Colorado Area 61 Elk
 

Afters 21 years of applying for preference points in hopes of drawing area 201 my brother (from PA) and I (CO resident) officially are giving up due to the infamous "point creep". We are now going to try to draw a muzzle-loading tag in area 61. I just joined the Hunting Net site and any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

If you have 21 points, you're foolish to dump them on a lesser unit. Heck, I'm a CO resident with 20 points and I can't draw a unit 2 tag for the early season. But I'm sure not tossing them away for a lesser hunt.

But, to each his own.

Yeah I know - really torn as to what to do. I'm 60 years years old, 61 next hunting season, and in great shape but things can change quickly (9 year cancer survivor). I want a 300+ class bull before the good Lord calls me to the promised land if you know what I mean.

Might want to check into the unit 10 X code hunts. think they have 2 of them. What the x code hunts do is get you on private ranches that have agreed to allow public hunters. These ranches would be ones that don't quite make the cut for the Ranching For Wildlife Program (which as a non-resident you're not eligible for) but still want to allow public hunting in a controlled manner.

If you draw the x code tag (not sure what preference points are required) you are given a list of participating ranches. It is then up to you to contact the ranches, decide which is best for you and make the arrangements for the hunt in the appropriate season.

If I was you, this is exactly what I would do.

I'm actually a Colorado resident. It's my brother who's a non-resident from PA. This has complicated things since we go in together as a group and this push's us to the higher preference points required. We did apply for area 10 1st rifle last season but I'll need to look in to the X hunts. Thanks again .

Actually they are Y code hunts not X code. I wasn't thinking straight when I wrote that. Look for unit 10 Y code hunts.

Are they like ranching for wildlife in that only residents can draw them?

I guess I always thought that was a youth hunt.

Nope. They are issued in the drawing like everything else. If you have the points then you can draw. According to the DOW preference point list the hunt for EE010Y2R takes 16 resident points and 20 non-resident points. The one for EE001Y2R takes 9 resident points and 18 non-resident points. Mind you, this was for last year and you would be advised to add a point to each of them.

That list for points can be misleading sometimes. All it means is some hunters got the tag for that many points. Actually, it only takes one hunter to get it. What it doesn't tell you is 50 hunters failed to get the tag with that many points.

It's always better to talk to a hunt planner to see the exact figures.