Montana Deer

[Flatbrimmer]

I’m sorry for region 7s loss of mule deer. I really am. But this is silly to me still… we take elk and bring them all over. We relocate problem bears around the state.. why can’t we just take some from 3?. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds.. Things are like cockroaches….

 

[antlerradar]

@MTTW can not decide if he should laugh or cry right now.

 

[JEL]

I would argue that he decline started in 87, that was the best year I ever experienced, My father tells me that the 60's were even better and my 90+ year old neighbor may argue that the 50's were the best of all. The 2000's may have seamed great to you, but the decline was well underway by then.
I started hunting 704 in 1978 when I turned twelve, plenty has changed since then. Back then it was for the most part an A tag, fill that and you were hunting birds the rest of the season. Now we have added multiple mule deer doe tags, Whitetail doe tags, A and B elk tags, bear and lion licenses. We have also increased the amount of time hunters are in the field. Back in 78 almost no one hunted archery, now with elk archery is nearly as crowded as is general rifle. In addition we have moved the opener to Saturday, added a two day youth season and a muzzleloader season. It all adds up to a lot more hunter days in the field and near constant pressure for three and a half months. Is it any wonder that the biggest chance in my life time has been the migration of mule deer from the public hills to the private river and creek bottoms.

I am not a big blame it on predators guy, but in 1978 lions and bears numbers were close to zero and coyotes were worth big money compared to today.

The first hunting leases started shortly after I started hunting. The winter of 78 may be the spark that got leasing started and once started leasing snowballed in a hurry. The winter of 78 started around Nov 10th when we got more than a foot of snow, that snow and a whole lot more was still with us in April. It could not have been worse for the deer and numbers plummeted. Before 78 outfitters did not pay for leases, there was just no need, deer and quality deer were plentiful. Seventy eight changed that, now that deer were few, in order to ensure quality deer for you clients you needed pay landowners for exclusive hunting.

For years FWP has relied on the Law of Diminishing Returns (when the hunting is poor in one place, hunters will self regulate to where the hunting is better) to manage hunter distribution. I have my doubts that the Law of Diminishing Returns ever worked well in the past and it is totally ineffective now,yet it is still relied on by FWP to manage hunter distribution. For the Law of Diminishing Returns to work you need to have good access to most of the animals. We no longer have the access needed and hunters are simply going from one over hunted parcel of public to another. The more game spices you have the less effective the Law of Diminishing Returns will be. You can see this with the addition of elk. In the past when deer numbers were down some hunters would go else were and the deer would get a little break. Now hunters just shift to hunting elk and they still have a deer tag in their pocket. The result is deer never get a break even when numbers are low.

Hunters are just a lot better at hunting, you could write a book on the reasons why. My father summed it up. " When I guided in the 60's and 70's we got a some big deer, we saw a lot more that got way that wouldn't of today." As hunters we are quick to adopt all the information and technology that makes us more effective. We can not expect game herds to maintain if we refuse to adjust else were.

This is spot on. I would add one thing. Displacement by elk. I hunted the Bear Paws a ton in the 80's. Mule deer were in great abundance. I saw my first elk out there in 1989. Elk numbers grew. Deer numbers fell. I believe this also happened in SE MT. I saw my first elk out there in 1995.

 

[TimberBuck]

I’m sorry for region 7s loss of mule deer. I really am. But this is silly to me still… we take elk and bring them all over. We relocate problem bears around the state.. why can’t we just take some from 3?. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds.. Things are like cockroaches….

 

[MTTW]

@MTTW can not decide if he should laugh or cry right now.

I think posts like his illustrate just why the Mule deer problem will not be fixed. My experience of 50 years in the mountains of SW MT and my opinion have the same value as @FoodIsMemories opinion and experience, and FWP would much rather hear his. There are 100 hunters like him to each one like you, me, or a few others on these threads.

As much as it makes me want to cry, I am moving on from trying to learn to hunt Mule deer. I believe that if I put half of the energy in to learning to hunt big bulls that I have put into mule deer I will be much more productive. Half of the energy is about what I have at this age. Good luck with your quest to educate hunters and ultimately MTFWP. You have your work cut out for you.

 

[antlerradar]

This is spot on. I would add one thing. Displacement by elk. I hunted the Bear Paws a ton in the 80's. Mule deer were in great abundance. I saw my first elk out there in 1989. Elk numbers grew. Deer numbers fell. I believe this also happened in SE MT. I saw my first elk out there in 1995.

The same is happening, Not sure if it is the elk or just the people the elk attract. Could be both, but until the last few years of drought, some of the big ranches that were overflowing with elk also had no shortage of deer. The drought has changed that and now they have elk, but deer numbers have crashed and burned.

 

[Luis]

There are a lot of units in the eastern half of MT with confirmed CWD. Hunters that hunted in those CWD units (region 5 & region 6) are hunting further east now. That has impacted the mule deer population in the 700 units for several years now.

 

[Raisin Bran]

I think posts like his illustrate just why the Mule deer problem will not be fixed. My experience of 50 years in the mountains of SW MT and my opinion have the same value as @FoodIsMemories opinion and experience, and FWP would much rather hear his. There are 100 hunters like him to each one like you, me, or a few others on these threads.

As much as it makes me want to cry, I am moving on from trying to learn to hunt Mule deer. I believe that if I put half of the energy in to learning to hunt big bulls that I have put into mule deer I will be much more productive. Half of the energy is about what I have at this age. Good luck with your quest to educate hunters and ultimately MTFWP. You have your work cut out for you.

Well said and right on! I am right there with you. In my opinion the Mule Deer decline started when the Elk started to grow and move into Mule Deer habitat. Throw in the clowns at the MT FWP and we have ourselves a real circus!

My money and energy will be chasing Elk. Hopefully one day we can come back to Mule Deer.

 

[Unlucky]

How do explain private lands that have large numbers of both elk and deer? Only thing i see different is management.

 

[brockel]

Well said and right on! I am right there with you. In my opinion the Mule Deer decline started when the Elk started to grow and move into Mule Deer habitat. Throw in the clowns at the MT FWP and we have ourselves a real circus!

My money and energy will be chasing Elk. Hopefully one day we can come back to Mule Deer.

Very few elk in Fallon county and what there is is in small pockets . Mule deer numbers still on a rapid decline

 

[brockel]

I’m sorry for region 7s loss of mule deer. I really am. But this is silly to me still… we take elk and bring them all over. We relocate problem bears around the state.. why can’t we just take some from 3?. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds.. Things are like cockroaches….

So fwp can kill them off too? How about we manage the ones we already have. Wouldn’t take much change in management to make big changes in numbers

 

[Raisin Bran]

Very few elk in Fallon county and what there is is in small pockets . Mule deer numbers still on a rapid decline

Probably so but Fallon county has never been the ”meca” mule deer county of Mt either.

 

[brockel]

Probably so but Fallon county has never been the ”meca” mule deer county of Mt either.

Decline is still happening rapidly

 

[Flatbrimmer]

So fwp can kill them off too? How about we manage the ones we already have. Wouldn’t take much change in management to make big changes in numbers

You know when I said that, I really didn’t think about the potential for disease spreading. Or that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to transport even just 100 mule deer across the regions, which likely wouldn’t help the population greatly.. Or the fact that those transported ones would decline in the same way as the local population. That don’t sound like FWP is killing them to me. We all want solutions…

 

[brockel]

You know when I said that, I really didn’t think about the potential for disease spreading. Or that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to transport even just 100 mule deer across the regions, which likely wouldn’t help the population greatly.. Or the fact that those transported ones would decline in the same way as the local population. That don’t sound like FWP is killing them to me. We all want solutions…

I guess if we are going to continue to pump out doe tags for all of region 7 I don’t see why we should be talking about transplanting them from other regions just so we can continue to have doe tags

 

[Raisin Bran]

I guess if we are going to continue to pump out doe tags for all of region 7 I don’t see why we should be talking about transplanting them from other regions just so we can continue to have doe tags

Elk is where the gold is at! Just ask the FWP. A few more years and those Elk herds will be good sized and all your worries will be gone! (Sarcasm in case you didn’t pick that up) Heck! Think about how many more NR tags would be sold?

I am going to stop now….I depress myself more just thinking about how bad it has gotten and will get !

 

[Ought Six]

I think posts like his illustrate just why the Mule deer problem will not be fixed. My experience of 50 years in the mountains of SW MT and my opinion have the same value as @FoodIsMemories opinion and experience, and FWP would much rather hear his. There are 100 hunters like him to each one like you, me, or a few others on these threads.

As much as it makes me want to cry, I am moving on from trying to learn to hunt Mule deer. I believe that if I put half of the energy in to learning to hunt big bulls that I have put into mule deer I will be much more productive. Half of the energy is about what I have at this age. Good luck with your quest to educate hunters and ultimately MTFWP. You have your work cut out for you.

You can “hunt” big mule deer all you want, but you can’t kill what isn’t there anymore… I agree the effort is better put into elk in today’s world no matter how passionate I am about mule deer hunting

 

[dodgermax]

At least people are starting to talk and blog about it I guess…

Montana Region 7 Deer Populations Cut In Half - Eastmans' Official Blog | Mule Deer, Antelope, Elk Hunting and Bowhunting Magazine | Eastmans' Hunting Journals

The Montana deer population survey numbers for 2022 were published late last year and show that mule

blog.eastmans.com

Well, we keep killing and hunting them. What do we expect?

 

[Pagosa]

I personally don’t think it’s elk moving into these areas is the reason for the mule deer decline. I work periodically in Carter, Fallon, Wibeaux, and Richland counties on pipeline projects and there is only very scattered highly mobile elk populations that cross back and forth. With the fires in Custer and the Long Pines excellent regrowth of bitterbrush, aspen pockets, grasses/forbs, etc is ongoing and in excellent shape this last season and even five years ago before this recent drought. This drought effected mule deer and whitetail on larger ranches that were highly controlled and didn’t allow almost any hunting. So the drought did affect the deer herds. There is no accurate number on the total number of mule deer bucks/does, and whitetail harvested, wounded, or killed in Southeast Montana. But just driving through either Hwy 212, 59, 200, etc there is very minimal roadkill as compared to the early 2000s when I first visited that area. The easiest solution is to limit tags and don’t shoot the does since we can’t control the drought. This population could rebound in 3/5 years of limited hunting and good range conditions. Lastly, I don’t think the harvest was very good in the area we hunted last year, it was pretty quiet.


Whitetail aren’t there either, even along the private ranches along the Little Missouri. They seem to have disappeared

 

[Badlandcat]

Probably so but Fallon county has never been the ”meca” mule deer county of Mt either.

Apparently, you never hunted Fallon County in the 80's, before the doe massacre started!!