Colorado 2007 Mule Deer Hunt Forecast
According to Rick Kahn, Colorado’s Big Game Manager, 2007 is going to be a good year for killing a large Mule Deer Buck. He is estimating a deer population of over 600,000 in 55 separate herds. I think he must be counting whitetails as well as mule deer, since he says there are 70,000 more deer than ten years ago.
Kahn estimates that the buck/doe ratio is 31/100. He says that hunter success for 2006 was 46% and that 33,885 bucks were harvested. The number of hunters has dropped by two thirds since the early 1990’s The number of deer hunters went from 250,000 in 1993 to 160,000 in 1997 to 90,000 from 1999 forward.
Kahn says the DOW is having a hard time recruiting doe hunters ( and that is good – I hope no one is killing does ), and that there are still 15,000 unfilled doe tags available.
Kahn cannot figure out why Mule Deer Hunters are after trophy racks instead of just venison. He doesn’t realize that the scarcity created by the DOW causes trophy Mule Deer to be in much higher demand, relatively speaking.
So, if you are fortunate enough to have drawn a Mule Deer tag in Colorado, get out there and see for yourself.
I agree, this is a great year for taking a trophy Mule Deer, I had a tag for the first season rifle deer and shot a 187 6/8 ” buck by 8:30 AM on opening morning. The area I hunt is not very large, but at least 3 better bucks had been spotted during the previous Archery Season. With the Superior antler growth this last year it was hard not to look for big bone, when out in the field. The 6×7 Non-Typical buck I shot is full of character. When there are big bucks behind every tree, it is hard not to try to focus on them. This is by far the largest mulie, or deer of any kind I have ever filled my tag with, however i will not go with an unfilled tag if the opportunity presents itself to fill with a small buck as I usually shoot the first “dink” that presents himself.