboard set in our management plan yeah a couple of things you said just to just to you can clarify if i'm wrong one of them jason and i have said over and over that

weather trumps dates every time we've hunted dates third season one year very same unit the next year with five to six day later dates with calendar shifts and had worse hunt the second year just because we had no weather so we totally agree with that and and the reason we say that a lot is you've alluded to too brandon is you can go there on a second season now you've almost had a 30-day layoff for deer hunters at least there's been some first season rifle elk hunting but a 30-day layoff of no deer hunting since the end of september the archery hunt ended uh it's an opening day it's a true opening day and if you've had some weather bucks can be vulnerable be there for the taking and if you don't get any new weather between the second or third or during the second the third can just be a kind of regurgitation of

same old weather patterns deer in the same elevational plane and it's tough um the one other thing i wanted you you know we've had a lot of people question what does colorado think and they're going to move the day they're going to kill all their deer well you've alluded to the fact that um and colorado is very known for uniformity in their season structure throughout we'll just call it the western slope you know archery muzzleloader first season is an elk only second and third and fourth buck season where we're permitted but this all came about correct me if i'm wrong because of increased managers in certain part of the state you've alluded maybe to the northwestern part or maybe others too to want to increase elk harvest and that first rifle season is a five-day rifle only for elk only and historically you only had a two-day break before the second season which is the first

combined deer and elk season started only a two-day layoff and to increase harvest or maybe get more elk off of private back on the public they extended that weight right they added a whole week now or nine days or whatever it is in between the end of the first and the start of the second and that's what created this whole domino effect that shoved the second third and fourth later am i correct that's correct and i mean you can you can certainly argue this season structure was designed to kill more elk yeah yeah just to get them off the private and give those breaks right well yeah and that and that's a whole conversation in of itself but i mean certainly those longer breaks between the season the elk you know they they uh go back to do not under pressure for that period and they get a little bit

more uh you know vulnerable um and i and i truly believe that that actually it happens you know you can see it those first couple days of each of the seasons you know tend to be the busiest and the most uh the most elk get killed um because they let their guard down a little bit but yeah the the season structure is intended to to increase elk harvest um and whether that was completely intentional across the board uh when the decision was made it may not have been but that is certainly one of the end products of it well we appreciate you guys being on the podcast the one the one thing i i kind of like i mean the positive side of all of this and i think cody you talked a lot about this brand and you as well you know the positive side adam and i talked to hundreds of guys as well as you you guys do too

and and i've had a lot of positive um you know there's a lot of guys out there willing to complain a little bit but what we're finding is they'll never leave colorado they'll never leave it and we have guys especially you know a lot of guys in the gunnison that uh between them their their kids you know wife whatever friends family they they won't leave the gunnison and so that and and and good bad or in between there's a lot of you know average years less than average years there's a few good years that speaks volumes in how well you guys are managing the gunnison basin i think there's a lot of positive there um you know cody you talked about you know working with brandon and and the overall objective of you know maximizing tags but maintaining quality and and the fine lines you know within that and and how that looks and and is perceived and and whatnot and just what a what a

great job you guys are doing i just i gotta hand it to you it's it's it's it's a destination for a reason and it's not like you said it's it's very deliberate and uh and here it is and it and it's awesome and and while there's maybe not every decision's perfect and and there's some decisions i'm sure you'd say well if i could do that again you know i'd do something different um of course that's every everybody's in that boat to a degree but what a great job i mean i've had even guys from this last year um you know tell me i didn't see a great buck but uh you know i've discovered gunnison and and and they love it so so anyway and not that gunnison's i mean i've hunted a lot of different units and i keep learning new country new new country for me and uh you know the entire state we'll be hunting colorado till we die brownson well now we're we're firm believers in just being in colorado

and collectively you know the genetics the habitat are well and if you want to get real specific the record books i mean they they colorado owns it in terms of uh you know what is capable producing and being all those factory yeah deer factory great genetics and you guys are under intense scrutiny just because of where you're at brandon maybe more so because you were a agency hat um but overall yeah we appreciate your time your passion your commitment your you know we've talked to you over the years brandon you know for about 15 20 you know over the up and down of you know the what we've talked about today and i always have a great perspective and a lot of longevity there you know from college and not even an employee to now being an employee there for nearly 20 years so um and cody just your experience there as a as a passionate sportsman and and guide outfitter

you know shed hunter all of the above um we appreciate you allowing us to tap into both your knowledge today and just really break down gunnison and a place that i think hopefully a lot of people learn a little bit more about and what goes into and the dynamics of and the current status of deer there so appreciate it uh yeah thank you guys for the air time uh you know i know i'm happy to talk about any issues that come up with you down the road and i look forward to that and um you know appreciate cody's willingness he kind of orchestrated this whole event so thanks for that and um yeah good luck in the draw this this spring sounds good well we'll do it again sometime we'll see how this year goes and uh but yeah we'll be back in touch again i'm sure sure again and wish you guys all luck as well just

keep in mind we want to draw often we want to use all the technology and we want to kill giants make it happen we appreciate we appreciate you guys have a good have a good weekend thanks a lot yeah thanks guys appreciate it at epic outdoors we help you reach your hunting dreams whether it's helping you to develop a long-term application strategy or finding the perfect outfitter for your next hunt as a member of epic outdoors you'll also receive the epic outdoors magazine and have access to the best hunting consultants in the industry online tools and more to join epic outdoors visit epicoutdoors.com or call 435-263-0777

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