Montana General Season Structure Proposal

[The Hedgehog]

It's already a done thing. October mule deer hunt.

Wanna bet? How's this sound? When we have an October general rifle deer season, I'll pay you $500. But, for every year before that happens, you pay me $50 starting in 2025.

Meaning - you only lose if it takes 10 years but then you keep losing $50 a year until it happens, if ever.

 

[Rie Bread]

I love the late bow season, hardly anyone out, but I guess that depends on where you go. I personally look forward to an October rifle season to get up into the high country

 

[Tukudeka]

Disagreements over mule deer management particulars abound. Season dates, public vs private, weapons, tag allocations, season lengths, non-resident participation etc. are argued over at length. it is clear that lot of folks are disappointed in their current "opportunity" and think Montana mule deer management needs changes that are tenable to FWP and MT residents and the objective of those changes to achieve "good" mule deer hunting. With an objective that ambiguous, it seems nearly any combination of mule deer demographics, abundance, and composition would suffice. Thus, FWP is left to use their best social science, which a lot of folks despise, to make the difficult management decisions. Looking at FWP data, they are following it nearly perfectly.

Therefore, should we as the public trust focus on communicating our specific desires for the difficult resource management goal decisions and leave the tool choice decisions to the folks we pay to get us there?

 

[Gerald Martin]

[QUOTE="Tukudeka, post: 3781793, member: …. Thus, FWP is left to use their best social science, which a lot of folks despise, to make the difficult management decisions.

Should we as the public trust focus on communicating our desires for the difficult resource management goal decisions and leave the tool choice decisions to the folks we pay to get us there? Why do we care so much about the latter?
[/QUOTE]

Probably in part because FWP has shown a great deal of reluctance to acknowledge that mule deer and public land hunting isn’t great and make any tool choice decisions on their own.

 

[Carnage2011]

I think you’re making plenty of assumptions that I disagree with and would argue are just flat wrong.

I have hunted October deer seadons in other states so I know how tough the hunting is.

In these other states the elk don’t get moved like your stating by the deer hunters when the seadons aren’t concurrent.

I only have so much leave. I will have to decide when to use it. If I don’t have a tag for every thing that moves that means I won’t opportunity harvest mule deer in November when I am elk hunting.

These are the main points you just flat have wrong imo.

In those other states are the tags limited? Or are there 100k+ people running around?

Elk will move. No question about it. Whether or not the private season has an effect on moving elk back to public is the question. I don't think we'll see hardly anyone allowing access during the October elk season though.

You speak pretty bold words about him being wrong, but the reality is we have no idea what will happen with these proposals. You can't say anyone is flat out wrong when no one (literally no other state) allows 187,000 hunters on the landscape at the same time. I too have hunted other states and watched how elk react to indirect pressure. The difference is 800 tags in the unit as opposed to 10k.

Also, ShedGod might play coy about mule deer as he's never shot one. He is also a fairly picky hunter and his brothers have stacked up some of the better Mule Deer bucks I've seen in MT. Just because grammar isn't his strong point doesn't mean the guy doesn't spend a ton of time in the hills.

 

[DFS]

In those other states are the tags limited? Or are there 100k+ people running around?

Elk will move. No question about it. Whether or not the private season has an effect on moving elk back to public is the question. I don't think we'll see hardly anyone allowing access during the October elk season though.

You speak pretty bold words about him being wrong, but the reality is we have no idea what will happen with these proposals. You can't say anyone is flat out wrong when no one (literally no other state) allows 187,000 hunters on the landscape at the same time. I too have hunted other states and watched how elk react to indirect pressure. The difference is 800 tags in the unit as opposed to 10k.

Also, ShedGod might play coy about mule deer as he's never shot one. He is also a fairly picky hunter and his brothers have stacked up some of the better Mule Deer bucks I've seen in MT. Just because grammar isn't his strong point doesn't mean the guy doesn't spend a ton of time in the hills.

We could keep things the same. The most likely scenario. We have about 70 years of anecdotal experience how that works.

 

[rogerthat]

In those other states are the tags limited? Or are there 100k+ people running around?

Elk will move. No question about it. Whether or not the private season has an effect on moving elk back to public is the question. I don't think we'll see hardly anyone allowing access during the October elk season though.

You speak pretty bold words about him being wrong, but the reality is we have no idea what will happen with these proposals. You can't say anyone is flat out wrong when no one (literally no other state) allows 187,000 hunters on the landscape at the same time. I too have hunted other states and watched how elk react to indirect pressure. The difference is 800 tags in the unit as opposed to 10k.

Also, ShedGod might play coy about mule deer as he's never shot one. He is also a fairly picky hunter and his brothers have stacked up some of the better Mule Deer bucks I've seen in MT. Just because grammar isn't his strong point doesn't mean the guy doesn't spend a ton of time in the hills.

General season wyoming units. Guns are a blazing at the deer and the bulls are bugling.

To be accurate, I said he makes assumptions that I THINK are wrong. I stand by that statement. I think he is wrong with his assumptions.
1). Deer hunting pressure does not equal elk hunting pressure. I don’t think deer hunters are going to move the elk like he thinks. They don’t in the Wyoming units I have hunted.
2. October buck hunting is damn tough. He thought 10% survival of bucks because of all the hunters. Hell even now with the full on rut hunting it’s better than that. I say flood the hills in October. Most people will give up or shoot the first buck they see in the first half dozen days of hunting which is great. Buck sightings/hunter day are going to be down. Disagree? But we would still have our annual opportunity.
3. Limited entry is not the end all be all. It is the death knell of hunting in its most limited form. Figuring out a way to keep it general season is the best for our hunting heritage. Keep participation high and continue the hunting traditions. I been there. I too at one time thought limited entry was the only way but it’s not. Don’t need to look further than our southern and western borders to see that.

It’s obvious you guys are buddies. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelers. I still think his assumptions are flat wrong and his opinions would change if he would go hunt some other states.

 

[DFS]

The easiest fix is limited entry doesn’t seem to be much appetite for that. The plan trys to prevent that. Montanans love their opportunity. I predict 30 more years of bad hunting getting worse when this all shakes out.

 

[antlerradar]

In those other states are the tags limited? Or are there 100k+ people running around?

Elk will move. No question about it. Whether or not the private season has an effect on moving elk back to public is the question. I don't think we'll see hardly anyone allowing access during the October elk season though.

You speak pretty bold words about him being wrong, but the reality is we have no idea what will happen with these proposals. You can't say anyone is flat out wrong when no one (literally no other state) allows 187,000 hunters on the landscape at the same time. I too have hunted other states and watched how elk react to indirect pressure. The difference is 800 tags in the unit as opposed to 10k.

The good thing is we will not be stacking 187,000 hunters on the landscape at one time if people have to choose between Oct mule deer and Nov whitetail and we will be spreading the pressure out over 8 weeks instead of the current big crush of the majority of the hunters stacked in the two and a half weeks around the middle of Nov.

 

[antlerradar]

The easiest fix is limited entry doesn’t seem to be much appetite for that. The plan trys to prevent that. Montanans love their opportunity. I predict 30 more years of bad hunting getting worse when this all shakes out.

optimist

 

[Elktrack]

optimist

More like truth speaker

 

[The Hedgehog]

All I know is what we’re doing now is absolutely not working. We’ll have to just be content with awful public land deer hunting.

If any other state with resident general hunting proposed a move to manage like we do, all hunters would be in a crazed protest.

We’ve got maybe 100,000 resident hunters that will fight to keep things as is and the FWP is clearly not interested in any meaningful action.

Something as brain-dead obviously needed is mandatory harvest reporting and unbiased hunter surveys. They are for some reason not interested in going that direction. Perhaps bad or incomplete data is the only way to support their terrible inaction or decisions they make.

Dunno. I applied in Arizona today.

 

[Carnage2011]

We could keep things the same. The most likely scenario. We have about 70 years of anecdotal experience how that works.

I didn’t say that. If you have read the last 65 pages you’d see that I have specifically said I support this proposal. I’m saying that we can speculate about what these changes would do but we really have no idea.

 

[antlerradar]

I say flood the hills in October. Most people will give up or shoot the first buck they see in the first half dozen days of hunting which is great.

This is important. We as hunters want to be selective, but being selective is not doing the deer herd any favors. Anything that FWP can do to make hunters less selective will be better for the deer. Make hunters whine, yes, but better for the deer trumps whiners.

 

[antlerradar]

Dunno. I applied in Arizona today.

I got a rejection letter from CO today.

 

[DFS]

I didn’t say that. If you have read the last 65 pages you’d see that I have specifically said I support this proposal. I’m saying that we can speculate about what these changes would do but we really have no idea.

We should probably wait for fwp to collect the data. I will be in my grave by then.

 

[Carnage2011]

General season wyoming units. Guns are a blazing at the deer and the bulls are bugling.

To be accurate, I said he makes assumptions that I THINK are wrong. I stand by that statement. I think he is wrong with his assumptions.
1). Deer hunting pressure does not equal elk hunting pressure. I don’t think deer hunters are going to move the elk like he thinks. They don’t in the Wyoming units I have hunted.
2. October buck hunting is damn tough. He thought 10% survival of bucks because of all the hunters. Hell even now with the full on rut hunting it’s better than that. I say flood the hills in October. Most people will give up or shoot the first buck they see in the first half dozen days of hunting which is great. Buck sightings/hunter day are going to be down. Disagree? But we would still have our annual opportunity.
3. Limited entry is not the end all be all. It is the death knell of hunting in its most limited form. Figuring out a way to keep it general season is the best for our hunting heritage. Keep participation high and continue the hunting traditions. I been there. I too at one time thought limited entry was the only way but it’s not. Don’t need to look further than our southern and western borders to see that.

It’s obvious you guys are buddies. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelers. I still think his assumptions are flat wrong and his opinions would change if he would go hunt some other states.

I don’t disagree with a lot of what you are saying. I’m just not convinced we are comparing apples to apples. Wyoming general still has a fraction of the hunters that MT does. Their population is much lower and their public land is significantly different.

I’m not opposed to this proposal. I’m just pointing out that it may not be as cut and dry as “Wyoming does it so it works.”

I’m also still waiting to hear how the success or non-success of this would be measured? I think @The Hedgehog is right when he talks about Mandatory reporting. If we want change then their needs to be some sort of measurable goal. Maybe it’s a 20:100 buck to doe ratio? Maybe its an older average age of harvest? Maybe it’s less hunter days per harvest? I don’t know the answer but if we don’t have something measurable then we won’t know what impacts these changes make.

I wouldn’t say shedgod and I are buddies lol We haven’t seen each other in 15 years. We just live 40 miles apart and have spent a lot of time in the same country. I run into his brothers a few times a year.

 

[rogerthat]

I didn’t say that. If you have read the last 65 pages you’d see that I have specifically said I support this proposal. I’m saying that we can speculate about what these changes would do but we really have no idea.

Don’t you think experienced hunters have some idea what is going to happen when changes are proposed? For example let’s use Colorado pushing their season dates a week later. We knew this was going to make the bigger older more mature bucks more vulnerable to harvest right? And it did.

To me, this proposal isn’t that earth shattering like some are making it. Other states have similar seasons and get by okay. That’s what I am saying, this isn’t reinventing the wheel but I will agree for each specific unit it would be different because they are different so your right we wouldn’t know exactly how it would play out. I’m sure some things could be worse in some units.

 

[Elktrack]

This speaks to the issue. Makes everyone’s work on this seem futile. Forgive me if this has been posted. I’m trying to stay positive but at this point I’m not confident FWP has the fortitude to make any changes. Trying to keep quiet as I’m just a dirty NR but it’s painful watching this

The Systematic Evisceration of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks - Flathead Beacon

If there is one thing every business owner, rancher, and manager agrees on, it’s that if you don’t have good people, you don’t have much. And if there’s one thing Montanans (and, increasingly, outsiders) know, it’s how good our hunting and fishing opportunities generally are. They make life here...

flatheadbeacon.com

 

[antlerradar]

I don’t disagree with a lot of what you are saying. I’m just not convinced we are comparing apples to apples. Wyoming general still has a fraction of the hunters that MT does. Their population is much lower and their public land is significantly different.

Wyoming sold roughly 136K hunting licenses last year, Montana roughly 200k. Wyoming is 2/3rds the size of Montana. Hunter numbers per mile are just not that different. WY does have more Public land and I didn't take the time to look into how much land is off limites in both states.