In my area outside Craig, Colorado it appeared the recession took quite a toll on the number of elk hunters... probably only about 50% as many hunters as usual in the camps along the road.

For the hard core ones, the ones that push back in a decent distance the count seemed to be the same. The elk definitely got the hell shot out of them the opening morning... sounded like a war zone.

Looks like the recession took a toll here too, early November and not much for elk hunting posts.

Either that, or this site kinda went downhill since I saw it last.

Probably got that right. In the area I hunted the permits went from 50 last year to 30 this year

I don't go til Jan. but I make it a point to not go where I see many other hunters.

If the number of hunters was down this season, it must have been other than where I hunted. I archery hunt and have hunted the same area for several years now, and come black powder season, there were more guys in the area than I can ever remember. Even archery hunters were up it seemed.

I run my own hunting business and trust me it is way down form what we normally do.

???

Thus what?

There seemed to be fewer camps set up along roads in Unit 75 this year than I remember when I went on my first elk hunt in 2006. I went hunting first rifle season and took my first elk, a 4x3 bull, probably weighed about 450 LBS alive, just guessing. .30-06, 180 grain core-lokt bullets.

I saw the something similar while out hunting here in Utah this year but I didn't necessarily see less hunters everywhere, I saw hunters staying closer to home. It seemed that hunting grounds close to civilization had many more hunters than usual and the the further out you got the number of people dropped off considerably. In Utah it seems my theory is supported in part by the fact that nearly all tags sold out, most of them earlier this year compared to last year.

I think hunters just found ways to do it cheaper although I'm sure there were some that skipped the hunts altogether.

Nothing better than watch a bear taking a shiat to put things back in perspective...