Montana General Season Structure Proposal

[mtmuley]

No, Ben Lamb’s shadow organization is accused of paying for this.

Full transparency on my financial windfall for this process.

Splitting a motel room three ways with Randy & Justin. $50 out of pocket.

Dinner at Dave’s Hot Chicken in Billings. 15.00 Highly recommend- 4/4 stars would eat there again. Get the chicken slider platter/ one hot/ one mild.

A tank of gas for Randy’s truck since I carpooled to Billings with him. $60 out of pocket.

Cost of groceries for lunch fixings and pasta salad. $25 out of pocket plus the Tupperware bowl that Randy still has because we couldn’t get his frozen lock on the topper to open.

I did get to eat Art’s beef since he supplied the hamburger for lunch burgers at our meeting. That’s probably worth about $50 since they were really good burgers.

Ben bought me dinner in Bozeman at Sidewinders on the tail end of one of his trips. That was @$21 for a great chicken fried steak.


Whatever that’s tallied up to be is how much I’ve made so far…

Big spenders. Big thanks to you guys. mtmuley

 

[peterk1234]

I live across from canyon ferry, tried to rattle in a wt for the 14y/o. It was fun, couple small ones came in. Even put a coon skin cap on her. I’d do it again. Didn’t see another human. On a sat/sun

Spot burn. You won't be alone next season

 

[Doublecluck]

Spot burn. You won't be alone next season

Wait till @Flatbrimmer finds out we killed 11 6 pt bulls on public land roughly 18 miles behind his house over the last 10 years.

 

[Forkyfinder]

No, Ben Lamb’s shadow organization is accused of paying for this.

Full transparency on my financial windfall for this process.

Splitting a motel room three ways with Randy & Justin. $50 out of pocket.

Dinner at Dave’s Hot Chicken in Billings. 15.00 Highly recommend- 4/4 stars would eat there again. Get the chicken slider platter/ one hot/ one mild.

A tank of gas for Randy’s truck since I carpooled to Billings with him. $60 out of pocket.

Cost of groceries for lunch fixings and pasta salad. $25 out of pocket plus the Tupperware bowl that Randy still has because we couldn’t get his frozen lock on the topper to open.

I did get to eat Art’s beef since he supplied the hamburger for lunch burgers at our meeting. That’s probably worth about $50 since they were really good burgers.

Ben bought me dinner in Bozeman at Sidewinders on the tail end of one of his trips. That was @$21 for a great chicken fried steak.

Time in the presence of the illustrious personalities credited with participating in crafting this proposal- Priceless
Whatever that’s tallied up to be is how much I’ve made so far…

Lol what would someone benefit pushing this?

If anything potlical money here has the opposite effects and incentives. Facebook is like walmart of social media - you dont see soceities best there often.

 

[BuzzH]

No, Ben Lamb’s shadow organization is accused of paying for this.

Full transparency on my financial windfall for this process.

Splitting a motel room three ways with Randy & Justin. $50 out of pocket.

Dinner at Dave’s Hot Chicken in Billings. 15.00 Highly recommend- 4/4 stars would eat there again. Get the chicken slider platter/ one hot/ one mild.

A tank of gas for Randy’s truck since I carpooled to Billings with him. $60 out of pocket.

Cost of groceries for lunch fixings and pasta salad. $25 out of pocket plus the Tupperware bowl that Randy still has because we couldn’t get his frozen lock on the topper to open.

I did get to eat Art’s beef since he supplied the hamburger for lunch burgers at our meeting. That’s probably worth about $50 since they were really good burgers.

Ben bought me dinner in Bozeman at Sidewinders on the tail end of one of his trips. That was @$21 for a great chicken fried steak.

Time in the presence of the illustrious personalities credited with participating in crafting this proposal- Priceless
Whatever that’s tallied up to be is how much I’ve made so far…

Sounds about right for advocacy work...best job money can buy.

 

[Flatbrimmer]

Wait till @Flatbrimmer finds out we killed 11 6 pt bulls on public land roughly 18 miles behind his house over the last 10 years.

Way to rub that in? Congrats?

 

[Hem]

You might be missing out. Sorry to derail but I'm betting a lot of hunters hammering dinks during the rut can't claim the "birth right". SMH. mtmuley

You are stuck with me a few valleys over.

 

[antlerradar]

Ben Lamb just got accused of funding these shenanigans on Montanica. How much money are all you guys making out of this?

I almost want to sign up for facebook to join in on the entertainment, Not quite there yet though.

 

[Lota lota]

Good afternoon folks. We all know that the current status of mule deer in Montana is a topic of great interest and debate. Many folks who have hunted mule deer for decades have expressed frustration and alarm over the downward trend in both quantity of mule deer and quality of hunting experience under the status quo of mule deer management.

Back in February, a group of us met to discuss the future of mule deer after spending years complaining about it online. The group was comprised of volunteers from each region of Montana and included landowners, outfitters, public land hunters and folks with a lot of experience interacting with FWP and the Montana Legislature on wildlife management issues.

During that day long meeting, the group of 9 members of Hunt Talk discussed a variety of concerns ranging from season structure to predation to habitat issues.

There was unanimous consensus among the group that the health of mule deer and other wildlife resources must be priority in making management decisions. It was also unanimously agreed upon that our current management policies are no longer sustainable without causing degradation to mule deer.

Out of that conversation it was agreed upon that the lowest hanging fruit, and perhaps one of the most important to address was the way that Montana has structured it's general hunting seasons over the last 40 years.


Montana is an opportunity state, which is both a blessing and a curse. The North American Model calls for the democratization and egalitarian allocation of the wildlife resource and that is something that this group wanted to maintain. When we looked at overall herd numbers (we're at the bottom end of the 10 year cycle), loss of habitat and the large influx of both resident and non-resident hunters, it became clear that sustaining a liberal harvest strategy on mule deer was going to be problematic.

Also, the group recognized that while the growth of doe licenses has been severely curbed both through legislation (SB 281) and the Commission decisions that eliminated doe hunting in Regions 6 & 7, mule deer were still going to be at higher risk during the standard season structure. In order to bring back our mule deer herds, improve hunting strategies for elk to increase hunter efficacy and reduce overall the number of days it takes to harvest an animal, the group developed the following proposal.

Last week we released drafts of this proposal to various conservation organizations and to FWP for their consideration to begin gathering support for the proposed changes or for input on how to improve our proposals.

If you want more detail, read the attached PDF as these are just the bare-bones highlights.

The Big Change to Deer Hunting:

1.) Deer: Choose your region, choose your species: The idea is to spread around pressure and move the mule deer hunt out of the rut. Hunters must select a region and a species to hunt. This does not limit the hunter on OTC regional B licenses or unit specific B licenses. If you wish to hunt antlered mule deer in eastern Montana, who have to declare the region and the species. This limits your antlered hunting to that area, but you still may utilize a B license in the unit it is valid.

What doesn't change:

1.) Limited entry districts do not revert to the new general season structure, as they have limited pressure already, and can sustain longer general seasons.
2.) The backcountry hunts in the Scapegoat and Bob Marshall, Absaroka Wilderness, etc. stay the same.
3.) Two day youth hunt remains the same. Youth hunters during this two day season will not be limited to single region only and may hunt whitetail or mule deer in accordance with the regulations of the unit they are hunting.


Basic Season Structure:
August 25 - September 30th: Archery for whitetail, mule deer and elk

October 1 - October 31: Antlered Mule Deer. Doe harvest by permit only

October Cow Elk Season: Private land only, two weeks in length applied in the middle of mule deer season.

November 1-30: General Whitetail and Elk season. Liberal cow seasons on private land, permitted/licensed on public with very tight limitations to reduce hunter pressure.

December 7-16: Muzzleloader season

December 10-25: Additional Cow only season.

The cow seasons are meant to provide a meaningful alternative to shoulder seasons, which after a decade of use have both good and bad results. The idea on cow seasons is to focus pressure on areas that need it over a shorter period of time in order to “shock” elk back on to public land where tolerance is far higher and to assist biologists in bringing elk populations closer to objective in over objective units.


Montanans value the opportunity to hunt deer and elk at the same time. They value opportunity above antler size. We believe that this proposal will do several things to guarantee and improve opportunity for future generations by giving up just a tiny fraction of our opportunity today.

This proposal does not call for more limited entry areas, nor does it call for regional caps to limit hunter mobility. We have worked with outfitters, landowners and DIY public land hunters to pull this together to a place where we feel like it's ready for people to review and hopefully support.

I’d like to acknowledge the folks involved in bringing these proposals into what we are presenting here @bigsky2 (Jess Wagner), @cgasner1 (Chris Gasner), @Schaaf ( Justin Schaaf), @Gerald Martin,(Gerald Martin) @MTTW (Tim Willson) @Randy11 ( RandyHodges) @antlerradar (Art Hayes III), @Eric Albus , ( Eric Albus)and @Big Shooter (Rod Paschke) I also like to thank @Ben Lamb for helping facilitate the meeting and organizing our ideas into a coherent proposal.

Thank God!! I'm glad something is going to be done about this!

 

[Elky Welky]

@Gerald Martin Dave’s Hot Chicken is significantly better than Chik fil A. There. I said it. Most controversial thing I’ve ever said on hunt talk.

But back to the topic at hand (3 days turkey hunting and look what I missed! 20 pages in!), I commend the volunteer effort you all made to put these ideas on paper and seek consensus. That’s not easy.

There’s some no brainers in here: pay biologists better, mandatory reporting.

There’s also a lot to chew on, and I’m happily surprised to see such thoughtful discussion here. First @DFS and @The Hedgehog go in on raffle tix, and now everyone is engaging in a forward and critical thinking fueled conversation. I’m wondering if I stepped into some kind of wormhole to an alternate reality.

I’m still taking this all in and have not really formed any opinion, nor do I think it’s fair to just react without giving this a thorough review. But I’m interested in seeing where this all goes, and again, hats off for jumping in the fire.

 

[The Hedgehog]

I almost want to sign up for facebook to join in on the entertainment, Not quite there yet though.

Don’t do it. Guaranteed to make you mad and dumber for every comment you read. It’s the spawn of the Toby Bridges types.. how DARE YOU take away our “opportunity”.

 

[The Hedgehog]

There’s also a lot to chew on, and I’m happily surprised to see such thoughtful discussion here. First @DFS and @The Hedgehog go in on raffle tix, and now everyone is engaging in a forward and critical thinking fueled conversation.

Don’t chew too hard. I only splurged for a single $20 raffle ticket because of the guilt you were throwing out about “blaming” some organization. In honestly would not give a MT deer supertag more than a couple weekends. Both my kids drew 1% type deer permits and I’d likley just shoot a 2 point while hunting with them.

 

[Lota lota]

Don’t do it. Guaranteed to make you mad and dumber for every comment you read. It’s the spawn of the Toby Bridges types.. how DARE YOU take away our “opportunity”.

That's exactly right! It's worth the watch though...they get down right nuts on there!

 

[rogerthat]

I find myself on the fence often when it comes to elk and archery. I love calling in bulls, don’t like so much when they end up with arrows in them and don’t die. Still one of my favorite times of year.

I think my point is though that I see value in methods that increase opportunity/quality even if it means losing general tags/season length. That’s coming from someone who has no emotional attachment to those methods or any particular season or structure. Also the reason I rarely comment on these threads.

Don’t take bad shots and they won’t end up with arrows in them and not die.

 

[Irishman]

As a group we welcome your feedback on these proposals. I’m anticipating significant discussion to occur about this proposal and a lot of interest from readers who may not normally interact on the forum. I’d like to request that members refrain from hijacking this post into anything that descends into personal attacks or tangents that degrade our conversation.

What's the logic behind adding a week during the heat of August for elk archery, and taking away a week in October?

 

[MTelkHuntress]

I somehow made it through this whole thread in one day. I then went over to the Montanica FB page to find some very passionate opinions. I think someone had a good point on here about the FB page, the comments show how quite of few folks want to keep their opportunity no matter what. There are lots of folks that will not want to give up anything but will want others to. However, it is obvious that a lot of people agree that mule deer numbers are down and something needs to change.
It is amazing how quickly these proposals got around to people.

I printed off the pdf page and scribbled on it quite a bit. I think it's a good step put together by some thoughtful folks.
Like others, I don't agree with everything in the proposal, but this is a pretty big and important conversation that needs to be had. It is refreshing to see folks come together and put in some real effort for change. I just hope it goes somewhere positive.

 

[antlerradar]

Don’t do it. Guaranteed to make you mad and dumber for every comment you read. It’s the spawn of the Toby Bridges types.. how DARE YOU take away our “opportunity”.

To all the people worried about their opportunity to shoot a forky from the road. It might be time to lace them boots up a little tighter.

 

[Straight Arrow]

I almost want to sign up for facebook to join in on the entertainment, Not quite there yet though.

Don't join Farcebook! You are already busily engaged elsewhere with good stuff that makes a positive difference.

 

[rogerthat]

I think the majority of my friends could be convinced to give up general seasons/rut hunting for more better managed quality LE units. I'm not saying everyone in the state go out with a smoke pole in the Rut, which is what it seems somehow my comment has been interpreted as. Rn we put in for the hardest to draw le units in the state for deer and elk and I’m not really convinced were gonna get anything that we couldn’t on a general tag if we draw those tags. If I’m Joe public what do I gain by giving any of that up. nothing.

15-20 LE 380 ML tags or 100 LE 410 mule deer tags in the rut.

I think a lot of people could be persuaded to give up their birth right to whack a 130” mule if they knew every 3,5,10 years they had good odds at a quality hunt.

I realize that’s not the norm.

There would be a smattering of old age good genetic bucks out there with an October season. Funny how many people miss that point. So if you’re into big bucks that’s what you gain. If not you can continue to smash dinks. That doesn’t change

 

[Gerald Martin]

What's the logic behind adding a week during the heat of August for elk archery, and taking away a week in October?

The removal of October from archery season is to make space for the Oct. mule deer season.

The addition of the first week of archery starting earlier is so that archers only lose one week of their season just like everyone else.