Montana General Season Structure Proposal

Gerald Martin

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Jul 3, 2009
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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.
 

Attachments

  • Montana Hunting Season Proposal for 2026-2027.pdf
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Last edited:
As a lifelong Montanan I see nothing that I would object to. I like it spreads the hunting pressure out between seasons. Good work to all.
 
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.
 
Montana’s Hunting Seasons: Changes to Preserve Opportunity and Improve Overall Herd Health proposal written by the group of hunters, outfitters, and landowners to address the Montana mule deer issues, but also to provide an improved hunting structure for elk, provides important changes to improve health of mule deer and elk populations. I have criticized the antlered mule deer hunting during the rut for many years.

I like the proposal alot! Hopefully there will be widespread support for such important and potentially helpful changes.

Thank-you to this group and facilitators for good work in this great collaboration among critical stakeholders.
 
@Gerald Martin I like it, it is very close to what I gave our region rep for the Feb meeting. I have a couple questions:

1. R6 and R7 get a ton more pressure than everywhere else. Are these going to be capped or does this proposal just accept that half of the state is going to want to hunt mulies out there? I see nothing to indicate that in the document, so am curious.
2. You stated special license dates remain the same. IMO, I would just shift that to the new season dates for elk tags, and decide whether you want mule deer hunts during the general season timelines or times more specific to the rut? A lot of holes can be picked into this item (do we get to hunt special draw areas in the general season since the dates are different, etc?) and I just think it makes sense to transfer all elk and deer hunting over to the new system to avoid confusion.

There are some other minor things, but these 2 jumped out at me. Good work, I can't imagine the amount of time you dedicated to this effort.
 
Speaking only for myself, but I hope that by making people pick a region it gives us some concrete data as to where people are hunting deer and if needed, a regional cap could be looked at a little down the road with a couple years of data.

I might be too optimistic but I do expect there to be some people in Regions 1,2, & 3 that wouldn’t pick R6 or R7 since they would be restricted to only hunting in a spot that’s 8+ hours away. Since this is already a pretty major change the group was aware of being realistic in what we hope we can accomplish with this proposal.
 
Not bad, but I don’t really like the idea of eliminating general mule deer hunting in November completely, I’d perhaps either argue for October 15-November 15 general dates or the creation of limited entry permits for general units to allow hunting for some into November.
 
Speaking only for myself, but I hope that by making people pick a region it gives us some concrete data as to where people are hunting deer and if needed, a regional cap could be looked at a little down the road with a couple years of data.

I might be too optimistic but I do expect there to be some people in Regions 1,2, & 3 that wouldn’t pick R6 or R7 since they would be restricted to only hunting in a spot that’s 8+ hours away. Since this is already a pretty major change the group was aware of being realistic in what we hope we can accomplish with this proposal.
Couldn't you argue that the mandatory reporting mentioned in the proposal accomplishes the data portion? I'm playing Devil's Advocate here
 
In regards to questions about regional caps… We discussed this as a potential necessity. Currently, we are hoping that these changes and picking a region will alleviate pressure enough to not require regional caps. We’re trying to walk a balance between resource protection and opportunity.

Within the more expansive proposal that I linked in my original post is our support for legislation requiring FWP to implement mandatory reporting. Several years of pick your region, mandatory reporting and a biological evaluation of whether or not our proposals ( if adopted) are successful in helping mule deer should give FWP plenty of data to determine whether regional caps are going to be necessary in the future.

At this point, we’re not supporting regional caps.
 
Getting there its not bad, and this is just my opinion... All I see are personal antidotes and mandatory reporting.. and thats good to me... I just don't see anything about improving the funds on more science based research to the herds to actually understand more in-depth. Long term science is all we can do to really get going and montana is probably the furthest behind IMO. Colorado and Utah collar programs are by far way more in-depth... I see personal antidotes that a shorter rifle season is going to increase numbers. Nothing about what the goals are and what carrying capacity should be or what the fawn to doe ratios are needed to get too again, what winters to look at knowing we are going to have to put caps certain years... weather's always going to be the biggest one so predictions for years tags need a cap before its a issue on bad winter years.. Personally I'd like to see more research going forward. What are the goals to be met to get everyone "satisfied". Its a good start I think. I just see it working short term to get numbers back up, I really have a hard time thinking this 1 thing is going to fix the problem long term. Without any scientific backing long term. States still have some sort of rut hunt they are just alot more regulated. So just my couple 2 cents no one cared for...
 
There's going to be an army of sniveling b1tch3s about this, which will be the biggest obstacle.
At this juncture, I think questions for clarification of the proposal(s) are appropriate. But hipshots of criticism are not! Hopefully this thread won't degenerate into the rabbit hole of hundreds of criticisms and varied contradictory opinions by others not part of this group and just wanting to spout their personal perspectives. This representative group of knowledgeable and experienced advocates for improvement of wildlife management and hunting season structure has crafted a well balanced wheel of proposal to submit to FWP. Let's ask them about anything we don't quite understand, but let's NOT try to re-invent the wheel. Instead, support what has been painstakingly created and help them implement some great improvements.
 
One guy not tagged who was also super helpful is Rob Arnaud. Rob isn't on HT but has done a ton of heavy lifting here as well.

Nice work, gents.
Getting there its not bad, and this is just my opinion... All I see are personal antidotes and mandatory reporting.. and thats good to me... I just don't see anything about improving the funds on more science based research to the herds to actually understand more in-depth. Long term science is all we can do to really get going and montana is probably the furthest behind IMO. Colorado and Utah collar programs are by far way more in-depth... I see personal antidotes that a shorter rifle season is going to increase numbers. Nothing about what the goals are and what carrying capacity should be or what the fawn to doe ratios are needed to get too again, what winters to look at knowing we are going to have to put caps certain years... weather's always going to be the biggest one so predictions for years tags need a cap before its a issue on bad winter years.. Personally I'd like to see more research going forward. What are the goals to be met to get everyone "satisfied". Its a good start I think. I just see it working short term to get numbers back up, I really have a hard time thinking this 1 thing is going to fix the problem long term. Without any scientific backing long term. States still have some sort of rut hunt they are just alot more regulated. So just my couple 2 cents no one cared for...

Fronm the top of page 3:

While season structure and hunting dates are not the only issues that mule deer face, this aspect is one that must change, along with the work to restore habitats, protect migration routes, improve recruitment, and manage in the face of multiple disease threats.

The proposal isn't a 1-stop management shop for all that ails wildlife. It's a rifle shot to help restore some better hunting on public land, place more pressure on private and help struggling mule deer herds with this one management tool.

Overall herd numbers, buck/doe, doe/fawn are all part of the biological matrix that goes into a ton of things besides just when we can poke holes in furry critters. Likewise, this doesn't touch on the research angle as the group felt as though they were only going to be able to pull together a proposal around hunting seasons with the time and resources available.

You are absolutely correct that there is not one thing that will fix what ails wildlife management, but if you do not start in a place where change can be affected, then the rest doesn't get done either.
 
Speaking only for myself, but I hope that by making people pick a region it gives us some concrete data as to where people are hunting deer and if needed, a regional cap could be looked at a little down the road with a couple years of data.

I might be too optimistic but I do expect there to be some people in Regions 1,2, & 3 that wouldn’t pick R6 or R7 since they would be restricted to only hunting in a spot that’s 8+ hours away. Since this is already a pretty major change the group was aware of being realistic in what we hope we can accomplish with this proposal.
In regards to questions about regional caps… We discussed this as a potential necessity. Currently, we are hoping that these changes and picking a region will alleviate pressure enough to not require regional caps. We’re trying to walk a balance between resource protection and opportunity.

Within the more expansive proposal that I linked in my original post is our support for legislation requiring FWP to implement mandatory reporting. Several years of pick your region, mandatory reporting and a biological evaluation of whether or not our proposals ( if adopted) are successful in helping mule deer should give FWP plenty of data to determine whether regional caps are going to be necessary in the future.

At this point, we’re not supporting regional caps.
At this juncture, I think questions for clarification of the proposal(s) are appropriate. But hipshots of criticism are not! Hopefully this thread won't degenerate into the rabbit hole of hundreds of criticisms and varied contradictory opinions by others not part of this group and just wanting to spout their personal perspectives. This representative group of knowledgeable and experienced advocates for improvement of wildlife management and hunting season structure has crafted a well balanced wheel of proposal to submit to FWP. Let's ask them about anything we don't quite understand, but let's NOT try to re-invent the wheel. Instead, support what has been painstakingly created and help them implement some great improvements.
Just to be clear, I was just pointing out areas of clarification that I think could be easily attacked. I am fully behind this proposal but understand that there is a lot to overcome before implementation of all or even parts of it. The public comment should be book worthy.
 
I like it. It’s a great start at tackling the issues and I hope we see some positive benefits from it. Thank you all for your time and efforts!
 
Thanks for all of your work on this. How we manage our Mule Deer in Montana has been long over due for a review. I hope people are able to see the benefits to your proposal and not oppose it simply for the sake of "it's how we've always done it". I would hope this proposal, as well as meaningful harvest surveys, take root so we can preserve what we have and leave it better for the next generation.
 

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