This year brings several changes to the Colorado Hunting Regulations including one that may generate some new revenue for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. In years past in early June after the primary big game draw was complete there would be a Colorado Big Game Leftover List posted. This leftover list would be populated by tags not otherwise drawn or requested by applicants during the primary draw, as well as tags not paid for or simply returned.
This year the process changes slightly and there will be a secondary run-off style draw that was previously only available for elk and mule deer hunters. Anyone can apply, and the leftover tags for the secondary draw will be posted on the — you guessed it — Colorado Leftover List.
A Little Crufty
Well, the list as it stood was a PDF generated every fifteen minutes and posted to a website in a static location. For non-residents or new hunters to Colorado it was daunting to navigate through game management units, look at success rates, choose a sex of animal you wanted, and a season. Did I mention it was a static PDF?
It turns out from March to almost September I’ve had a bunch of time on my hands, and a copy of the leftover list from years prior, so I went ahead and wrote a parser. It takes the leftover list, parses it out, and we in turn present to you the same list in a searchable, sortable format for your viewing pleasure. Why? Well why not?
New Hotness
The new sortable Colorado Leftover List (not officially endorsed by CPW) lives here on APT Outdoors. It’s searchable and a little more web 2.0-y than the previous generation. We’re also looking at getting some map cross-references available so you can plot out your hunt in greater detail! It’s updated every 15 minutes with the latest Colorado Leftover List available from CPW and is parsed into a more user friendly format for your viewing and searching pleasure.
You can access this new feature right from our main menu.
A Work in Progress
Our parser and the results are still very much a work in progress, but we’ll try to keep it as updated as we can. If you experience issues with it, or would like additional features, please reach out to us! Please note that we’re doing the best we can for edge cases here and it is your responsibility as the hunter to double check your tag seasons and any restrictions (Such as private land only or a specific SWA region). We’re providing this service free of charge.
