For Colorado outdoorsmen with a yen for turkey, geese and quail, opportunity is about to knock.
The Colorado Division of Wildlife is in hot pursuit of a plan to expand the walk-in program that proved so successful for pheasants since its inception in 2001.
If all the pieces of a puzzle linked to cost and quality fall into place, hunters in western Colorado can expect to find several public goose-hunting properties at their disposal when the autumn season begins.
A similar chance for turkey on the Western Slope is planned for the spring of 2007.
“We’re well down the path conceptually and from the standpoint of the budget to expand our walk-in program,” said Tom Remington, DOW’s terrestrial wildlife manager.
How far the plan flies in its early phases depends on the availability of desirable and affordable property.
“This assumes we can find willing landowners with an acceptable price structure,” Remington said.
That money thing is the reason DOW will limit its expansion to western Colorado, at least for the time being.
“We didn’t think we could compete dollar-wise for geese and spring turkey in eastern Colorado,” Remington said.
DOW pays roughly $1 per acre for the roughly 150,000 acres it leases for pheasants each year. Private clubs and outfitters up the ante considerably for more intensified activities such as goose and turkey hunting.
Remington also expressed interest in adding a scaled quail component on 25,000 acres of rangeland in southeast Colorado, depending upon habitat conditions and nesting success.
“If the drought doesn’t break, we may not have much to offer,” he said.
Under the current plan bouncing around wildlife circles, these latest additions would be available with the same $20 stamp required for pheasant. For the same price, a peripatetic wing shooter might pursue pheasant, quail, geese and spring turkey under the walk-in concept. In the new arrangement, the stamp would be based on the calendar year rather than a specific season.
Remington and his fellow strategists had considered the possibility of adding fall turkey to the menu, but concluded ample opportunity already existed on public land.
They also rejected the notion of some form of reservation system for goose property because they were concerned that administrative expenses would push the program beyond the point of economic balance.
“We already have the same sort of arrangement for duck hunting on state property, and it works its way out somehow,” he said of the first-come protocol that applies to most public lands.
Remington also noted the Colorado program would be a national first for geese and turkey.
“In a way, this is a payback for the license fee increase,” he said. “It gives us an opportunity to do something in return. If this works, we’ll try to expand to other species. We’ll try to start slowly and do it well.”
This wild-fowl initiative comes at a time when a Loveland big game enthusiast, Steve Hilde, has launched a similar push for a walk-in program for deer and elk. Detailed in this column last week, Hilde’s proposal is aimed at gaining access to private land through direct payments to landowners.
In its various forms, present and future, the Division of Wildlife’s walk-in program can be viewed as a hedge against the increasing commercialization of Colorado’s wildlife. Rarely these days can anyone enjoy quality hunting or fishing on a handshake. The agency is wise to get into the pay-for-play game as quickly, and inexpensively, as it can.
