Montana 2025 Legislative Session

[Forkyfinder]

Between Come Home to Hunt and Relative of Resident, there were 1859 licenses sold in 2023. 1156 of those were big game combo, so they were hunting both deer and elk. That isn’t counting the college student discount.

https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/buyandapply/license-reports/10year-lic-als-sales-2023.pdf

Needs to go before it becomes more of a funding cancer then, immediately

 

[Eric Albus]

You could start a movement to grant me dictatorship, personally I’d prefer a crown and kingship….

Seriously though, I’d like to see an end to mule deer rut hunting (maybe some lime 2 years of 3 week season,no rut, then yr 3 4(to 5 week season?)a mule deer license and a whitetail license(declare at time of purchase for R and NR, pick your region you hunt MD, have regional quotas on NR, give NR a 5 day(mon-Fri) license(they pick their choice of week), I have lots of other ideas as well as many good ideas from others.

I’m not hung up that my
Ideas are the right ones, but we need tenable solutions to this problem sooner than later, and if one idea fails to work, or the unintended consequences are bad(usually are) then we go to plan B.

 

[Shed God]

So everyone wants change for the mule deer. How we get everyone on board. Regardless if it's there idea or not.

 

[Eric Albus]

The above response was to shed god

 

[bigsky2]

The commission acts
On biologists request for permit numbers issued.

Case in point: area 652, biologist requested 400 buck tags for this tiny area, commission granted only 200. There are not 200 deer in 652, let alone 200 buck deer.

I asked commission “how can you do this”. Answer, “ Commission is forced to go with best science”, means trend area count, performed by the biologist. Some of you still want to use FWP “science/biology”?

That’s not how it works everywhere. In my area, the bio recommends a quota, and individuals worried about their special interests will get in the ear of the commission, and the biologists recommendations are often ignored for a higher quota. Then the commission will defend it by saying something like “the herd can handle it”. Yeah, when there’s thousands of inaccessible elk on private, of course the herd can handle the extra permits, but the public land can not.

 

[Eric Albus]

It’s gonna be tough to get all on same page. Gonna be winners and losers. All my team wants is a win for MULE DEER.

 

[Eric Albus]

That’s not how it works everywhere. In my area, the bio recommends a quota, and individuals worried about their special interests will get in the ear of the commission, and the biologists recommendations are often ignored for a higher quota. Then the commission will defend it by saying something like “the herd can handle it”. Yeah, when there’s thousands of inaccessible elk on private, of course the herd can handle the extra permits, but the public land can not.

I would like to see a non transferable “private land only” cow tag especially in the LE elk units.

 

[cgasner1]

That’s not how it works everywhere. In my area, the bio recommends a quota, and individuals worried about their special interests will get in the ear of the commission, and the biologists recommendations are often ignored for a higher quota. Then the commission will defend it by saying something like “the herd can handle it”. Yeah, when there’s thousands of inaccessible elk on private, of course the herd can handle the extra permits, but the public land can not.

Things like this are the issue. Our wildlife should be legislated fwp biologist should be calling the shots and they can’t. Im happy this thread is here for people to see everything but also disgusted it has to exist

 

[Shed God]

So do it. That's what everyone wants. How we get landowners on board, fwp, non resident, public. At some point like u said eric albus, look out for the species

 

[cgasner1]

So do it. That's what everyone wants. How we get landowners on board, fwp, non resident, public. At some point like u said eric albus, look out for the species

Out of curiosity WTF do you think we have been trying to do for the last year?

 

[Shed God]

Idk seem like alot of arguing. Disagreement. Excuses. But I know u guys are trying.

Just do it

 

[Shed God]

Pull the trigger, do it.

 

[Shed God]

Just do what is best for the species qouting eric albus on a pm. Won't post it. Should be very simple. But realize it not

 

[Forkyfinder]

Pull the trigger, do it.

They did everything they could.

Its up to everyone to pull the trigger - its an uphill battle. It takes a lot of parties to agree on change that generally have competeting interests.

A lot of people spent a lot of time, studied data, and yeah - probably spent hours disagreeing tactfully which isnt easy.

But the reality is - everyone who wants change needs to pull their own trigger on their own topics. No single person or group can change anything, but doing what you can individually is a great step. For example - writing that dumbarse about codifing the rut hunt - especially if hes your rep and extra if you voted for him.

 

[WanderWoman]

I would like to see a non transferable “private land only” cow tag especially in the LE elk units.

The 900-00 was something pretty close to that. Quota never exceeded demand and there was overall very little harvest with those licenses, which is why they went away after a few years. They could possibly work in some HDs but so many of these have general opportunities/region-specific..

Edited to add: maybe this is something that would work better in HDs that are over-objective but have a lot of public ground that gets hammered but localized private land issues, vs HDs that are majority private land with small islands of public, that also get hammered.

Doing away with rut hunting is a popular idea but CWD is the giant elephant in the room such that down the road, it might not be a good idea. LE is similar. Is there a state that does nothing but LE for mule deer? I think most have at least some general opportunity in areas. And states/provinces that have both CWD and LE in the same place tend to have some of the higher prevalence rates. Alberta is one example. I think even bios/managers that want to see limitations or try some of these ideas are restricted because of the looming or present threat of CWD.

 

[Shed God]

My opionon cwd probably doesn't exist in my neck of woods. If herds were managed. But it was basically high fence.

 

[Forkyfinder]

The 900-00 was something pretty close to that. Quota never exceeded demand and there was overall very little harvest with those licenses, which is why they went away after a few years. They could possibly work in some HDs but so many of these have general opportunities/region-specific..

Doing away with rut hunting is a popular idea but CWD is the giant elephant in the room such that down the road, it might not be a good idea. LE is similar. Is there a state that does nothing but LE for mule deer? I think most have at least some general opportunity in areas. And states/provinces that have both CWD and LE in the same place tend to have some of the higher prevalence rates. Alberta is one example. I think even bios/managers that want to see limitations or try some of these ideas are restricted because of the looming or present threat of CWD.

North dakota is a LE for deer in every unit i think.

 

[WanderWoman]

North dakota is a LE for deer in every unit i think.

Thanks!

 

[Treeshark]

The 900-00 was something pretty close to that. Quota never exceeded demand and there was overall very little harvest with those licenses, which is why they went away after a few years.

They aren’t going to do any good if they are not transferable. Most landowners aren’t going to stack cow elk up on their own land with no upside.

“Too many elk” is just a pretend thing most landowners say to get more tags and/or money. That is not specific to Montana.

 

[WanderWoman]

My opionon cwd probably doesn't exist in my neck of woods. If herds were managed. But it was basically high fence.

There are areas where CWD likely hasn’t made it yet, areas where CWD exists but hasn’t been detected, and then a whole spectrum of areas where CWD exists and has various prevalences. If it’s not somewhere yet it’s likely on the way. Given the fact that a prion isn’t a living thing, the length of time between transmission, when a deer can transmit, when symptoms start to show, and death, it really is a nearly perfect disease. I find that rather terrifying. Not to derail this into another CWD thread but it’s a real issue complicating deer management and a really good reason deer management shouldn’t be set in statute.