2022 AZ ELK Draw

I disagree. All of our junior hunts are lottery tags. Many juniors do not get drawn. There isn't an otc hunt tag here. The only leftover tags are for javelina or turkey which are a second lottery. Anything else is rare to apply for leftovers.

We used to have hundreds of left over coues tags after the draw, by hundreds I mean 400 or more, but that changed two years ago.

Last year many of us did not get drawn for deer, and there were not even 150 left over tags. Was our first year ever without a deer tag. Many hunters I know did not to hunt deer last year.

I think there are more tags given to non-resident hunters than to residents, at least it seems like that lately. It's all about the $$$.
 
Actually that's not true. Most non-western states across America have been seeing hunter numbers dropping for decades. This means the most avid hunters apply even more pressure on the western states. Especially those states that still have some over the counter tags. Sounds just like inflation (we call point creep). Too many hunters chasing too few tag opportunities. The biggest problem is the average age of all hunters is increasing dramatically year to year. Plus side if you're young? In under 20 years there should be a lot of tags available as we older hunters move on to hunt in a different area!


I grew up in PA. Whitetail hunting was as close as you could get to a national holiday. Generations hunting together. Still that way in most of that state which has people constantly complaining about the orange army. I have heard that same sentiment for 50+ years though.

These articles from 2019 don't depict what's happening 4 years later, here anyways. Hunting here has taken off and is growing enormously over the last 2 years ever since COVID came along. OTC leftover tags are way down. Gun owners have increased enormously over the last 2 years. The great outdoors and hunting is being discovered by many that never considered it in the past. More campers, RV owners, gun owners, bow owners are all attributing to the growth. In Az we are having MORE applications for all hunts than ever before. There were barely any leftover tags for Javelina and the only OTC tags you can get anymore are for archery deer in August, late Dec and January. It seems more and more folks are discovering the simple pleasures life offers us. Here's a screenshot of a simple search about "increased big game hunting licenses issued", all had significant increases the last 2 years.

8B7BFAC8-77A7-4D2A-ADF0-A3E20AA17A78.png
 
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These articles from 2019 don't depict what's happening 4 years later. Hunting here anyways has taken off and is growing enormously over the last 2 years ever since COVID came along. OTC leftover tags are way down. Gun owners have increased enormously over the last 2 years. The great outdoors and hunting is being discovered by many that never considered it in the past. More campers, RV owners, gun owners, bow owners are all attributing to the growth. In Az we are having MORE applications for all hunts than ever before. There were barely any leftover tags for Javelina and the only OTC tags you can get anymore are for archery deer in August, late Dec and January.
Totally true! But, that's my point. AZ, CO, NV, etc are all considered western hunts. Hunters from other states are now very interested in elk and deer hunting in the western states. Nonresident applications continue to increase year over year while resident applications have stayed relatively flat.

Yes, you and I are seeing fewer opportunities to hunt in our resident states. There are MORE hunters coming to our states. But, that doesn't relate to the actual decline in hunters across the country in general. With our states ALSO issuing fewer tags in each of the last few years it does "feel like" there must be more hunters everywhere. But that's just not the case. At least not across the entire country.

I completely agree with you too regarding the increased usage of the outdoors everywhere. There is an ATV/OHV trailhead 1.5 miles north of my front gate leading to over 150 miles of trails. I watch $250k and up rigs make a never ending path past my front door every Friday and they reverse that on Sunday afternoon. However, overall our hunting numbers have and are dropping NATIONALLY. Below is a 2021 article and there are many in 2022 also but I didn't feel the need to add those.


Going back to the original OP comment about wondering if the AZ draw was active and complete. AZ has issued fewer tags during each of the previous 3 years for elk and deer. You're also right that there were even more applications in each of the last 3 years. Elk 2019: 78595 vs 2020: 80642 (2021 will be even higher but isn't published yet)

I have been hunting in Colorado for 34 years (national forest at my literal back door). Hunters from the other eastern and west coast states are now more focused on the western states for big game hunting. Units in western Colorado that used to have hundreds of draw tags left over don't any more. The number of tags hasn't gone up either. Those numbers have come down. In Colorado, youth tags get the highest preference for every species. Our DOW feels this is the only way they can help jump start the overall resident hunting population which they have acknowledged on many occasions is decreasing in the state.

For example, under Colorado's new 2nd draw process for "leftover tags" youth applicants are guaranteed 100% of the leftover tags. Our state is more than willing to sacrifice adult tags believing that the adults will have no problem simply being the unpaid outfitter & guide for their new, youth hunters.

Arizona issued fewer javelina permits in 2021 than 2020. 11891 vs 11941 respectively.

Arizona hasn't listed their 2021 elk & deer permit number recap yet. For 2019 vs 2020, there were 26178 elk permits for 2019 and 24999 elk permits for 2020
 
All of our big game general season tags are Lottery draw. Only 10% of our lottery tags are reserved for out of state so the "out of state hunters" getting more tags is non issue. There may be more Non resident applications but they're not getting any more of the tags than they have before. We simply have more residents applying for tags than we have before. We simply have a very small Elk and Deer herd and the opportunity is very limited to draw a quality tag. Anyways….
 
I disagree. All of our junior hunts are lottery tags. Many juniors do not get drawn. There isn't an otc hunt tag here. The only leftover tags are for javelina or turkey which are a second lottery. Anything else is rare to apply for leftovers.
There was, at least a couple of years ago, some coues tags usually on the leftover list. There's also OTC archery deer tags in AZ. So that's not terribly accurate. Now for elk, yeah, there's no OTC options in AZ.
 
We used to have hundreds of left over coues tags after the draw, by hundreds I mean 400 or more, but that changed two years ago.

Last year many of us did not get drawn for deer, and there were not even 150 left over tags. Was our first year ever without a deer tag. Many hunters I know did not to hunt deer last year.

I think there are more tags given to non-resident hunters than to residents, at least it seems like that lately. It's all about the $$$.
I'm glad I don't live in Az. or Nv..I'd have to hunt out of state all the time. I started hunted Az. in 1987. One of my favorite states to hunt. I used to hunt 5BN archery elk often. Took 15 pts to draw last year. I'm done. I'm on a points burning mission in all states. I burned my Az.. deer pts. in 2018. Burned elk points on a rifle elk hunt this year. Now if I got burn my bighorn pts.. Oh, and those 24 lope pts. 🙄
 
Totally true! But, that's my point. AZ, CO, NV, etc are all considered western hunts. Hunters from other states are now very interested in elk and deer hunting in the western states. Nonresident applications continue to increase year over year while resident applications have stayed relatively flat.

Yes, you and I are seeing fewer opportunities to hunt in our resident states. There are MORE hunters coming to our states. But, that doesn't relate to the actual decline in hunters across the country in general. With our states ALSO issuing fewer tags in each of the last few years it does "feel like" there must be more hunters everywhere. But that's just not the case. At least not across the entire country.

I completely agree with you too regarding the increased usage of the outdoors everywhere. There is an ATV/OHV trailhead 1.5 miles north of my front gate leading to over 150 miles of trails. I watch $250k and up rigs make a never ending path past my front door every Friday and they reverse that on Sunday afternoon. However, overall our hunting numbers have and are dropping NATIONALLY. Below is a 2021 article and there are many in 2022 also but I didn't feel the need to add those.


Going back to the original OP comment about wondering if the AZ draw was active and complete. AZ has issued fewer tags during each of the previous 3 years for elk and deer. You're also right that there were even more applications in each of the last 3 years. Elk 2019: 78595 vs 2020: 80642 (2021 will be even higher but isn't published yet)

I have been hunting in Colorado for 34 years (national forest at my literal back door). Hunters from the other eastern and west coast states are now more focused on the western states for big game hunting. Units in western Colorado that used to have hundreds of draw tags left over don't any more. The number of tags hasn't gone up either. Those numbers have come down. In Colorado, youth tags get the highest preference for every species. Our DOW feels this is the only way they can help jump start the overall resident hunting population which they have acknowledged on many occasions is decreasing in the state.

For example, under Colorado's new 2nd draw process for "leftover tags" youth applicants are guaranteed 100% of the leftover tags. Our state is more than willing to sacrifice adult tags believing that the adults will have no problem simply being the unpaid outfitter & guide for their new, youth hunters.

Arizona issued fewer javelina permits in 2021 than 2020. 11891 vs 11941 respectively.

Arizona hasn't listed their 2021 elk & deer permit number recap yet. For 2019 vs 2020, there were 26178 elk permits for 2019 and 24999 elk permits for 2020
Great info
 
Proposed changes that may or may not affect archery as an OTC game tag going forward. Rule changes to Arizona are being reviewed for 2023 and on.
This may be accomplished by archery harvest reporting not to exceed 20% of all other methods of take -OR- by instituting a draw only archery tag (like units 12 and 13), as worst case in the future. There are other options listed but it's a bit wordy here.
That harvest reporting would shut down any additional time in the field for that unit/year if the 20% threshold is met. This will be tough to manage and certainly surprise hunters wanting to hunt, only to find out it's closed for the remainder of that season.
 
Proposed changes that may or may not affect archery as an OTC game tag going forward. Rule changes to Arizona are being reviewed for 2023 and on.
This may be accomplished by archery harvest reporting not to exceed 20% of all other methods of take -OR- by instituting a draw only archery tag (like units 12 and 13), as worst case in the future. There are other options listed but it's a bit wordy here.
That harvest reporting would shut down any additional time in the field for that unit/year if the 20% threshold is met. This will be tough to manage and certainly surprise hunters wanting to hunt, only to find out it's closed for the remainder of that season.

Hopefully they move towards mandatory harvest reporting so some of these units can be open for the different seasons. It sucks having your favorite unit closed during your favorite time to hunt with a bow. But I do realize it's all a band-aid and the ultimate solution will probably be a draw
 
Hopefully they move towards mandatory harvest reporting so some of these units can be open for the different seasons. It sucks having your favorite unit closed during your favorite time to hunt with a bow. But I do realize it's all a band-aid and the ultimate solution will probably be a draw

I'm still dumbfounded mandatory reporting isn't required. Makes no sense.
 

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