Montana General Season Structure Proposal

[cgasner1]

Thank you to all that have put in so much work on this proposal! The state is in dire need of changes in our management strategies.

One thought about the early opener is that there are public land access roads that close on September 1st. With the early opener in August some areas will be way more accessible for deer/elk. It would be very difficult to organize changes in the forest travel plans to align with the new opener so we would have to accept there would be easier access and greater disturbance in some areas the first week of season.

That is a great point I’m sure the forest service for a lot of those area would adjust that. It’s such a small issue compared to the positive changes this brings but also shows what makes this hard to make any changes is a little negative effects any change cause

 

[Wildabeest]

The group just has to convince FWP that it was FWP's idea and then it might happen. Just look at the terrible history/results that citizen petitions to change something has actually resulted in change.

Thus my question regarding MOGA and UPOM support. They seem to carry a lot of weight on these types of things.

 

[Carnage2011]

What were all the outcomes of the Elk CAC? They submitted how many proposals, how many have had anything come from them? I think capping mule deer doe tags came from it but I don’t know if any others that went through.

Capping mule deer doe tags didn’t come from it. I was on the elk CAC. When FWP started talking about doing a mule deer one I had a conversation with a guy towards the top at FWP that wanted feedback from the elk CAC. I told him that FWP wasted our time and used none of our recommendations. I also told him that FWP doesn’t have the backbone to actually implement meaningful change. I hope I’m wrong…

 

[Pagosa]

Great work Gerald and group. This would be awesome. It seems to be very similar to the WY season structure, and as someone that works in both states the difference between Gane herds is striking.

I'm just not seeing a ton of whitetail on the eastern side of the state, so yhe only thing that would benefit whitetail on the open plains would be to stop the season on Nov 15th, like in Region 4,5,6, and 7. Just a thought, and this will definitely help the quality of elk hunting.

Is there any discussion about pick your weapon for elk? I know it would spread out the pressure, ot possibly make non-residents choose a 7-10 day period to elk hunt. The outfitters could still book hunts and scattering out 20k nonresident elk hunts would greatly help. I appreciate you guys work!

Lastly, would you guys have issues if I forwarded this to two FWP biologist that I'm in contact with? Or just wait? Preston

 

[Straight Arrow]

Thus my question regarding MOGA and UPOM support. They seem to carry a lot of weight on these types of things.

It seems MOGA is well represented and onboard with this proposal.
My perspective is that if Montana hunters are proponents, then UPOM will be opposed.
It's unfair and unreasonable to lump MOGA and UPOM together.

 

[Eric Albus]

Capping mule deer doe tags didn’t come from it. I was on the elk CAC. When FWP started talking about doing a mule deer one I had a conversation with a guy towards the top at FWP that wanted feedback from the elk CAC. I told him that FWP wasted our time and used none of our recommendations. I also told him that FWP doesn’t have the backbone to actually implement meaningful change. I hope I’m wrong…

Not as bad as I hope you’re wrong. I’ve put in a ton of time and dollars into seeing mule deer managed BIOLOGICALLY over the last 35 years. If this falls upon deaf ears I’ll be calling for a militia to rise up and take over.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Thanks for the efforts.... this is cool to see - and as much as people biotch about HT - this is the only place things like this happen.

Of course - id love to preserve my near endless opportunity but we have to be in tune with reality. I also love the idea of dicing up seasons... Lots of young muley bucks have died from elk disappointment.

Whatever the final version - i plan to send a letter to fwp. @Gerald Martin what other ways can supportive people show backing?

 

[cgasner1]

Great work Gerald and group. This would be awesome. It seems to be very similar to the WY season structure, and as someone that works in both states the difference between Gane herds is striking.

I'm just not seeing a ton of whitetail on the eastern side of the state, so yhe only thing that would benefit whitetail on the open plains would be to stop the season on Nov 15th, like in Region 4,5,6, and 7. Just a thought, and this will definitely help the quality of elk hunting.

Is there any discussion about pick your weapon for elk? I know it would spread out the pressure, ot possibly make non-residents choose a 7-10 day period to elk hunt. The outfitters could still book hunts and scattering out 20k nonresident elk hunts would greatly help. I appreciate you guys work!

Lastly, would you guys have issues if I forwarded this to two FWP biologist that I'm in contact with? Or just wait? Preston

At this point send it to anyone you want. We sent it to a lot of groups and fwp a week prior to hunttalk. I’m actually surpised it wasn’t leaked. It sure wouldn’t hurt sending it to them so they keep seeing it and it shows support and that we aren’t going away

 

[8andcounting]

I think this proposal has some good potential and is a good start and I commend you all that are doing the legwork on it . Good job and keep up the fight the FWP will be hard to sway but I think it’s doable .

 

[cgasner1]

Capping mule deer doe tags didn’t come from it. I was on the elk CAC. When FWP started talking about doing a mule deer one I had a conversation with a guy towards the top at FWP that wanted feedback from the elk CAC. I told him that FWP wasted our time and used none of our recommendations. I also told him that FWP doesn’t have the backbone to actually implement meaningful change. I hope I’m wrong…

I hope that those 2 groups end up as an apple and orange comparison. Seemed like a lot of elk numbers where over objective at that time and people where wanting to kill all the bulls on private. This time around most people would agree is one way or another the mule deer are hurting. I think the mule deer group fwp put together will have a better effect than the elk group. I hope

 

[MTpubliclander]

Out of curiosity what are the thoughts in regards to retention of biologists and Game wardens? The proposal says creative funding sources? And also incentives and perks of employment as a short term fix.

What are some of those ideas?

This one got buried in the forkies vs four points conversation.

I am genuinely interested in the potential for "creative funding".
Is the cause of their lack of retention solely pay based?

I see the wardens always seem to be hiring, are the bios the same?

 

[cgasner1]

This one got buried in the forkies vs four points conversation.

I am genuinely interested in the potential for "creative funding".
Is the cause of their lack of retention solely pay based?

I see the wardens always seem to be hiring, are the bios the same?

Grossly under paid for the hours work and what’s expected of them. Also we could use more

 

[SAJ-99]

I fully support the changes (fully support ANY positive change).
The problem FWP is going to have is with the actual details of how this gets done. The group picked a low point in population to propose these changes, which makes the path to implementation more realistic.

The goal was to limit pressure with an obvious fix of adhering to the NR cap limit on tags. We have to keep in mind the fact that in the past most of the excess NR licenses were from B tags - because Rs didn't buy those tags. FWP could argue that they have made changes by cutting B tags and that environmental factors (drought, winter) are the primary drivers of MD population. Maybe they rebound with time and better conditions regardless of changes. I'm not saying I agree, only that the argument can be made.

Within the draw process, I'm not sure you can get away with not setting NR cap numbers on the regions/units. The demand for the NR tags is far higher than the supply. One problem might be FWP doesn't have a good idea on how pressure (R or NR) is distributed across the regions/units. Randomly running a NR draw with pick-ur-unit means you could get a lot more pressure in a small unit if you don't cap the tags and the bing-pong balls fall a certain way. And then you have to decide if the NR landowner, college student, come home to hunt tags fall under the NR quota and if the NR burns bonus points or not. Etc Etc.

None of this matters to Rs, but I bring this up because of the $$$. Any change has to be $$$ revenue neutral or close to it, because a lot of MT hunters aren't going to like price increases (cue up "I pay taxes", "my salary is lower", "FWP wastes money" arguments). I think the changes are a great idea, but there is a lot of factors that might make it harder than it seems.

 

[Nameless Range]

Kind of interesting to see the critics and supporters.

From county to state to federal, government is a sloth, and designed to be one. Regardless of how quickly or even if at all these changes are considered for implementation, even though it can seem like we are stuck, if we take a step back, I see a lot of positive things.

So many aspects of this proposal wouldn’t have even been considered by Montana hunters 10 years ago. Even if only these things are seeds of conversation that have to grow for quite a while it’s a good thing. Though I hope for something more concrete.

 

[Big Fin]

I think you’d see alot of people pick whitetail so they can hunt them through the rut.

Count me in as one of those, for many reasons.

 

[MTTW]

The question has been asked "wont we just kill the deer in Oct. rather than Nov?

In many areas that we hunt Mule deer in MT we are hunting them on winter range. It is often the deer from hundreds of square miles concentrated in a much smaller area. I had hunted many years before I realized in some instances, I had been hunting winter range and didn't even know it.

An Oct. mule deer season will help reduce the chance of over harvesting Mule deer on winter range. This happens every few years in SW MT where I have hunted a lot. We go a few years with mild weather and start getting some deer back, and then get early harsh weather in Nov. and we kill almost every buck and often too many does from a specific area. Can you imagine if Wyoming let anyone in the state with a tag hunt the Red Desert, or other wintering area the month of November? You would have Montana's present mule deer management.

The deer are much harder to over harvest on years when they are not concentrated by weather and an earlier season will help greatly with that.
If we could recover some deer in the western part of the state it would help alleviate crowding and over harvest in the eastern part of the state. I know quite a few people who go east for deer out of necessity and not because it is where they would rather hunt.

 

[Sytes]

Even if only these things are seeds of conversation that have to grow for quite a while it’s a good thing.

This.

Most actions and $ for organizations I support is for future generations... My time will be used in the mountains though I'm on the tail end.

Great analogy, "...seeds"

 

[bigsky2]

Great work Gerald and group. This would be awesome. It seems to be very similar to the WY season structure, and as someone that works in both states the difference between Gane herds is striking.

I'm just not seeing a ton of whitetail on the eastern side of the state, so yhe only thing that would benefit whitetail on the open plains would be to stop the season on Nov 15th, like in Region 4,5,6, and 7. Just a thought, and this will definitely help the quality of elk hunting.

Is there any discussion about pick your weapon for elk? I know it would spread out the pressure, ot possibly make non-residents choose a 7-10 day period to elk hunt. The outfitters could still book hunts and scattering out 20k nonresident elk hunts would greatly help. I appreciate you guys work!

Lastly, would you guys have issues if I forwarded this to two FWP biologist that I'm in contact with? Or just wait? Preston

Seeing the public outcry when the elk CAC proposed choose your weapon showed us that was something we would avoid.

 

[JMD]

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.

I have attended several forums on Mule Deer. Most folks don't understand how Mule Deer migrate and function compared to Whitetail and elk. The are not easily adaptable to change in their migrations and wintering areas.
Huge elk populations are one of the most contributing factors in mule deer survival, and the loss of mule deer numbers.
I am for limited Mule Deer harvest statewide. Split the deer tags where Whitetail are a general tag and Mule Deer a special or limited draw.
I think the shortening of Archery season is a good thing.
Losing seven days of the general rifle season is not a bad thing. The only real impact will be on the Outfitted operations who will be losing a week of clients. The current season runs something like 35 days.
No amount of Sportsman group and FWP wrangling is going to get more private land access. The sooner they can come to grips with this truth, will they be able to have realistic and accurate hunting opportunities. With the changing of large ranch ownership away from generational ownership, to wealthy non residents, you will see less and less public hunting opportunities on private ground.

 

[rogerthat]

For the folks that still want some form of mule deer rut opportunity, I’m just curious WHY?