AZ GMU 29 Coues deer closes Jan 15, Why?

[Speedy]

Is it a trophy unit or something?  Are rifle tags more limited too?  I've been interested in hunting Coues there but that doesn't give me much time to do so.

[StickFlicker]

[StickFlicker]

Arizona manages the OTC hunting opportunity so that they continue to remove portions of the season to lower the success when their hunt success objective for any given unit has been exceeded in recent years.  They actually have proposed eliminating the OTC opportunity, but a few hunters have been proposing other alternatives.  Stay tuned to see how this shakes out in the coming year.  They are also looking at capping NRs to 10% as they currently do for the draw hunts.  It is not clear whether this will be based on OTC permits sold or success on the hunts.  AZ G&F paid hunting TV shows to promote these hunts to NRs in their episodes, which helped to cause these events, so there's that.

[Speedy]

That doesn't make sense as rifle tags are limited so they control the overall harvest %.  Add more rifle tags and the % harvested with archery goes down. 

No doubt archery equipment has improved allowing much longer shots. This affects Coues deer hunting more than anything.  Just wait till you get crossbows, or those dang airbows.  I'd rather see equipment restrictions over tag numbers but that's not perfect either.  Why not give traditional archers a longer season, we don't hurt anything

The real solution is what Matt Rinella said, stop recruiting new hunters. The US simply doesn’t have the habitat needed to support the wildlife and hunters it used to.

[JimmyHat]

Is 29 one of the units no longer otc?

[654321]

11 hours ago, JimmyHat said:

Is 29 one of the units no longer otc?

29 is OTC and below is the deer allowed for each species.

Aug 19 - Sep 8, 2022 and Dec 9, 2022 - Jan 31, 2023 (4,34,128,140) 29   Antlered mule deer 10

Aug 19 - Sep 8, 2022 and Dec 9, 2022 - Jan 31, 2023 (4,34,128,140) 29   Antlered whitetail deer 75

[cw4192]

Azgfd lowering whitetail tags and hunt times to turn certain units into trophy hunts for out of stater’s $$.  Just like they did for Elk.  That’s why!!!