I’m in the same boat as you. I think the majority of archery elk hunters just go to likely areas and listen for bugles. I really enjoy getting out in the summer and scouting for bulls. In years like this when the opener is later, summer scouting kind of goes out the window. I’d love to have a...
I don’t think a two or three week general mule deer season would be palatable to the majority of non-HT folks. Imagine how bad the hunter crowding would be in a two week OTC mule deer season. One of my favorite aspects of the proposal is the impact it could have on crowding by implementing the...
I would bet the increase of leased acres has a lot to do with the quality of the hunting on public drastically decreasing.
As far as elk populations go, more elk doesn’t always translate to better hunting. In a lot of areas, I bet the elk hunting was better in 2005 than it is today despite...
Without having any idea of where hunters are currently spending their time, is there any confidence that region caps would be set at low enough levels to benefit the resource or to have any meaningful impact on hunter crowding? I agree that caps are likely going to be needed in R6 and R7 in...
Is anyone aware of how we are supposed to know when the 37% sow harvest is about to be reached? The harvest reporting page only shows total harvest.
https://myfwp.mt.gov/fwpPub/speciesHuntingGuide?wmrSpeciesCd=BB
That's a good point. It's likely the 60,000+ bow hunters are pushing a lot of elk onto private under the current system before the general season starts. Under the proposed season structure, there would undoubtedly be some mule deer hunters pushing elk around in October. However, it might be a...
That’s really interesting to see that things were managed tighter back then as far as district size and season length. I would have guessed management would have gotten stricter over time rather than looser.
Does this mean BHA would oppose any recommendations by the CAC that would shorten the season length or limit and/or eliminate rut hunting? I’m just curious what is considered equitable opportunity.
The main reason for adjusting elk seasons is to get rid of the overlap of elk and mule deer seasons. There are a lot of mule deer killed by opportunistic elk hunters that happen to have a deer tag in their pocket. It will also spread out hunter pressure.
This proposal is a balance of improving things for the resource as well as considering what’s socially achievable. If it was entirely about the resource or entirely about trying to accommodate the desires of one user group, it would look totally different.
I have a hard time believing the...