Slow start to elk seasons gives way to “gangbusters” third season

“Weather is certainly a factor in that”

After what Division of Parks and Wildlife (DPW) district wildlife manager Chris Parmeter characterized as an “average to slow” start to the elk hunting seasons in game Management Unit 55, which covers land from Highway 135 to the eastern boundary of Gunnison County, things are “going like gangbusters throughout the basin” as third season gets under way.

Starting in the early archery and black powder-only big game seasons, the weather was mild and elk largely kept to themselves or gathered in small groups as they prepared for the rut. And Parmeter said the status quo remained until the snow came midway through the second rifle season in the last week of October.
Then, as third season started Saturday, November 5, wind and snow had elk—and hunters—on the move, abandoning the high country for the greener grazing in the sagebrush hills in the southern part of the unit.
“Elk are down in there and available to hunters, and the cow harvest has been through the roof,” Parmeter said. “I’d imagine there are still quite a few up in the Crested Butte and Cement Creek neighborhoods.”
DPW spokesman Joe Lewandowski said, “Usually the weather is a good indicator that animals are moving. We know we do have a lot of elk in the Crested Butte area and usually hunters have success right around the statewide average, and the weather is certainly a factor in that.”
As the winter weather sets in at higher elevations, Parmeter said, the elk will start to move slowly south. Then all at once, he said, the elk will move out of the north end of the unit en masse, and practically overnight they’ll be gone. Parmeter said if he had a fourth season tag, which is valid for four days starting November 16, he would be hunting somewhere south of Jack’s Cabin.
But so far the elk harvest has been fairly evenly spread throughout the basin, helping to bring the overall herd size closer to what the Division of Parks and Wildlife says is ideal, between 3,000 and 3,500 animals. Wildlife managers won’t know how this year’s hunt will affect the elk herd until the final tally is made in March.
Controlling the elk population is about more than just having hunters in the woods, even when the reports suggest a lot of hunts are ending successfully. Lewandowski says the most successful hunts usually take place in the first rifle season, when, last year, 24 percent of nearly 900 hunters got an elk. In archery season, the success rate dropped to just 11 percent of 583 hunters in GMU 55.
Across Highway 135, in Unit 54, the herd is still considered to be too large and the DPW continued to issue over-the-counter tags for nearly every season.
Despite being surrounded by elk, local sportsman Allen Moores isn’t seeing a lot of elk meat come to Ranchers and Sportsmen Together for the Hungry (RSTH), a non-profit organization he helped start last year that puts excess or unwanted game meat on the needy tables of Gunnison County.
Moores said RSTH has gotten only two animals this year, both from the DPW, and hopes to see more now that third season hunters are seeing more success.
This year the organization is picking up the skinning fee at Berfields in Gunnison, which is handling RSTH game processing this year. Hunters who bring in a cow elk pay the entire bill, while those who bring bull elk or deer pay only half of the processing costs. Then Moores or one of the other volunteers picks up the game for distribution to food pantries in Crested Butte and Gunnison.
To donate an animal this year, call Moores at 209-8826 or email ranchersandsportsmen@hotmail.com for more information.