Have fun, see wild elk
Elk festival happens Dec. 8
Hyrum -- Another chance to ride a horse-drawn sleigh or wagon through the middle of hundreds of wild elk is almost here.
To celebrate the start of another elk-viewing season, staff at the Hardware Ranch Wildlife Management Area will hold the ranch’s annual Elk Festival on Dec. 8. Activities run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
On Nov. 27, Hardware Ranch WMA Manager Brad Hunt said between 250 and 325 elk were on the hills surrounding the meadow through which the sleighs or wagons are pulled.
“They’re bugling and talking a lot in the evenings,” Hunt said. “It’s cold, so the elk will likely stick around and not head back to the high country. More elk should join them soon.”
Except for a fee to ride through the elk herd ($5 for those 9 years of age or older, or $3 for those 4 to 8 years old), all of the festival activities are free.
You can reach Hardware Ranch by traveling 16 miles east of Hyrum on state Route 101.
Activities
In addition to riding a sleigh or wagon through the middle of the elk herd, several free activities will be held on Dec. 8. For example, children can learn how to make Christmas ornaments using sagebrush, bitterbrush and other plants found at the WMA. “Did you know pinecones make great bird feeders?” Hunt says. “They do, and we’ll show you how to make one.”
You can also learn how to call elk and then demonstrate your newly learned skills at an amateur elk-calling contest held during the last hour of the festival.
Hunt encourages you to bring some binoculars and to dress for all types of weather. “We’ll host the event,” he says, “even if it snows.”
On your way to the ranch, you can enjoy the scenic drive up Blacksmith Fork Canyon. Food is not available at the ranch, but you’re welcome to bring a picnic lunch and eat in the lunch area in the auxiliary building at the WMA.
Sleigh rides start Dec. 7
If you’re itching to take a ride sooner than Dec. 8, visit the ranch on Dec. 7. That’s the first day the visitor center will be open and rides through the elk herd will be offered.
From Dec. 7 through Feb. 10, the ranch’s visitor center will be open, and sleigh or wagon rides will be offered, during the following days and times:
Day Time
Friday noon to 4:30 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
If you’d like to spend less time in line for a sleigh ride, visit the ranch on a Sunday. “Fewer people visit the ranch on Sundays,” Hunt says, “so you can get on a sleigh faster.”
If you want to go on a sleigh ride or a wagon ride, you must buy your ticket at the visitor center by 4:30 p.m.
On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the sleigh rides will not be running, and the visitor center will not be open. You can still bring your binoculars and view the elk from a distance, though.
For more information, including holiday hours, visit www.hardwareranch.com. You can also call the ranch at 435-753-6206 or email Hunt at bradhunt@utah.gov.
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Dealing with urban deer
Wildlife Board also approves nonresident fishing license change at Flaming Gorge
Salt Lake City -- More chances to hunt bison and pronghorn will be available in Utah in 2019. New archery hunts—that should help reduce the number of deer coming into cities and towns in Utah County—will also be held.
The new hunts are among several big game hunting changes the Utah Wildlife Board approved for 2019. The board—a panel of seven citizens appointed by the governor—approved the changes at a Nov. 29 meeting in Salt Lake City.
All of the rules the board approved will be available in the 2019 Utah Big Game Application Guidebook. The free guidebook should be available at www.wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks by the end of December.
Board members also passed several other changes at the meeting, including a fishing change that will affect nonresidents who want to fish both the Utah and Wyoming sides of Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
More chances to hunt
Big game animals are doing well in Utah. And, in certain pockets of the state, they’re doing extremely well. To help manage the populations, and give hunters more chances to hunt, members of the board approved several new hunts for 2019. Here’s a sample:
· New bison hunts on the Henry Mountains in southeastern Utah and the Book Cliffs in eastern Utah
· New muzzleloader and archery pronghorn hunts in northeastern Utah
· A Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep hunt on the Oquirrh-Stansbury unit in north-central Utah. The hunt will be the first bighorn hunt held on the unit since 2015.
· For the first time ever, once-in-a-lifetime archery bighorn sheep hunts. An archery hunt for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep will be held on the Newfoundland Mountains unit in northern Utah. Another archery hunt, this one for desert bighorns, will be held on the Zion unit in southwestern Utah.
Controlling deer in cities and towns
Deer are thriving along the Wasatch Front. And the number of people along the front is growing. In some cases, more deer and more people mean more conflicts between the two.
To try to reduce the number of deer that are making their way into cities and towns in Salt Lake and Utah counties, members of the Wildlife Board approved some new extended archery hunts. (The season dates for extended archery hunts are longer than most hunts. For example, on most of the extended archery areas, you can hunt deer from Sept. 14 – Nov. 30, 2019. You can take one buck deer or one doe deer. A total of nine extended archery deer hunts will be offered in Utah in 2019.)
“The extended archery hunts have worked,” says Covy Jones, big game coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources. “They’ve helped reduce the number of deer that make their way into cities and towns. They’re a great management tool.”
Members of the board approved four extended archery hunt changes along the west slope of the Wasatch Mountains. Three of those changes are in Utah County:
· A new extended archery hunt will be held in the mountains near Herriman in Salt Lake County.
· A new extended archery hunt will be held in areas around Utah Lake in Utah County.
· The boundary of the Wasatch Front extended archery area has been extended to American Fork Canyon in Utah County. The boundary now runs from the Weber/Davis County line all the way to American Fork Canyon.
· A new South Wasatch extended archery area has been established. The boundary for the area extends from American Fork Canyon south to Hobble Creek Canyon.
“Extending the Wasatch Front boundary to American Fork Canyon,” Jones says, “and creating two new extended archery areas in Utah County should help reduce the number of deer that are coming into urban areas in the county.”
Flaming Gorge Reservoir
In addition to the big game hunting rules, members of the board also approved a fishing change at Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Starting Jan. 1, 2019, those who are not residents of Utah or Wyoming—but want to fish both the Utah and Wyoming sides of Flaming Gorge Reservoir—must buy a nonresident fishing license from both states.
In the past, those who were not residents of either state could buy a nonresident license from one state and a reciprocal fishing permit from the other state. “We met with officials from Wyoming Game & Fish Department and came to consensus on the change,” says Craig Walker, assistant Aquatic Section chief for the DWR. “Passage by the Wildlife Board makes it official.”
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PHOTOS - 10 photos to accompany this story are available at https://udwrnewsphotos.zenfolio.com/p587333896 .
Contact: Mark Hadley, DWR Relations with the Public Specialist, 801-538-4737
Apply for a turkey hunting permit
Applications accepted until Dec. 27
Even though snow has barely touched the ground in some areas in Utah, one group of Utahns—the state’s turkey hunters—are already preparing for next spring.
Applications for spring 2019 limited-entry turkey hunting permits are being accepted at www.wildlife.utah.gov. To be included in the draw for permits, you must submit your application no later than 11 p.m. on Dec. 27.
“I think we’ll have a good turkey hunt in Utah next spring,” says Jason Robinson, upland game coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources. “The state’s turkey populations are doing really well.”
The limited-entry hunt will be held in April. The following permits are available for each of the DWRs’ five regions:
Region Number of permits
Northern 400
Central 250
Northeastern 249
Southeastern 305
Southern 1,550
Still a chance to hunt
If you don’t draw one of the 2,754 limited-entry permits, don’t pack your gun away—you can still hunt turkeys this spring.
After the limited-entry hunt is over, the general statewide turkey hunt happens in May. Permits for the general hunt are not limited in number, so you’ll have no problem getting one.
Permits for Utah’s general statewide turkey hunt go on sale Feb. 21.
Turkey guidebook
More information about Utah’s 2019 spring turkey hunting season is available in the 2018 - 2019 Utah Upland Game and Turkey Guidebook. The free guidebook is available at www.wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks. You can also get a copy at DWR offices and from hunting and fishing license agents across Utah.
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New bear hunts, three-year hunting rules
DWR proposes bear hunting rules for 2019 – 2021 seasons
More spot-and-stalk hunts—and keeping Utah’s black bear hunting rules the same for the next three seasons—are among bear hunting proposals Division of Wildlife Resources biologists will share at an upcoming series of public meetings.
Darren DeBloois, game mammals coordinator for the DWR, says the changes would help bears and hunters.
“The number of bears doesn’t fluctuate much from year to year,” he says, “so it makes sense to keep the rules consistent and not change them every year. If we leave the rules in place for three years, we’ll end up with a better, long-term picture of how the state’s bear population is responding to the hunting rules.”
Adding more spot-and-stalk hunts will give more hunters a chance to hunt bears while increasing the number of bears taken only slightly. “The success rate on spot-and-stalk hunts is similar to archery hunting for deer,” DeBloois says. “We can offer more opportunities to spot-and-stalk because the number of bears taken with spot-and-stalk is lower than other types of hunting.”
You can see all of the biologists’ black bear hunting proposals, as well as unit plans that will guide the management of moose and pronghorn in Utah, at www.wildlife.utah.gov/public_meetings.
Learn more, share your ideas
After you’ve reviewed the proposals and plans at www.wildlife.utah.gov/public_meetings, you can let your Regional Advisory Council members know your thoughts by attending your upcoming RAC meeting or by sending an email to them.
RAC chairmen will share the input they receive with members of the Utah Wildlife Board. The board will meet in Salt Lake City on Jan. 10 to approve the unit plans and rules for Utah’s black bear hunts.
Dates, times and locations for the RAC meetings are as follows (NOTE: The start time for the Southern Region meeting has been moved up to 6 p.m.):
Central Region
Dec. 4
6:30 p.m.
Springville Civic Center
110 S. Main St.
Springville
Northern Region
Dec. 5
6 p.m.
Brigham City Community Center
24 N. 300 W.
Brigham City
Southern Region
Dec. 11
6 p.m.
Cedar Middle School
2215 W. Royal Hunte Dr.
Cedar City
Southeastern Region
Dec. 12
6:30 p.m.
John Wesley Powell Museum
1765 E. Main St.
Green River
Northeastern Region
Dec. 13
6:30 p.m.
DWR Northeastern Region Office
318 N. Vernal Ave.
Vernal
Email
You can also provide your comments to your RAC via email. Email addresses for your RAC members are available at www.wildlife.utah.gov/dwr/rac-members.html.
The group each RAC member represents (sportsman, non-consumptive, etc.) is listed under each person’s email address. You should direct your email to the people on the RAC who represent your interest.
Spot-and-stalk hunts
The number of people who want to hunt bears in Utah has far outpaced the number of bear hunting permits that are available. To give more people a chance to hunt bears, DWR biologists are recommending more spot-and-stalk hunts.
So far, spot-and-stalk hunts have been held mostly on the LaSal and San Juan units in southeastern Utah. These units have the highest density of bears in the state. “Despite the high bear numbers,” DeBloois says, “only 10 to 15% of those who spot-and-stalk on the units take a bear. The success rate is similar to archery big game hunting. And those two units have a lot of bears. The success rate might be lower on units with fewer bears.”
DWR biologists recommend holding spot-and-stalk hunts on 11 units. On three of the units, an unlimited number of permits would be sold, but the hunt would end as soon as three bears are taken on each of the units. On the remaining units, a limited number of permits—a total of 205—would be offered. Based on a 10% success rate, DWR biologists estimate that less than 25 bears would be taken during the spot-and-stalk hunts.
(During spot-and-stalk hunts, you can’t pursue bears with hounds or use bait to lure bears in. Instead, you walk through the forest, hoping to spot a bear that you can stalk and take.)
Keeping hunting rules the same
Not changing the hunting rules every year would help biologists better determine the effect the rules are having on the bear population.
DeBloois says bears live for a relatively long period of time, have fairly low reproductive rates and aren’t affected much by severe changes in weather. Because the number of bears doesn’t fluctuate much, DeBloois says changing the hunting rules every year can actually be counterproductive to managing black bears effectively.
“A better way to determine how hunting rules are affecting a bear population is to leave the rules in place for a longer period of time,” he says. “Keeping the hunting rules and permit numbers consistent will provide us with a better, long-term picture of how the rules are affecting the population. That, in turn, will give us better long-term data that will help us draft the recommendations we present in 2021.”
If something out of the ordinary happens to the bear population before the three-year period is over, a couple of ‘safety valves’ are in place that allow immediate changes to be made.
“One is to meet with the Wildlife Board, explain the situation and ask the board to make some changes,” DeBloois says. “If we’re facing a critical situation, the director of the DWR has the authority to close hunts down. So, not changing the rules for three years doesn’t mean changes can’t be made if something drastic happens to the population.”
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Fishing reports - available at http://wildlife.utah.gov/hotspots .
