Montana antelope draw results

[DFS]

If tags were kept to a more reasonable level I believe you would see more landowners allow access. Breaking up the 700 tag into districts would make this easier.

 

[Elky Welky]

If tags were kept to a more reasonable level I believe you would see more landowners allow access. Breaking up the 700 tag into districts would make this easier.

If you cut tags enough to make it so there is no money to be gained, you very well could be right.

 

[BradA]

Has Montana come out with a 2023 antelope quota per unit going into the draw? I’m curious if the unit I applied for is the same as last year or decreased, I can’t imagine it increased but who knows. Much the less I actually hope they decrease the permits to help the animals, I’m fine with not drawing a tag this year to be honest and very well if I do just eat the tag and donate my money so that there is one less animal killed.

 

[Elky Welky]

Has Montana come out with a 2023 antelope quota per unit going into the draw? I’m curious if the unit I applied for is the same as last year or decreased, I can’t imagine it increased but who knows. Much the less I actually hope they decrease the permits to help the animals, I’m fine with not drawing a tag this year to be honest and very well if I do just eat the tag and donate my money so that there is one less animal killed.

Nope, but they will. That's why the draw takes so long, we have to wait for that quota. I haven't seen anything yet.

 

[Badlandcat]

If tags were kept to a more reasonable level I believe you would see more landowners allow access. Breaking up the 700 tag into districts would make this easier.

100% correct. Instead of having up 11,000 hunters pounding on your door, they would only have whatever amount that is set for that unit.
Another thing that would help the antelope out tremendously, is have antelope season close before deer season starts.

 

[DFS]

100% correct. Instead of having up 11,000 hunters pounding on your door, they would only have whatever amount that is set for that unit.
Another thing that would help the antelope out tremendously, is have antelope season close before deer season starts.

Completely agree. Landowners are more in tune to what is happening than what many think especially traditional landowners. When they see lots of hunters and no antelope they are going to be less inclined to letting anyone go. If Montana reversed the order of their priorities and shortened seasons things could improve. Pipe dreams.

 

[brockel]

Only a few of us on here remember back when 700 wasn't one unit.
Back then there was big bucks on public, very little crowding and landowners that
would let you hunt their land.

When you could sit on a tall hill and glass multiple groups of antelope off in the distance all around you

 

[Badlandcat]

When you could sit on a tall hill and glass multiple groups of antelope off in the distance all around you

I can remember hunting the out in the " gumbos" for 3-4 days at a time and maybe see 1 other truck and 300 antelope or so daily.

 

[Beignet]

I was kind of curious about past data, what could be found online didn't go back very far.

The unit where I apply has never had a ton of antelope, but it certainly had a few boom years. It seems to have gone bust in 2021, with a 38% population decrease. They didn't survey the unit in 2022, but if the population remained the same, FWP issued enough regular and B tags for the unit to kill 65% of the population if every hunter had been successful. And no, there weren't any unit boundary changes as far as I can tell / remember. Will be curious to see this year's population count. Makes me wish I'd have paid better attention to these kinds of things in the past.

	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	State-W
2017							157,965
2018	318	17724	25,556	30,009	20,198	42,947	136,762
2019	214	18,133	24,711	32,525	32,155	52,185	159,923
2020	214	17,812	22,427	33,020	45,084	50,264	168,821
2021	214	13,541	22,125	26,574	40,711	29,194	132,359
2022	127	17,041	18,519	27,542	41,244	50,786	155,279
AVG	217.40	16,850.20	22,667.60	29,934.00	35,878.40	45,075.20	151,851.50

 

[The Hedgehog]

The scientific plan FWP uses is to give the maximum number of permits without resulting in extinction, or worse yet, not being able to justify a very high number of permits the next year.

 

[The Hedgehog]

I can remember hunting the out in the " gumbos" for 3-4 days at a time and maybe see 1 other truck and 300 antelope or so daily.

I remember all the antelope, but there were always plenty of people unless you were going late in the season and mid week.

 

[Badlandcat]

I remember all the antelope, but there were always plenty of people unless you were going late in the season and mid week.

I'm old, I'm talking about the 80's and early 90's. lol.
If I remember right, it was the mid 90's when people started showing up in there. Also I would come in from the NoDak side, back then it was just a two track trail thou private, not the oilfield road like now.

 

[cgasner1]

If I was a betting man I would take the over on 5500 tags.

Just as long as I get mine right?

 

[DFS]

Just as long as I get mine right?

I would be more than happy if I don’t get a tag. I would have been happy with that since 2012 when they got hammered with back to back bad winters. I have no problem letting animals recover.

 

[antlerradar]

What is this magical fantasy land of which you speak???

It was no fantasy, Must have been about 1980 when FWP combined all the units in region seven. Even the the big blocks of Public held pronghorn past two hours into opening day and yes you didn't have to work real hard to get permission on private land. You might not get a tag every year in the popular units like 740 or 742, but when you did the hunting was pretty good even on the big blocks of public land. That all changed when FWP went region wide. I would hunt the Custer in former unit 742. It was an every other year or maybe one out of three years if you were unlucky. I remember the first year even though I was young. I was thrilled that I could now get an antelope tag every year. Reality hit me right in the face on opening day on the Custer. There was now over twice as many hunters and it turned into a cluster F. Hunters were everywhere and antelope made a beeline for some place safe and hunters gave chase, all four tires spinning. One of the more disappointing days hunting I have ever experienced. I was able to switch to hunting private land but that only lasted a few years. Now that drawing tags was much easier and more predictable, outfitters were more willing to enter into a antelope lease knowing that it was likely the hunters they needed to pay for the lease would draw tags and soon much of the best private was leased. It was a perfect example of more opportunity resulting in more commercialization.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Didn’t seem to be as many around Ennis as we’ve typically seen over the years. Did seem to be very few fawns. Maybe one to every four does.

 

[antlerradar]

It's a great question, I have some theories, but all of it is speculation. So here goes: I'd mostly guess it is because significantly more Montanans live in the western half of the state, and, historically, the antelope numbers are far higher in the eastern half. The western half is more tightly managed because of the number of people compared to the carrying capacity of the landscape.

I don't think restricting hunters in the 700s to just a single unit is going to make landowners more likely to freely open their gates or big bucks to appear on the landscape though. Those days are gone. There's too much money to be gained from outfitting, leasing, or programs like LandTrust.

As @DougStickney pointed out above, money is priority #1. Don't get me wrong, I don't think these people are being greedy. If ranching isn't panning out and someone needs to make a livelihood, it isn't their fault that they make the logical choice to make money instead of foster goodwill with a bunch of hunters. One puts food on the table, the other doesn't. The failures largely fall with those in charge for prioritizing monetization over the resource.

It is no mystery. FWP in region seven is committed to management using the law of diminishing returns. Absolute insanity. I have my doubts that the law of diminishing returns worked that well back in the 70's when access was good just about everywhere. Big failure now that access is restricted. Hunters just move from one over hunted block of public to another.

 

[Elky Welky]

It was no fantasy, Must have been about 1980...

43 years ago, which was my point in my comment. It is a fantasy now. To think we can go back to the "good ol' days" simply isn't realistic. There were about 787,000 people total living in MT in 1980, and 1.1 million now. You're talking about long before the internet started helping nonresident hunters get tags for western states, YouTube videos showing how great antelope hunting is, mapping technology showing people where they can hunt, and at least two more generations of hunters hit the landscape. Not to mention advances in agricultural technology, changes in climate, and so many other factors. Further, when I talk with my family that lived in Baker back in the 60s and 70s, antelope were seen as more of a pest than a resource, and their meat wasn't considered the best. Now, antelope hunting is a commodity that can be monetized like everything else.

So even though it may have been that way once, there is no going back. Change is inevitable, so let's work with what we have now.

 

[huntin24/7]

I don’t really think anyone is arguing or believes that we can get back to the good old days. A lot of things in the world have changed that make that basically impossible. But a lot can be changed management wise in regards to our big game species to make things better, particularly in the western states where demand for tags has become so strong.

 

[Elky Welky]

I don’t really think anyone is arguing or believes that we can get back to the good old days. A lot of things in the world have changed that make that basically impossible. But a lot can be changed management wise in regards to our big game species to make things better, particularly in the western states where demand for tags has become so strong.

That was my point. Some here are using the good old days as the standard to compare with today's management, and that will always be a disappointing and futile comparison. Management needs to be assessed by today's standards, not yesteryear's.