.jpg "Photo by Phil Douglass, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources")
For most hunters, Utah’s most popular hunt—the general rifle buck deer hunt—will be shorter in 2010.
By a 4-2 vote, the Utah Wildlife Board approved a recommendation to shorten Utah’s general rifle buck deer hunt from nine days to five days for hunters who are 19 years of age or older on Aug. 21. (Aug. 21 is the first day of the state’s 2010 general archery buck deer hunt.)
Hunters who are 18 years of age or younger on Aug. 21 can hunt for nine days.
Next season, hunters age 19 and older can hunt Oct 23-27, 2010, while hunters age 18 and younger can hunt Oct. 23-31, 2010.
On five units where buck-to-doe ratios are lower than 15 bucks per 100 does—the Cache; Ogden; Oquirrh-Stansbury; South Slope, Vernal; and Monroe units—the rifle hunt will run for three days, Oct. 23–25, 2010
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) had recommended to the board a nine-day rifle hunt for all hunters in the state, regardless of their age.
The only exception the DWR recommended to the nine-day hunt was limiting the hunt to five days on the five units that have buck-to-doe ratios that are below 15 bucks per 100 does.
The board did approve a DWR proposal to allow general archery hunters to hunt across the state during the entire general archery season in 2010. In 2009, general archery hunters had to choose which region they wanted to hunt in during the first two weeks of the hunt.
All of the changes the board approved at its Dec. 3 meeting will be available in the 2010 Utah Big Game Guidebook. The guidebook should be available at www.wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks by late December.
