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Everyone probably realizes Colorado’s harvest statistics have been questionable for a long time as a planning resource. Colorado does not require mandatory harvest reporting for all hunters, and their statistics are based on voluntary random surveys, which are only sent to a fraction of hunters. Additionally, it’s highly likely that not everyone who gets a survey is 100% truthful … GASP! I mean, do you really think that someone who has spent years, with boots on the ground, finding an Over-the-Counter Honey-Hole, is going to report killing a bull in there when any nimrod can draw it with no points? Maybe (probably) not.
But now it’s gotten even worse. In case you haven’t noticed, Colorado changed how they are reporting Harvest Statistics this year and going forward.
Previously harvest stats were listed by individual hunt units. Even if a HuntCode contained a group of GMUs, hunters could still use the individual hunt unit listings to find the harvest stats for each GMU within that HuntCode.
However; the 2025 Harvest Stats are listed ONLY by HuntCode, NOT individual hunt units. Therefore, if a HuntCode contains a group of GMUs they are now all listed with the same harvest stat, which is an average of the entire group. The fidelity of the individual GMUs within the HuntCode has been lost.
This change has the biggest impact on Over-the-Counter (OTC) hunts.
For Example: the 90+ different OTC Bull Elk Rifle Second Season Units that fall under the single HuntCode EM000U2R are all now averaged into a single 2025 harvest statistic for that one HuntCode! The harvest statistics are listed as 19.3% for each hunt in the HuntCode! Similarly, all EM000U3R, OTC Bull Elk Rifle Third Season Units are listed as 12.1%.
These harvest statistics are horribly misleading. Individual units that were previously reported as having extremely low harvest success or extremely high are all now just averaged into a single number.
Colorado’s harvest statistics have been questionable for a long time, and now they are nearly useless.
