To feed or not to feed elk? New study tries to answer that question 🔎

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I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet. For those of you who have also made it through, a pat on the back is deserved.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

• To feed or not to feed - That is the question on the National Elk Refuge 🍽️

• Survey says - Idaho hunters want to keep hunting good and traditional 📋

• Application fees on the rise - Wyoming tables big time rate hike 🤑

• One tough moose- Man, this guy took four rounds like a champ 🏆

IT’S REALLY ANYBODY’S GUESS
NEW STUDY REVEALS THE EFFECTS OF CONTINUED FEEDING OF JACKSON HERD ELK

There’s nothing quite like beholding the elk at the storied National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. With over 5,000 elk migrating to the sacred grounds each year, it’s a great place to spot these majestic animals, despite a new study suggesting, it might not always be.

Headed up by the US Geological Service, the new study, which also included help from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, worked to project just how the Jackson Elk Herd will fare 20 years in the future by splicing in five separate, but possible, chronic wasting disease management scenarios.

With a starting point of 11,000 elk and a CWD prevalence of 1 percent (both of which are higher than current conditions), researchers outlined five possible scenarios and their projected outcomes… 

📋 Survey Says: Idaho hunters don’t like drones and thermals, but would generally accept all other tech for hunting. When it comes to fair chase standards, a new survey has revealed that Idaho hunters are in favor of a reasonable level of tech out in the field. That being said, the results show that while they tend to be in favor of mapping software and even motorized vehicle use, they remain vehemently opposed to the use of tech such as thermal and night vision devices and drones when it comes to big game hunting.

The survey, which was posted to the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s website, took in the opinion of over 2,100 resident big game hunters regarding the use of technology in their outdoor pursuits. Over 94 percent of responding hunters stated that they believed all hunters ought to exercise a personal code of conduct and behave in a way that brings no dishonor to the hunter, game animals, or the environment. While the results were generally in favor of the use of new optics, mapping technology and modern bows, roughly 76 percent of respondents stated that the use of thermal imaging optics and scopes and night-vision scopes were not in alignment with their ethics. A whopping 90 percent of respondents stated that they are against the use of both Artificial Intelligence and drones when it comes to big game hunting.

The findings will be utilized by Idaho’s Hunting and Advanced Technology (HAT) working group which has been tasked with considering changes to the state’s hunting seasons and what kind of gear and tech will be allowable while in pursuit of big game animals.

🤑 Wyoming officials toying with the idea of quadrupling hunting license fees. In a new bill released earlier this month, Wyoming lawmakers are floating the idea of some hefty license application fees. The fee hikes would affect both resident and non-resident hunters in the Cowboy State and, if approved, will be used to creep up on previous budget shortfalls and pump additional funding into wildlife management. Under the current tag allocation system in Wyoming, hunters can apply for both OTC and limited quota tags for specific hunt areas. In addition to the tag itself, WGFD attaches an application fee to each tag as it is applied for. For each tag that a hunter fails to draw for, the cost of the tag is refunded back to the applicant, but WGFD gets to keep the application fee.

Currently speaking, the application fee is $5 per for residents and $15 for nonresidents. If House Bill 2 passes, those fees are set to increase to $20 and $75, respectively. The silver lining in all of this is that under the proposed pricing structure, hunters would only have to pay one fee for all applications rather than being hit for each one as the system works now. With a big chunk (~64%) of the agency’s revenue coming from hunting and fishing licenses alone, this kind of hike is generally supported by anglers and hunters alike. When it comes to protecting and managing the animals and the land on which they live, we seldom have an issue ponying up where and when required.

🫎 Tougher-than-nails moose takes a beating before going down. Moose is most definitely one of my bucket list hunts and this is why. Watch as this guy takes four 180-grain rounds from a 300 mag.

Still questioning how his guide thought he missed, looks like good shooting from where I sit…

🏹 Getting Back To The Roots Of Hunting: Wyoming Man Tests Himself On Primitive Elk Hunt: As if hunting elk in Wyoming’s high country isn’t already tough enough, Cade Cole took it up several notches by venturing into the mountains without food or water to live off the land. His first meal, after 40 hours, was a squirrel he shot with his traditional recurve bow and roasted over a campfire that he started without matches. He pursued elk for days in late October. He was often above timberline in the mountains near Dubois, where temperatures plunged into the low 20s. Singling out a bull among a herd of dozens of elk was hard. And creeping to within recurve bow range — no more than 25 yards, was even harder.  Read the full story.

🍺 Get a Beer at Bill’s: There’s something about driving a levee road that beguiles the senses and upends the normal metaphysics of earth, river, and sky. You’re intimately aloof from the waters just below as you motor dreamily along a route that requires little in the way of focused navigation. The Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta and its hamlets with names like Locke, Courtland, and Walnut Grove is rife with such roads, a system engineered beginning in the 1850s as part of the process of dredging mud from the river to create something useful. The curious term for this is reclamation.

The area was the prehistoric habitat of mammoth elephants, then later of grizzlies, tule elk, and American pronghorn. And it was the terrain, until his death in 1963, of big game hunter Bill Foster who had moved to the delta town of Rio Vista as a bootlegger on the lam from then-District Attorney Earl Warren. Read the full story.

🐈 Ruger and the Cougar:  Now my eyes were locked on a crouching cougar on the opposite hill as I reloaded my 20 gauge with the biggest shot size I had with me — copper-coated number sixes. These weren't quite the slugs I was to have carried. Right then I felt under-gunned and pretty dumb for not following through on my intuition. Readying my gun, I yelled at the cat but he was unimpressed. He just glared from the other side of the draw, crouched and ready to pounce. As a last resort I decided to fire a warning shot.

Before that point in the day my attitude had been one of relaxed contentment. I was hunting late-season Huns and quail with my German shorthaired pointer, Ruger. The eastern Oregon wind was blowing up the faces of the hills that reached out of the river gorge. Ruger and I hunted the high flats for Huns and they were holding nicely. Read the full story.

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