Look Hunters… you slaughter the largest and healthiest 24,543 elk, ab 68,768 deer in 1 season in Idaho… but blame the herds are being decimated by Wolves… Sorry but your FULL of CACA!!
Hunters that come onto our page and attempt to tell us that herds are being slaughtered by wolves…. really truly need to get an education!! So we will provide it for you!!!
Hunters had excellent success last year and deer and elk populations remain strong…
Idaho’s fall hunting season is likely to be outstanding. Coming on the heels of an all-time record white-tailed deer harvest in 2015 and the highest harvests in more than a decade for mule deer and elk, hunting this fall should be similar last year.
Let’s take a quick look at the 2015 hunt. Deer hunters had a 43-percent success rate in general season hunts and a 61 percent success rate in controlled hunts. They took 68,768 deer, which included a record 30,568 whitetails that topped the previous record of 29,800 whitetails set in 1999. It was also the largest deer harvest since 1991, and 36 percent above the 10-year average harvest.
Elk hunters weren’t far behind. They harvested 24,543 elk in 2015, which easily topped the 2014 harvest of 20,700 which was considered a pretty good year. It was also 35 percent above the 10-year average, and the largest elk harvest since 1996. General-season elk hunters had a 22 percent success rate, and hunters with controlled tags more than doubled that with 46 percent success. Combined, the average success rate was 27 percent for elk hunting.
With a little luck, elk hunters this year could top 25,000 elk during fall hunts,which has only happened three times in the last 40 years.
And that new whitetail record may be short-lived. The 2016 harvest could “easily match” last year’s, according to Fish and Game’s big game manager Jon Rachael. With whitetail hunting growing in popularity in Idaho and whitetail populations strong, this year could break another record.
Mule deer hunters won’t get left out of the bounty. Herds are healthy and growing throughout much of the state and should provide an above-average harvest. With a little help from the weather in fall, it could also be an exceptional year for mule deer hunting.
Winter survival
A variety of factors affect the big game harvest. Winter survival – particularly fawns and calves – is an indicator of the upcoming hunting season, as well as summer forage, fall weather that affects hunting conditions and predation.
A harsh winter can severely impact big game herds. Deer are most vulnerable, especially fawns, and last year’s fawns become this year’s young bucks that make up a large portion of the fall harvest.
In most parts of the state, Idaho had a normal winter, but snow came earlier than in recent years, and there was a cold snap in late December and early January that brought sub-zero temperatures to parts of the state. That likely to contributed to lower winter survival than the previous two winters, which were unusually mild.
Fish and Game captures and puts radio collars on mule deer fawns each winter, then tracks how many survive through mid spring. Statewide survival of radio-collared fawns was 64 percent, which is down from a record-high 83-percent survival in the 2014-15 winter, and 78 percent the prior winter.
However, last winter’s fawn survival still tracked above the 10-year average of 58 percent.
In addition to fawns, F&G also radio collared 472 adult does, tracked them throughout winter and early spring, and 93 percent of them survived, compared with 95 percent the previous two winters.
Elk
Despite a record whitetail season, improved elk hunting in Idaho may be the biggest news.
Elk hunting fell on hard times from 2008 through 2013 when annual harvests ranged between 15,155 and 17,470 elk, which were the lowest numbers since the mid 1980s . But elk hunting came roaring back in 2014 when the harvest topped 20,000 for the first time in seven years, and 2015 easily topped that with 24,543 elk taken.
Idaho’s elk harvest could top 25,000 this year, which has only happened three times in the last 40 years.
Source: Idaho hunters in for another great big-game season | Idaho Fish and Game