Hunter Success Statistics

[CurlyTail]

Here are some stats from the Colorado 2014 harvest data

19% - All manners of take, cow tag and bull tags

Manner of take
21% Rifle 12,614 Bulls(16%) and 14,081 cows(22%)
19% Muzzleloader 1,359 Bulls and 833 cows
14% Archery 4,547 Bulls and 1609 cows

Rifle Season
23% 1st season
16% 2nd season
15% 3rd season
19% 4th season

41% Private land only hunts

These statistics are pretty daunting. We all know a number of guys who harvest an elk every year. I think if you factor in the guys that are regularly successful, the success rate is really, really low! My guess is that 5-10% of hunters get an Elk almost every year. There are probably 75% or so that will never ever get an elk no matter how many years they hunt. These are the social hunters and tag-alongs. That leaves 10-15% that will have intermittent success, that may improve as they gain experience.

What observations do you draw from these stats? What do you think it takes to be one of those guys that gets an elk almost every year? Do you have some stats of interest to share?

[Lefty]

Interesting stats

I am surprised how high the kill rate is per hunter.
Sunday was an Idaho bull elk opener in the unit I currently am hunting for moose. I was done spotting some high country . 30 minutes after sunrise I met the first pick up of rifle hunters,.. then three more trucks of hunters and couple ATV hunter,.. They all missed the first hour,.. and the elk that kept me glassing the area as long as I did I watched feed into the timber.,..I road hunt( ever load a bull moose alone) I never once saw a parked truck where hunters walked off to hunt or glass

And every camp was empty by late afternoon

[Elkduds]

2 thoughts from someone who spends WAY more time w these statistics than I should. First, be wary of statistics, they are no better than the methods used to gather them. CPW gets their data from voluntary survey of a "REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE" of hunters. Meaning not every hunter is surveyed, and nobody checks the honesty of the responses. Success rate statistics are @ best a general guideline. Second, since CPW maintains all these statistics, I'm going to use them in hunt planning. If 2nd season in a unit is better than 3rd the majority of years, I'll tend in that direction, for instance.

[WapitiTalk1]

Wow, that's a lot of wapiti that took nose dives in the Centennial state last year . Question: does everyone who plans a hunt only consider the high percentage harvest statistical GMUs in any given state as their primary choices? Just curious. It's something that I haven't really paid much attention to personally, not saying it's a bad thing to research harvest statistics, just something I haven't done much of.

[Indian Summer]

Here's something to think about when wondering why some guys do most of the killing. I hunted for many years in a camp with about 3 other guys. One of them is my brother. He had been killing a bull about every third year. Another guy had yet to kill his first. And another never sees elk. He has gone 20 years without killing an elk. Meanwhile I was punching my tag every single year. So... same camp, same area, and talking to guys at night who were on to elk.

The guy who never sees anything is about 60 years old. But... he doesn't really care if he kills an elk. He loves camp life with the boys. He wanders out of the tent around 10 or so and never gets very far. We used to find good spots to sit him but he wouldn't stay there very long. I think there is a big % of guys and gals who don't actually hunt much if at all. They are there to enjoy the mountains which is fine. That's half the fun of it for all of us. But they are in the statistics.

Last year the one guy killed his first bull after missing a couple opportunities. He's a busy guy with two really young kids. He lives in Missoula but really only gets about a week of hunting in every year. Two days here and there. he is learning a new area since he relocated to my neck of the woods too. So the reason he isn't consistent is time. Not only doesn't he have time on a yearly basis to get it done but it also makes his learning curve slow. There are thousands of people who buy licenses but barely get to hunt for various reasons. They are also in the statistics.

When you think about the whitetail success rates you are talking about hunters who get to hunt at home for months. With elk the non residents only get to hunt a week, 5 to 10 days and that's it. If you had just one week to kill a buck at home could you do it?

Who is killing a good number of elk? The residents because they have the time to hunt and know the area. Also the non resident hunters who have been at it for enough years to know their area and have the desire to hunt really hard. A non res hunter who has found a good spot and is killing elk will probably keep killing them.

Everything else is luck in my book. If a guy or a group of guys go on their first hunt and kill elk it has a lot to do with luck. That and hard work but obviously not their experience. Elk aren't deer. There are miles of country that hold little game. So if hunters don't care about killing game, don't have enough time, or don't have any experience, the odds will always be what they are because you don't stumble on elk and kill them like you can deer and other stuff.

[CurlyTail]

Elkduds - I agree the statistics are marginal at best. I completed the survey this year, and was amazed that in order to participate, I had to enter my 10 digit CID number. Like I carry this around with me or have it memorized. Took me almost 2 weeks to stumble upon this number and do the survey. I am sure most just say the heck with it. I bet the participation rate is quite low - I wonder why?

I do not look at the hunter stats for individual GMU's. The unit I hunt has the most dismal stats you can imagine. Yet every year I have an amazing elk hunting experience. I have not hunted a lot of different areas so I find the thought of moving to a new area both enticing and intimidating. I would hate to waste a season choosing the wrong spot.

I was surprised that muzzleloader success was 19% and rifle was 21% - not much difference.

I think that the guys who fill their tag regularly have found a decent spot, are willing to put in their time and effort, and have some natural hunting talent and skills. Not all guys do. I have a cousin who went Turkey hunting 8 years in a row without scoring. I figured this Turkey hunting must be tough. I got a Turkey on the 2nd day of my first year - even though I was pretty green. Some guys are just "gamy" - they are observant, are able to read current conditions, and make reasonable strategic decisions that eventually lead to success in the field. One thing that all successful hunters must possess is desire - you have to really want that prize, you have to attach a great value to your goal, you have to have single minded determination to succeed - or you cannot make yourself do the things that need to be done to have success. Like getting out of bed at 4am when you are tired, like hiking out in the pitch dark at the end of a day, like hunting in the rain or snow, like risking encounters with bears. Not everyone is wiling to do that.

[elkstalker]

I look at stats, but usually don't pay too much attention to the % harvest stat. In Idaho they also look at how large a buck/bull was, for deer there is a 4 pt. or better and 5 pt or better, and for elk it has a 6 pt. or better category. I don't use any of these stats exclusively, but when researching on areas I have never hunted before, they can be helpful to use (in a general sense). For example, if one area has a 40% 4 pt. or better rate, and another area only has a 20% 4 pt rate, I may look to the area with the higher rate. Other factors mean a lot more to me however, like how many hunters use the area? How remote is it? What elevation, topography, and type of hunting is it (hunting deer @ timberline? desert hunt? elk hunting in all timber?).

[njdoxie]

I'm a nonresident CO hunter, I chose a unit as that's where my brothers lives, nevermind the stats, I look at the stats out of curiosity, but I've been hunting the same unit for years, no way am I starting over, no matter what the stats say, I have a shooting opportunity once or twice a year, sometimes I passed up shots if I didn't have a packer on speed dial or I was trophy hunting.....now I never pass a legal bull, I always have a packer ready

[kevin_t]

Does that include guided hunters ? If it does, that would mean the success rate is low for the self guided person. From what I have seen, my guess is that would be about right. First season, one area I know of had 30 hunters and not one Elk seen even.

FWIW, more time in the field at prime time equals more success and more time spent where the elk are equals more success. A lot of people don't go far enough, start early enough, or stay late enough. That is ok, and it's ok if you value the experience more than the harvest as well and you are happy with it. Sometimes, you even know where the elk are and just don't want to go get them. I know of a few areas, that WILL HAVE ELK but I have no intention of packing one out from there. This year, I tried to get them before they got into one of those areas .. and it was a wild / fun / intense hour ..but the elk still got in there unscathed.

My guess, from the people I have hunted with is that about 50 percent have success, if they spend at least 4 - 5 days in prime habitat at , or close to prime times. Sometimes you can spend 7 days in a prime area, see elk everyday and never get a good shot, sometimes you get a good shot opportunity on the first, and sometimes there is some luck (like random close to the road elk). My guess is random close to the road elk, are more like 5 % or less success rate.

[saddlesore]

I attend about every CPW meeting here when it is held in Colorado Springs. The last time I noticed the stats, Archery success was WAY below 14%. The cow kill is only what pushes those statistics up. The OTC bull tags is what drags them down.

I have never considers statistics when choosing a hunt area, but then again, I have only hunted 3-4 units max in almost 40 years. My memory isn't all that good, but in at least the last twenty years I have only gone one year when I didn't kill an elk and that was when my mule decided she wanted to see an area I didn't and we had big wreck with some broken ribs. Mine not hers.

I have a hunting pard that has not killed an elk in quite a few years, another that hasn't killed one in 3-4 years. I hunt the same area, and kill one every year. Go figure. Some years when I am able to get two tags ,I kill two .

So I am batting close to99% and my hunting pards are not even at 50%. I don't hunt afternoons and consider that first 30 minutes into legal shooting hours as time time. Although I have killed elk later , I am where I want to hunt before fist light.
Funny thing about it, I don't need to kill another elk in my life time but the darn things keep walking out in front of my gun and I am not trying all that hard.

[Stick]

We have seven guys in our camp. We have hunted together for 10 years all but my buddies 18 year old who hunts with us now. I find it interesting that our camp mirrors others some what. We have one guy that loves to go but doesn't have a care wether he kills or not. So he doesn't ever kill one. The young guy is just getting start but looks like he's gonna be pretty good. A good caller! One fellow is a go getter but HIGHLY excitable. We get lots of laughs out of him. Like he told me one day.

I wasn't even shook up I don't know why I shot that arrow into the ground!

That brings us down to the last four. One of them is bite with the bad luck bug but even with that we have averaged around 80% on bull kills in the last 10 years.

I have brought this up before but I think woodsman-ship could be one of the most overlooked attributes that contributes to consistent elk kills. If it was just being a hunter then some of the guys that never kill an elk wouldn't be able to consistently kill good deer. That's just IMO!