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Montana General Season Structure Proposal

I said u best me
Not about who is the best, there is always someone better, Your neighbor Mr Philips has a better Mule deer antler collection than me. It is that found the antlers I did in an OTC unit with an OCT season in ID and you have to have LE in MT to find anything big. Likely the two places were less than fifty miles apart.
 
I might be able to guess where in Idaho. Me and my dad back in the day. Maybe not though. A long time ago.
 
Just my .02 on this Gerald. I think harvest of raghorns would be down slightly the first week of season, but they are still dumb as a post and would likely get killed at some point in November.

I agree about the intelligence of a 2 1/2 year old bull.

I think we hunt some of the same general areas. My experience has been that raghorns are still with the cows the last week of October. The mature bulls have already drifted away to their post rut areas and are generally in the higher more rugged areas least accessible to hunters. The raghorns that survive the first week of rifle season split from the cows by the first week of November.

When the weather is mild and there’s been activity in the woods those bulls are at about their most difficult time to kill that first week of November.

I think with our season structure you would see hunter success rates on bulls drop for a few years and then trend upward again as more bulls survive and bull/cow ratios improve.

Currently, FWP is managing general units in region 3 for a 7% bull population at post season counts. There’s about a 13% hunter success rate for bulls. I can only imagine what it would be like with double the bull/cow ratios.
 
People are disappointed with the elk hunting because they c 1000s of elk on private. In fields. Hunting public is a skill or luck. To kill a bull.

100% agree on this.

That's why the proposal deals with shoulder seasons, reduced pressure especially on antlerless on public land, increased use of private land antlerless hunting and splitting the rifle season so that it's not 200K hunters with rifles hitting the woods & fields at the same time.

Elk concentration is largely driven by hunter pressure on public land, and publicly accessible land. Reducing that pressure and spreading it out will increase the success rates, decrease hunter days necessary to kill an animal, and increase animal distribution as the pressure isn't a constant from August 15 to February 15.

I certainly don't doubt your skills or your knowledge. I appreciate you taking the time to give comments!
 
I think I finally understand where you’re coming from @Shed God and the general vicinity of where you hunt. I have spent some days in that general area 20 plus years ago. To me it emphasizes how a single season structure for a state the size of Montana is always going to fall short.
 
My points are simple. With the hunting pressure mt has. A mule deer season in October will effect the elk hunting in a negative way. Alot more elk are going to flood to private sanctuary.

LE is actually managing. Otc is selling snake oil to the public.

I honestly don't understand why not just go LE. Give landowners there tags. Give non resident tags. With that Give outfitters % of that. Rest to the public.

Montana public land mule deer is sad. Even in the current LE units.
And, I'd bet that the November Elk season will be an overcrowded mess with significantly more folks concentrating solely on public land Elk HUNTING. I feel the potential negative effects to Elk hunting will far out weigh any potential benefits to the Mule deer under this proposal.
 
And, I'd bet that the November Elk season will be an overcrowded mess with significantly more folks concentrating solely on public land Elk HUNTING. I feel the potential negative effects to Elk hunting will far out weigh any potential benefits to the Mule deer under this proposal.

November is already crowded in MT. It would be less crowded under this proposal, especially with the removal of liberal antlerless policies on public land, and removing the number of hunter days from successful MD hunters. Choose your species, choose your region, split the elk/deer season for MD, reign in anterless harvest on public land.

The antlerless piece is a big part of the pressure curve reduction.
 
Yes private is are some are going to let the public kill cow elk. Ben lamb when is the last time u hunted in mt.
 
I am super late to the party and can’t currently read through the entire thread.

As a non-resident who greatly enjoyed the time I spent in SE Montana and is looking forward to enjoying more time there next fall, I would like to say thank you for a great proposal. I hope it gains traction.

Great job folks.
 
In your opinion is LE or October the best for mule deer

I think both do different things.

If you are concerned about antler size, then limited entry is the best way to manage for older age class bucks and antlers over 160 inches. If locals want to go limited entry, more power to them. Much like you, I've not shot a mule deer buck because I haven't found one that trips my trigger. I don't have any problem with people shooting forkies either. If that's what you want, then take it. No judgement from me! Limited entry has other issues associated with it that make it less desirable from the public, and from landowners and outfitters. Landowners feel burned by LE elk licenses in parts of the state, they love it others. Outfitters face more uncertainty with limited entry in areas that had previously been general, so some sort of expectation of certainty is needed from their perspective, and limited entry makes that much harder.

October would spread people out, especially if you have to choose your region and species. I think it would also cause a lot of hunters to choose their hunts more carefully. For example: If I am fairly sure I am going to pull a good elk tag, I may not want to hunt mule deer in 6 or 7 because that breaks into my time for elk, so with that premium tag in my pocket, I'll select whitetail in the region I'm likely to draw from. Similarly, when you look at the amount of antlerless tags sold and used on public land (both deer & elk), you see where the largest increase in hunter pressure is coming from, so making antlerless effectively "limited entry" on public land, or removing it altogether in some instances, works to address the increased hunter pressure issue without getting to limited entry or antler point restrictions. Adding the private land only cow elk season in mid-October would likely push elk back on to public after archery season (on those properties that allow it), but that season also does not conflict with antlered hunting of elk, so the thinking is that by removing the antler portion of the issue, more landowners will be willing to allow antlerless hunting if they outfit because you aren't infringing on the business operation side of the equation, and from what we've heard from some landowners in 3,4,5,6 & 7, they'd love a bit of a respite from shoulder seasons and go try a two week season up front, then follow it up with a two week cow season in December.

For areas like SW MT that get a ton of elk pressure but may not be a destination for mule deer, I think that a split season would spread pressure out over a longer timeframe than the concentrated 6 weeks for archery & 5 for rifle, leading to better success rates on elk and deer on public land, while still allowing for generous antlerless harvest on private land.

To me - this all comes down to hunting pressure on public land. The Mule Deer aspect is critical, but the proposal itself is a much larger bite at the apple of "why is MT public land hunting taking more time to kill the same number of animals?" In that regard, I think the proposal does bring about some better conditions than currently exist without going to a more heavily controlled model like limited entry. Montanans have been crystal clear that they want to be able to hunt mule deer every year, and that antler size isn't an issue. There's some magic in that approach that helps keep hunting available to everyone, regardless of their station in life and I think that's worth defending. Will a small percentage of bucks make it past 3-4 years old? Probably. Is that the most important metric for success for me? Not at all.

The most important metric for success for me is that Montanans find a path forward together to bring about a change in how hunting happens under a specific time-frame in order to be more effective in terms of managing deer and elk in the field than the current model. In order to measure that, you have to implement the season at some level or we're all just offering our conjecture online.
 
November is already crowded in MT. It would be less crowded under this proposal, especially with the removal of liberal antlerless policies on public land, and removing the number of hunter days from successful MD hunters. Choose your species, choose your region, split the elk/deer season for MD, reign in anterless harvest on public land.

The antlerless piece is a big part of the pressure curve reduction.
I see it as it may at the 50,000 foot level view disperse statistical crowding across the entire state as a whole over the period of duration in that it essentially adds two more weeks of hunting opportunity. From my experience, outside of the final week of the month and the youth hunt there is not much going on in terms of deer/hunting hunting pressure in October to the point its impact is nil. The proposal as I understand it will give folks the opportunity as they see fit to focus on mule deer in October, and will introduce another "Opening Day". Antelope opener comes to mind and then in November, we repeat the Opener process again with everybody headed to hunt elk in another part of the state. I think its been established that the shoulder hunts on either end of the traditional season have not generated the level of interest nor fulfilled their intended purpose as hoped so eliminating them is a mute point. Although far from perfect and painting with a wide brush the current hunting pressure is dispersed by having to choose between hunting deer mostly in the eastern half (from canada to wyoming) or hunting elk in the southwest/central portions of the state during the duration of that particular hunt outing. One cannot be in two parts of the state at the same time. The separation between a species specific hunt across the state as opposed species specific season does reduce hunter over crowding in positive way. I still think the negative impacts to Elk hunting out weigh the potential benefits to mule deer. Even the potential to further irritate private land owners and the further loss of access is of concern. It will add 2, possibly 4 weeks of disruption to their operation, as I said the month of October can be pretty quite for those guys bringing cattle home. Mule deer rifle season while cattle are still on forest service leases. (Might be worth further discussion). If landowners dont like the new public season structure so be it. They'll be able to evaluate other options such a leasing to an outfitter or a other groups. There is too much at stake here for the public to entertain a new October mule deer only season. I'd prefer to see LE deer management. IF not then how about LE for rifle antlered elk.

I think the true benefactors would be some outfitters as they can expand their client base by an additional two weeks or more, and the demand is there. Many are turning new clients away. The negatives would be irreversible, and benefit is undefined. Before being unconvinced that an October mule deer season is stop forward, I would like to see an unbiased analysis soundly pointing to reliable predictable outcome. I see far more dead mule deer along our highways than i do in the back of trucks.
 
Make the mule deer general season two weeks then another two weeks that’s late season- shit make it two different LE season late 1 late 2. With the alternative choice of normal whitetail general season as an option to go with the general elk season to keep opportunity.

Does any think the 5 day rest does anything?

Shed god- iv had a friend who hunts around your neck of the woods who told me of the state line crossing elk depending on the states rifle season. They are certainly aware and I’m definitely picking up what you’re putting down. Speaking of putting down…

All this talk of babes in the beaver makes me wana go fish a tailwater…
 
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