Deer question montana

[thusby]

Hey they finally sent me an online survey for the antelope 799-30 tag they gave me last year. It's a a start.

 

[mtmuley]

It would also be interesting to have a repeat on the survey to see how much opinions have changed in the last 10 years.

My money says little or no change. I remember getting the survey in the mail. No idea of sample size. mtmuley

 

[RobertD]

I believe it was a relatively small sample size as well. That is going off memory talking to the biologist at a check station. Nobody I know got the survey.

1,980 respondents so a decent sample size. I think someone pointed out that it's a ten year old survey though and that's probably more concerning than sample size. I didn't realize it was that dated.

 

[mtmuley]

10 years and no new study..... mtmuley

 

[antlerradar]

Idk alot of people i know want change, if its season structure or all le. I think its gonna take alot of pissed off hunters, conservationist, and a few privileged ranchers. Yes the breaks are the modern day Yellowstone units. If we let them they will run that too. Really there has to be a good solution. How bout just do what is best for the wildlife.

Walkalot, you are on the right track with the "How bout just do what is best for the wildlife." When sportsman argue for more mature bucks or bigger antlers they have a ceiling of support according to the survey of less than 40%. Argue for the health herds and you will get much better support.

Take this question in the survey.


Giving only ONE CHOICE, which of the following would be most favorable to you in Montana as a whole?

The opportunity to hunt mule deer every year somewhere in Montana (with a lower probability of harvesting a mature buck)
or
The opportunity to hunt mule deer once every several years somewhere in Montana (with a higher probability of harvesting a mature buck)



If you replaced the harvesting of a mature buck with healthy age structure or better buck/doe ratios you would get a much different result.

 

[timmy]

Montana fwp gets the answer they want and the biologists have drank the kool-aid. Cwd will further complicate any change to current management.

 

[Trap]

I say leave it as is. Except One very easy change is close general mule deer season to end nov 5. Everything else is the same but it would encourage more thanksgiving hunters to shoot whitetail.maybe After a few years do some real limited rut mule deer tags through draw. I moved from Montana to Idaho 30 years ago after college but I grew up hunting there in the 80’s which seemed like the “good old days” to me. You want mismanagement come to the Idaho panhandle lol. That aside le tags and shorter seasons have a lot of unintended consequences. Shorter seasons will definitely increase crowding there is no way around that when the same but probably more new resident hunters cram into a shorter time frame. Keeping some units otc and creating a bunch of le units just shifts a ton of hunters to the otc units which decimates those areas. I say keep it as is but close muleys 11-05. That will piss a bunch of people off but is a simple solution. My son and I hunt with family in central Montana most years we always shot mule deer until about 4-5 years ago. We switched to whitetail because the numbers of mule deer bucks and the age had dramatically declined. We have gotten some pretty nice whitetail though

 

[antlerradar]

Keeping some units otc and creating a bunch of le units just shifts a ton of hunters to the otc units which decimates those areas.

This is already happening. As more and more units in western MT are going LE the pressure is being shifted to other near by units and east. Like you said with devastating results for those units. Soon support builds for the hardest hit units to go LE and when they do the cycle repeats. The only real question is are we going to bit the bullet and go all LE or just implement LE slowly across the state from west to east.

 

[antlerradar]

Montana fwp gets the answer they want and the biologists have drank the kool-aid. Cwd will further complicate any change to current management

Giving only ONE CHOICE, which of the following would be most favorable to you in Montana as a whole?

The opportunity to hunt mule deer every year somewhere in Montana (with a lower probability of harvesting a mature buck)
or
The opportunity to hunt mule deer once every several years somewhere in Montana (with a higher probability of harvesting a mature buck)

FWP may well be pleased that 63% chose option one and 37% chose option two. Given the parameters of the question so should proponent so LE. Thirty seven percent choosing limited entry is far more than I would have expected. In this question limited entry is getting to hunt mule deer every four years. If we need to cut pressure on mule deer to 1/4 of the pressure of 10 years ago to fix what is ailing the mule deer herd we have big problems. I am no bio, but I just do not see were LE would have to be that limiting in all but the most popular units. I would expect reducing pressure to every other year or even 2 out of 3 years or LE the last three weeks of Nov. would result a big improvement in herd health. If 37% are willing to go to once every four years a much less restrictive LE may well have greater than 50% support.

 

[thusby]

Antelope, you can see them, walk out and shoot them so you need great management. Deer rut, you can see them, walk out and shoot them so you just say, “it’ll work itself out”.

 

[MTTW]

It is my opinion that cutting mule deer buck hunter numbers in half would make a negligible difference in age class of MD bucks if season timing was not changed. I think you would have to go to 1 in 4 years to change age class as much as losing 2 weeks of the rut.

I have hunted areas with 2 weeks of season closed and it makes a difference, but I believe that the average hunter probably can't see it. It would show up at the check station if there was a check station.

What it would take to repair eastern Mt mule deer hunting wouldn't even touch western Mt's problem, and that becomes eastern Mt's problem.

In western Mt we could close the season in some areas and not fix the problem.

When a mountain goes from having hundreds of deer to a couple of dozen and is only hunted for bucks, reducing buck kill by 75 percent won't fix it. It might change the age structure of the herd, but it fixes nothing. One hunter gets a decent buck, the rest go east.

One would think that with the population growth in the west something needs to be done, but I predict no change in the foreseeable future.
If FWP can look at mule deer management in the west and not want to crawl in a hole in embarrassment, there is no meaningful change coming to the east.
Eastern montana mule deer management is Fwp's greatest success and they succeeded by not managing the deer, which is exactly what they have done in the west with opposite results.

They claim to manage by reducing doe numbers to lessen winter kill. In the next sentence they take credit for possibly record numbers of deer. What they have managed to do is pass management to landowners. Landowner complaints are down since the 80s which fwp claims credit for.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that might have a lot more to do with deer being worth more to the landowners than they were in the 80s.
I will give them credit for raising the lion quota substantially in the east a few years ago, which proves to me that they are not as dumb as they allow us to believe.

 

[Walkalot]

So doing whats best for the deer. Obviously good numbers. Good age class. And maybe leaving them alone in the rut. Does anybody have historical numbers of deer populations in southwest mt. Be interesting to see the decline from the late 1970s to now.

 

[Walkalot]

Not talking about the private lands that have so many deer that they dying from disease. Public lands only numbers.

 

[lsutigers_1]

A little off topic but any advise on Region 3 hunting for Whitetail and Elk B-Licenses? I've never been to Montana and I will be traveling from Louisiana.

 

[8andcounting]

A little off topic but any advise on Region 3 hunting for Whitetail and Elk B-Licenses? I've never been to Montana and I will be traveling from Louisiana.

Do u have these tags in hand ? U applied/bought for a area 2/3 way across the country that you know nothing about and copy and paste it all over the internet and you expect to get solid advise ? Cmon man

 

[lsutigers_1]

These are over the counter tags

 

[Wyomingbackcountry]

I'm a nonresident. I live in Wyoming. I truly believe the mule deer should be draw only( at least for the nonresidents) and unit specific. No free for all around the state. And to help the mule deer shorter season. It sucks for you locals but in time it may help. They shortened our season at home and cut nonresident tags. Our deer herd #s are still down but I'm finding better quality bucks. Now they just need to cut out the doe permits and I think our herd will be strong agin