Deadline Approaching for Kentucky Elk Quota Hunt Lottery

Apr 09, 2009

Frankfort, KY – Hunters who dream of harvesting an elk in Kentucky have just a few short weeks left to buy a chance at that opportunity.

Kentucky’s elk quota hunt application deadline is midnight, April 30. One thousand lucky applicants will be drawn to hunt elk this year.

Elk lottery applications are available for $10 online at fw.ky.gov, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources’ website. Applications are not sold in stores or through the department’s phone license sales vendor.

Applying for the elk quota hunt lottery takes just a few minutes. Applicants will need to have their Visa, MasterCard or Discover card ready. From the department’s website, click on the blue “Apply for Elk Lottery” icon on the right side of the homepage. This secure license sales system walks applicants through each step of the process. Hunters must provide identification information, including their Social Security number.

Hunters who don’t have access to the internet can call Kentucky Fish and Wildlife at 1-800-858-1549. A department employee will take their credit card information over the phone using the same online system. Those without a credit card may purchase a Visa, MasterCard or Discover gift card, and use that gift card to apply through the internet or by calling Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. These gift cards are easily purchased at large chain stores such as Walmart and Kmart, as well as some grocery stores and gas stations.

Kentucky Fish and Wildlife conducts a random electronic drawing in early May of all those who have purchased an elk lottery application by the April 30 deadline. Applicants can check to see if they were drawn beginning May 4. They can enter their license confirmation numbers online at fw.ky.gov or call the department at 1-800-858-1549. Drawn applicants are also notified and given further instructions by mail. General firearm elk quota hunts occur in southeastern Kentucky in October and December

Big-game hunting close to home | The Times Daily | Florence, AL

Kentucky, Tennessee now open to elk hunting

By Dennis Sherer

Staff Writer

The last time Jeff Patterson went elk hunting, he spent 25 hours behind the wheel driving to the Rocky Mountains.

He hopes to be able to go elk hunting this fall or winter a little closer to home – about 350 miles from Florence.

Patterson is among thousands of hunters throughout the country who have applied for a permit to go elk hunting in Kentucky.

“It’s exciting to think I might be able to hunt elk only five or six hours from here,” he said. “It would be really neat if I am able to kill one that close to home.”

Since being released in 1997, elk have proliferated throughout the eastern Kentucky mountains.

Dave Baker, a spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, said the agency will issue 1,000 elk permits this year. In 2008, only 400 were issued.

The cost to apply for an elk permit is $10. Those selected in the lottery-style drawing must then pay $365 for a permit for non-residents to go elk hunting in Kentucky.

Baker, editor of the agency’s magazine, Kentucky Afield, said 250 of the permits issued for upcoming elk season will be to harvest bulls. The remainder will be for harvesting cows. The reason for increasing the number of permits is to stabilize the state’s elk herd, which is the largest east of the Rocky Mountains. Elk hunting was first allowed in 2001.

Baker said Kentucky’s elk population has grown quicker than expected. Baker said grassy areas left when strip mines are refilled created prime habitat for elk. The mild weather of the Bluegrass State allows the animals to grow more rapidly than Elk living in western states where deep snow often covered grazing areas during the winter.

“There is a tremendous amount of food available to the elk. They grow very rapidly and the bulls get really big,” Baker said. “We’ve already had several Boone and Crockett-class bulls harvested here.”

Gabe Jenkins, a wildlife biologist for the agency, said many hunters who harvest elk in Kentucky had never hunted anything larger than a white-tailed deer before being selected to receive an elk permit. He said most are amazed by the size of the elk.

“When somebody asks me how big the elk are, I tell them to imagine a horse,” Jenkins said. “They are as big as horse.”  Click link below for full story!

via Big-game hunting close to home | TimesDaily.com | The Times Daily | Florence, AL.

Brasher: Elk hunt on target to be good thing, someday : Outdoors : Memphis Commercial Appeal

By Bryan Brasher Contact, Memphis Commercial Appeal

Sunday, January 25, 2009

For many West Tennesseans, the idea of our state holding an elk hunting season is kind of sore subject.

Here’s how they see it:

TENNESSEE ELK SEASON

It was announced during last week’s meeting of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission that Tennessee will hold its first elk hunting season in October.

Residents and non-residents will be allowed to apply for five permits, but only one will be awarded to a non-resident.

Elk hunting will take place five or six hours from here in eastern Tennessee. The hunting project will cost thousands of dollars that could be spent to help other struggling species like the bobwhite quail. And even if Tennessee does hold an elk season, they’ll only give out a handful of permits, meaning everyone’s chances of being drawn will be next to nothing.

Since the TWRC announced its plan to hold the state’s first elk season this October, I’ve gone over those three points a lot — and I’ve reached a conclusion:

None of it matters.

So what if the October elk hunting season will be held in eastern Tennessee? That’s about as close as any other elk hunt West Tennesseans will find.

If you don’t believe it, leave out for Wyoming right now, and call me when you get there to tell me how long the drive took.

Then I’ll tell you about Tennessee’s funding efforts for the elk restoration project.

The elk project costs approximately $300,000 a year, but at least half of that is paid by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The rest is paid by TWRA, the University of Tennessee and other various groups. Click link below for full story!

via Brasher: Elk hunt on target to be good thing, someday : Outdoors : Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Tennessee Elk Hunt is Official – Chattanoogan.com

Elk Hunt Applications to be accepted beginning April 1

by Richard Simms

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission approved to allow Tennessee’s first elk hunt among its business today at the January meeting held at Reelfoot Lake State Park.

Upon recommendations made by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the elk hunt will be held October 19-23 at the North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area. There will be five Elk Hunting Zones (EHZ) designated at the WMA. A total of five permits will be allocated.

Four of the participants will be selected through a drawing conducted by the TWRA. The drawing is open to both residents and non-residents. However, no more than one permit may go to a non-resident hunter. The fifth participant will be the winner of a permit that is donated to a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) with fund-raising proceeds designated for the TWRA Elk Program.

Applications for the special hunt will be accepted April 1-May 31. The five winners will be announced at the June meeting of the TWRC in Nashville.

The TWRC also made a rule amendment presented by the TWRA that would establish a first come, first serve process for allocating Special Season County Permits for deer and fall turkey hunts. Over the last several years, these quota hunts have had substantial leftover permits after the drawings. Changing the process to a first-come, first-serve will provide sportsmen greater flexibility in planning their fall hunts

via 1/22/2009 – Tennessee Elk Hunt is Official – Outdoors – Chattanoogan.com.

The Logan Banner > Kentucky elk grass greener!

By Bob Fala, Outdoors Columnist

What’s more, they’re in addition to the 400 previously drawn.

If you’re in the existing pool of applicants, you could be one of the lucky 50!

The special cow elk season is slat ed for Jan. 24-Feb. 6 as “designed to help private landowners reduce damage from elk in portions of Knott, Bell and Harlan counties,” per a recent Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) release.

Big game coordinator Tina Brunjes is one of them.

“What we’re hoping to accomplish is to have some animals removed from specific landholdings that have had problems with elk” she said. “The primary goal is to provide these landowners an opportunity to have elk taken from their property during the time of year when most damage occurs.”

You’re reading that right.

Elk are already reaching problem proportions in parts of Kentucky. Click Link Below For Full Story!

via The Logan Banner > Archives > Sports > Kentucky elk grass greener!.

Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission Proposes 1,000 Quota Elk Hunting Permits Next Season

Frankfort, Ky. – Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission members voted today to raise the number of quota elk permits to 1,000 and proposed additional firearms season days for elk hunters for the 2009-10 season. Commission members at today’s quarterly meeting in Frankfort also proposed standardizing the muskellunge minimum size limit at Cave Run, Buckhorn and Green River lakes.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission recommends all hunting, fishing and boating regulations for approval by the General Assembly and approves all expenditures by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. All recommendations must be approved by legislators before they become law.

In wildlife-related business, the Commission voted to increase the number of quota elk hunting permits to 1,000 for the 2009-10 hunting season, up from 400 quota elk permits awarded in 2008-09. The total number of permits will include 250 permits for antlered elk and 750 permits for antlerless elk. Commission members also voted to allow drawn elk hunters the option of paying for their quota elk permit online. These changes do not affect regulations and therefore do not require approval from legislators.

The Commission proposed adding a second week of firearms quota antlered elk hunting to the current one-week season. Under the proposal, drawn hunters who receive an antlered elk permit would be assigned to either the first or second week of the season. If approved, the two-week antlered elk firearms season would run Oct. 3-16, 2009. Hunters with a Landowner Cooperator or Special Commission permit would be allowed to hunt during both weeks of the firearms season. Archery and crossbow season framework for quota antlered elk hunting would remain unchanged. However, the proposal would move the opening of antlerless elk archery and crossbow seasons to Oct. 17, 2009, one week later than the current season framework.

Commission members also proposed additional hunting days for drawn quota antlerless elk hunting. Under the Commission recommendation, drawn quota antlerless elk hunters would be permitted to hunt antlerless elk during the modern gun deer season in November, in addition to the existing two-week firearms antlerless elk season in December. If approved, the change would allow quota antlerless elk hunting Nov. 14-23 and Dec. 12-25, 2009.

The Commission proposed a special youth elk hunt and drawing for 2009. Under the recommendation, five either-sex elk permits would be available to youth ages 15 and under. The permits would be valid for a special youth hunt on Paul Van Booven Wildlife Management Area Sept. 26-28, 2009. If approved, youth hunters could apply for the hunt by purchasing a $10 elk lottery application April 1-30, 2009.

Youth hunters may still purchase a separate $10 elk lottery application to enter the regular elk quota hunt drawing. Two youth permits, one antlered and one antlerless, are already awarded through the lottery, and will remain available for the 2009-10 elk season. These permits are valid during the regular elk season only.

In fisheries-related business, the Commission recommended standardizing the minimum size limit on muskellunge at 36 inches at Cave Run Lake, Green River Lake and Buckhorn Lake. Previously, Cave Run Lake and Green River Lake had a 30-inch minimum size limit for the species and Buckhorn Lake had a 40-inch minimum size limit.

Fisheries regulations voted on by the Commission at today’s meeting would take effect in March 2010.

The Commission also recommended implementing a 9-inch minimum size limit on crappie at Fishtrap Lake and removing yellow bass from the statewide aggregate daily limit of 15 fish for white, hybrid striped and yellow bass. There will be a 30 fish daily creel limit on yellow bass. Lick Creek in Simpson County and East Fork Clarks River in Calloway County will be removed as seasonal catch and release trout streams. Lick Creek will still be stocked with trout in the summer months.

The Commission also recommended discontinuing the practice of using a tooth patch as the regulatory method for identifying spotted bass. Anglers use a tooth patch as a means of differentiating spotted bass from largemouth bass. However, many largemouth bass also possess this tooth patch, which leads to confusion.

The next Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting will be held at 8 a.m., Friday, March 6, 2009 at #1 Sportsman’s Lane off U.S. 60 in Frankfort. Persons interested in addressing the Commission must notify the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commissioner’s office in writing at least 30 days in advance to be considered for placement on the meeting agenda. People who are hearing impaired and plan to attend the meeting should contact Kentucky Fish and Wildlife at least 10 days in advance and the agency will provide a translator. To request to address the commission, write to Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, Commissioner Dr. Jon Gassett, #1 Sportsman’s Lane, Frankfort, Kentucky, 40601.

Olympic Peninsula Roosevelt Elk Hunting

Washington/Oregon Game & Fish

Roosevelt Elk Rebound

With the species back from the brink, there are more bulls and more tags in the Olympic Peninsula’s coastal unit than in previous years. But the number of hunters is still low.(November 2008).

By Doug Rose

Currently, more elk are roaming the river valleys and ridgelines of the Olympic Peninsula than at any time in the last 20 years.

Five of the current record-book modern firearms Roosevelt elk and three of the archery records come from West End units.

And for the last several seasons, hunters have tagged more bull elk in the peninsula’s remote West End than they have in a decade. Yet far fewer hunters pursue these elk than they did 10 or 20 years ago.

The reason is simple: During the late 1980s and ’90s, the elk population in the Olympic Peninsula’s celebrated rain forest units declined significantly. From an estimated 12,000 elk outside Olympic National Park in the early ’80s, the numbers fell to around 6,000 by the mid-1990s.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

Olympic Peninsula Roosevelt Elk Hunting.

BillingsGazette.com :: Study: Idaho wolves hitting cow elk hard

By ERIC BARKER

Of the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune

Idaho Fish and Game biologists have established that wolves are the primary cause of death of radio-collared cow elk in the Lolo hunting zone, where cow elk numbers are projected to be shrinking by 13 percent a year.

The department could use that conclusion, from its continuing study of elk, to again seek permission to authorize federal trappers to cull wolves in the remote area of central Idaho. But officials would rather see wolves removed from the endangered species list so wolf packs could be thinned through hunting.

“I just think it’s generally more acceptable with folks to manage populations through hunting than any other way,” said Jim Unsworth, deputy director of the department at Boise. “We are going to monitor the delisting process. If that occurs, we are going to pursue the hunting option. That is certainly our preferred option.”

In case delisting is delayed or the department gets tied up in lawsuits, Fish and Game commissioners told the department to look at the options available under federal wolf-management rules, Unsworth said.  Click Link Below for Full Story!

BillingsGazette.com :: Study: Idaho wolves hitting cow elk hard.

Shift to Online-Only Applications to Solve Elk Hunter Notification Problem

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Frankfort, Ky. – A shift to online-only applications for Kentucky elk quota hunts will solve problems with notifying people drawn for a hunt. The new system takes effect Dec. 1, when the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources begins its application sales for the 2009-10 elk hunt.

Other licenses and permits will not be affected by the change.

Under the old system, the department faced difficulties obtaining the names and addresses of youth hunters and those without a Kentucky driver’s license. This delayed notifications to all hunters and mailings of elk hunt information to all those drawn for the hunt.

Under the new system, hunters will provide their names and addresses when they register online at the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife website, fw.ky.gov. The new system speeds up the notification process and increases its efficiency.

“A majority of people were already using the Internet to verify if they were drawn for the elk hunt,” said Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Jon Gassett. “This is the next logical step to promote the elk project and maintain a database to improve future elk drawings.”

Previously, hunters could purchase an application for a quota elk hunt through a license vendor such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart or county court clerk offices, or by calling the department’s license sales phone number. However, applicants did not have to supply their names or addresses at the time of purchase, making it difficult for department personnel to track down this information and contact hunters who were drawn. Department officials were able to obtain most names and addresses by cross-referencing Kentucky driver’s license records.

However, there remained a number of hunters the department had difficulty contacting. “Each year, we have a percentage of folks whose name and address information is not captured via phone or point-of-sale vendors,” said Tina Brunjes, big game program coordinator for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife.

Brunjes said these ‘unknown’ applicants can make up as much as 10 percent of those drawn for an elk permit. Department personnel must then try to find the drawn hunters by making phone calls, sending out press releases and posting information on the department’s website. The Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission awarded 400 permits for the current season and will increase substantially the number of permits for the 2009-10 hunting season, making it even more difficult to locate unknown hunters.

“We put a lot of hours into tracking those people down,” Brunjes said. “With the number of permits issued increasing each year, we could be looking at far more unknowns in future years. The best way to remedy this is via online sales only.”

Hunters drawn for the 2009-10 elk hunt will also be able to pay for their elk permit online rather than sending a check to the department. Elk permits for those drawn to hunt cost $30 for Kentucky residents and $365 for nonresidents.

Elk lottery applications for the 2009-10 hunting season go on sale Dec. 1, 2008. Applicants can purchase their $10 quota hunt application through the department’s secure license sales webpage by going to fw.ky.gov and clicking on “Purchase Licenses Here”.

TWRA prepares for Tennessee’s first elk hunting season

By GEORGE THWAITES

KINGSPORT — The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency continues to make preparations for the state’s first elk hunting season in 2009.

The status of the state’s elk restoration project was one of the issues covered during the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission’s October meeting, which was held Wednesday and Thursday at MeadowView Conference Resort and Convention Center.

“Kentucky’s program started a long time ago, and they’ve had hunting there for several years,” said Commissioner Buddy Baird of Rogersville. “Since I joined the commission in 2001, we’ve been trying to get an elk season. It looks like we’re hopefully to the point where we can do that, at least on a very limited level.”

TWRA Wildlife Chief Greg Wathen, who made a presentation to the commission’s Wildlife Management Committee on Wednesday, said the agency expects an extremely limited issue of elk permits for a five-day elk hunt next October.  Click link below for full story!

TWRA prepares for Tennessee’s first elk hunting season.

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