T
tjones
Guest
When elk hunters still can’t kill elk with the liberalized wolf season and expanded shoulder seasons where do we go next and who will get the blame for their elk hunting short comings?
FWP Proposed Changes - 2021 Season Setting
- Thread starter Nameless Range
- Start date
BuzzH
Well-known member
Not sure who to blame, but there's still another 6 months available to hunt elk...wouldn't put it past the FWP to expand into those months.
PaulRevere
Well-known member
* no comment.
PaulRevere
Well-known member
Hah! If ever a time to let it out, you chose a pretty good event to flip the bird.
Coming from you, I'd give it a pass - haha!
Going to have to change your moniker to pissed off Paulette Revere; One knuckled if by land, one standing tall if by bird, and two knuckled if by sea.
The rally of social media has
glad you caught that before the edit! Haha!
Your vent was pretty good
Lions, bears & woofs again. Why change a winning formula?
Expect the agency to cull wolves or a request for poison to come forward. 99% of those bitching about wolves don't seem to be able to harvest one.
Perhaps it is time for offense instead of defense. A citizens elk management proposal would be a good idea.
BuzzH
Well-known member
So, I have a hard time keeping this all straight.
We want to kill off all the wolves, because they're killing all the elk. Even though study after study, its shown lions are tougher on elk than wolves. I see no pressure to increase lion harvest.
We also want to kill off all the elk because they're over objective.
If your elk are over objective why increase harvest on things that kill elk?
If your objective is reduce elk predation, why ignore the #1 predator?
How in the actual $#$% does that make any kind of sense?
Yet, the public sits back and takes it all as MTFWP "management"...unbelievable.
Nameless Range
Well-known member
I will have a deeper and more personal analysis on the districts I am familiar with once the proposals come along, but the more I think about the merging of districts, the more leary I am about an FWP I do not trust in the slightest being able to obfuscate what is actually occurring on the landscape. The potential downside of creating larger districts seems so much more than any upside in the name of simplification. Tough to have an open mind while being bent over. But here we are.
That said, this morning I snagged the hunting district data for a pile of western states, just to compare the rough likeness of Montana to others in terms of HD size. Any states left out (Utah, Arizona) are simply a function of me not being able to find the GIS data.
I did some rough querying out of reservations, national parks,but didn't delineate elk hds vs deer vs lion, etc. So the least useful number in the table is the number of districts. This is just a rough look at how state break up their GMUs in terms of size. Currently, Montana seems pretty commensurate with our neighbors.
That said, this morning I snagged the hunting district data for a pile of western states, just to compare the rough likeness of Montana to others in terms of HD size. Any states left out (Utah, Arizona) are simply a function of me not being able to find the GIS data.
I did some rough querying out of reservations, national parks,but didn't delineate elk hds vs deer vs lion, etc. So the least useful number in the table is the number of districts. This is just a rough look at how state break up their GMUs in terms of size. Currently, Montana seems pretty commensurate with our neighbors.
Wolves and bears are pretty effective at finding and killing calf elk that just hit the ground. Maybe FWP could provide some subsidies for people to train some German shepherds to do the same. Get them before they become a problem.
Really appreciate your time Bret. Brings clarity to the table vs snarky...
A good basis for what the general district theme is for our rocky mountain States.
Seeing NM and the size of their districts... has there been challenges for their management? Looks as though ID may not be too far behind.
Sometimes it's a challenge to define legit commentary within the understandable snarkieness vs simple p.o. rant.
Need more clear connection content if we want to reach people who do not comprehend / following the general avg Joe hunt theme. We can snark with the best though often tends to be very devisive and that causes trench building.
A good basis for what the general district theme is for our rocky mountain States.
Seeing NM and the size of their districts... has there been challenges for their management? Looks as though ID may not be too far behind.
Sometimes it's a challenge to define legit commentary within the understandable snarkieness vs simple p.o. rant.
Need more clear connection content if we want to reach people who do not comprehend / following the general avg Joe hunt theme. We can snark with the best though often tends to be very devisive and that causes trench building.
None of it does, but this is what happens when people use demagoguery & short-term gains to define the argument. What is our side offering besides righteous anger and mean tweets?
Excellent question! Would be great to know especially heading to our regional meetings.
Theodore Roosevelt once commented:
T
tjones
Guest
Some guys have been working with their local bios trying to come up with something that makes sense. Some guys will be in meeting off and on today and into this evening trying to come up with solutions that make sense.
Some guys won't do anything.
Nameless Range
Well-known member
Genuine question. On some other post you mentioned something like a Citizens Elk Proposal. I like that, but how?
Talking with bios is good. But I get the sense they are in "squeaky wheel gets the ax" territory. Maybe a stupid question, but is there something of a larger scale that could be done? A citizens EMP? Reach out to the statewide conservation orgs?
I like the idea of being on the offense, regardless of whether or not we are metaphorically throwing haymakers at brick walls. What does it mean to go on the offensive?
brocksw
Well-known member
No shortage of guys like that in the hunting/conservation space....they are plentiful.
brocksw
Well-known member
Anyone think we should start a new thread that is just well articulated solutions regarding this specific topic? No nonsense, no smartass comments, just actual prospective changes people believe will have a positive impact?
antlerradar
Well-known member
Interesting map, Thanks for putting that together.
I keep thinking the size of the district is less important than how the land is used. Any time you combine a mostly private district with a district with large blocks of public the public is going to take a beating. We need to be creating districts with more consistent hunter use across the district.
Gerald Martin
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2009
- Messages
- 8,689
I’ve been meaning to start a thread to see if there are many like minded folks in the Bozeman area who would like to meet in person to see if there’s a way we can come to consensus on what we want to see and how we think it should be accomplished.
Individual voices are marginalized in this political environment. Multiple people bringing up the same message at different venues might have a better chance of being considered.
Anyone interested?
It means that sportsmen in MT need to think farther down the road than just next season or the next management plan and become visionaries like our grandfathers. The issue that politicians love to talk about is access & opportunity. They've set up short term gains there, but they've also set up long- term failure for elk herds and hunter opportunity. the EMP and season structure in particular come to mind as administrative actions tha can be taken within the next year and without legislative approval. For the legislature, develop 5 bills that would help right the ship. No guarantee that they'd pass, but it sets you up for a more...aggressive... approach leading into 2024.
4ohSick
Well-known member
A big question I struggle with when it comes to actually proposing solutions - where do we come up with data to present that isn't the stuff FWP already has? Aren't we kind-of stuck with their elk counts? And I'm not even sure if they do biological carrying capacity calculations, but is there anyone that has better data? It's great to tell them to scientifically manage game, but we need more than just pointing out there's nothing scientific about their "management."
