Yesterday I received a reminder notice from the Utah DWR on applying for antlerless permits.  It seems too early in the year to be thinking about the Fall hunting, but by knowing ahead of time whether you have a tag or not allows you to make your plans and do some scouting etc.  AND if you are a working person, you have time to convince the boss that you need some time off.

Looking over the doe deer permits, it looks like there are a few locally, but they all fall into private property and for some reason they changed one of the boundaries to exclude a nice little walk in access area that I like to go to.  I have friends who also like to go into that area, but that is out for this year.  So, if you are inclined to put in for the doe tags for the Bear River Bottoms area, please make sure you have access to the private property before you apply.

So, with doe tags out of the question for me, I looked into the cow elk tags.  Now, elk meat is wonderful eating, to say the least, but bagging an elk is difficult for me, mostly because I don’t know elk.  The only one I have ever shot was sort of by accident.  But they are allowing quite a few cow elk tags for this year, at least locally, and they also allow you to fill that tag if you are hunting an earlier season in the same area as your tag.  So, during the muzzy deer season, I could shoot my cow elk if the opportunity came up, as long as I used my muzz rifle to do it, and I was hunting in the same area as my cow elk tag called for.  In my case, the muzz hunt area and the cow elk area cover mostly the same area.

I asked the boss, Sherry, about it and she gave me a thumbs up on applying.  So, that will be my plan…I’ll put in for the earlier of the two hunts being held in that area, which also has the most tags available.  Should I draw, my attention would be mostly on bagging the cow elk rather than hunting mostly for deer.  I have a couple of spots in mind for hunting the elk as they are water holes with lots of elk tracks around them.  Early morning and late evenings are the most likely times for an elk to come wandering into those spots.  But, there are also a lot of deer that frequent those same watering holes.  Sounds like a plan doesn’t it?  The hardest part will be getting a tag.

For some of my hunting buddies, you might be interested in knowing that there are also quite a few doe antelope permits for that same hunting area!  Have you ever wanted to shoot one of those speed goats while hunting deer?  We stop very often when we see them and it gets under some of your skin to be wasting time when you know they aren’t deer that you are seeing!

Bears Butt

May 25, 2013