Despite the overwhelming notion that Colorado’s big-game harvest lagged considerably behind expectations, don’t expect any extensive postseason hunts to make up the difference.
“Considering all the complaints about hunters not finding elk,” I don’t think so,” said Rick Kahn, state big-game manager with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. “Whether the animals actually were there or not, we’re not making decisions until we complete our aerial surveys.”
The agency typically counts deer in December, elk in January to determine definitive posthunt populations — too late to take any widespread action. Kahn noted that DOW already has established a number of late-season license allotments to deal with localized problems involving game damage or associated issues.
“We haven’t authorized any widespread late seasons in years. I can’t see us doing it now,” Kahn said.
Montrose workshop.
The Colorado Wildlife Commission will receive updates on a chronic wasting disease study on Table Mesa near Boulder, along with an Uncompahgre Plateau mountain line project at its workshop Thursday in Montrose. The body also will hear further staff testimony on the continuing five-year review of the Big Game Season Structure. The meeting at Holiday Inn Express, 1391 S. Townsend St., begins at 8:30 a.m. and is scheduled to adjourn at 3:10 p.m.
Public access ruling.
In an extension of what has been a series of court decisions upholding public access to fishing streams, the Montana Supreme Court held recently that Mitchell Slough, a 16-mile-long tributary of the Bitterroot River near Missoula, is open to public fishing.
A consortium of two dozen wealthy landowners — rock star Huey Lewis and brokerage czar Charles Schwab among them — had sought to fence the slough — actually a sizable stream — from the public. The landowners claimed irrigation diversions had transformed the slough into a ditch that no longer flowed naturally.
The court disagreed, continuing its support of a 1980 Montana law granting stream access up to a high-water mark. Anglers first must reach the stream via a public access point. They may not walk on private land above the mark without permission.
