Resident Tags Available

Resident hunters may buy their tags for this fall's big game hunts now but tags for the five elk zones with caps become available in the wee hours of August 1. Five elk hunting zones have now been capped so that only a limited number of tags are available in them. Those zones are the Middle Fork, Selway, Lolo, Elk City and Dworshak. Elk City and Dworshak zones are capped for the first time this year. Tags for those five zones go on sale at 5 a.m. Mountain Time, 4 a.m. Pacific. Those times are as early as the Point of Sale Machine (POSM) computer system becomes active. Online sales also begin at the same times. By starting before regular business hours, POSM system operators hope to avoid overloading and crashing the system as has occurred in some previous years when too many simultaneous transactions were attempted. Caps on tag sales have been imposed on zones where elk herds are not meeting management guidelines that require no fewer than 10 mature bulls per 100 cows at the end of hunting seasons. These limits could be removed for future hunting seasons when herds return to better balance.