Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Hunters still coming, even if it doesn’t look that way
When we moved to Salida in 1978, a friend who grew up in Cañon City told us that, in his recollection, “The busiest day of the year in Salida is the day before elk season starts.”
That day, usually the first Friday in October, does put a crowd on the area highways, but it seemed to us that it isn’t as busy now as it was back then. That was just an impression, though.
Nationally, big-game hunting declined from 11.3 million hunters in 1996 to 10.9 million in 2001, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, Colorado numbers have remained fairly stable, or even grown a little, according to Todd Malmsbury of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, with 240,000 elk licenses issued last year.
The perception that there aren’t as many hunters coming through Salida is probably a result of a changing commercial geography. There are more businesses on the highway, so fewer hunters come downtown. So few, in fact, that October is now a rather slow month downtown, rather than a busy one.
The First Street Café now closes for vacation during October. “We used to be open during hunting season,” co-owner Darlene Louch said, “but we didn’t get many hunters even then. They’re looking for a quick early breakfast, and no matter how early we opened, it wasn’t early enough.”