Colorado Gov. Jared Polis recently appointed Colorado Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Legislative Liaison Ivan James to the Colorado Wildlife Habitat Stamp Committee.[1] The Habitat Stamp Committee is composed of nine members that represent the four quadrants of the State and functions to make funding recommendations for the Colorado Wildlife Habitat Program’s request for proposal process.​[2] Habitat loss is one of the leading issues impacting the survival of fish and wildlife for future ...

Steve Witte was recently appointed to serve as the Colorado Backcountry Hunters & Anglers chapter Indemnity Lands Liaison. Steve was born in Wray, Colorado, and raised on a farm near Vernon until age 10 when his folks moved off the farm and purchased a business in Wray, where he finished grade school and graduated from junior high and high school. “As a boy on the farm, with my Daisy, I did my best to guard our granary from ravaging sparrows. My first fish was a sunfish from a private pond ...

“Elk hunting is a physically and mentally grueling endeavor, but is also worth every second for nothing other than the clarity it can provide in your life.” –Tony J. Peterson[1]   During mid-September I generally spend several days in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado scouting for potential new rifle season elk hunting locales. While there during 2023, I met up with Colorado BHA Habitat Watch Volunteer Rick Hooley and Colorado BHA founder David “Elkheart” Petersen at the Bottom ...

From 2007-2015 I was privileged to serve on the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) North American Board alongside some of the most dedicated hunter-angler-conservationists I’ve known, including (among others) BHA founder Mike Beagle (a former U.S. Army field artillery officer), Colorado BHA founder David “Elkheart” Petersen (a former U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilot), Joel Webster (Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Vice President of Western Conservation), and Ben Long (author of ...

During my sixteen years or so of over-the-counter (OTC) unit elk hunting in southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains a few telltale observations come to mind: 1.) Be prepared to see more hunters than elk; 2.) Be prepared to see no elk; 3.) Be physically and mentally prepared to hike higher and farther than most other hunters, and still see no elk.[1] Such are the long odds in Colorado’s generally over-hunted OTC units. “It’s a zoo. You show up at the trailhead and you’re gonna count every ...