Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement

[brockel]

Dead or alive?

He's not happy about these younger bucks disrupting his work. Here he's on a march toward one of them, a nice buck that decided he wanted no part of this guy.
View attachment 302407

Seems he preferred an audience for his performances. A larger framed 3x4 is watching the debauchery from a bench about 50 yards above and to the left of this buck and his doe. That 3x4 thought he wanted some of the action, but was run off by this dude multiple times.
View attachment 302408

He and his doe were so distracted that when we got to 180 yards above them, they just stared at us as we watched them. I finally asked Michael to skyline himself and waive his hands, which got them to stand up.
View attachment 302409

I find it interesting that many of the dominant bucks in this area were configured like him as big 3x3 or 3x4. I doubt at his peak he was even a 150" buck. Wonder if he was ever a true 4x4. Guess it doesn't matter. I suspect Montana's season structures and heavy hunting pressure make younger 4x4 bucks the primary target and thus we see fewer of them get to the age of this guy.

This is why point restrictions are a terrible idea

 

[antlerradar]

The thing is, maybe his ma was in poor shape the year she had him, which has expressed itself in his lack of antler development. He might have spent years passing on good genes while hunters passed on him.

I am going to say not. I think it is certainly true that a poor start is going to express itself in poor antler growth through out life, but the shape of the antlers is almost entirely controlled by genes. In other words, if he was a buck with good genes and a poor start he would have grown a four by four set of antlers, just not very big.

 

[antlerradar]

Dead or alive?

He's not happy about these younger bucks disrupting his work. Here he's on a march toward one of them, a nice buck that decided he wanted no part of this guy.
View attachment 302407

Seems he preferred an audience for his performances. A larger framed 3x4 is watching the debauchery from a bench about 50 yards above and to the left of this buck and his doe. That 3x4 thought he wanted some of the action, but was run off by this dude multiple times.
View attachment 302408

He and his doe were so distracted that when we got to 180 yards above them, they just stared at us as we watched them. I finally asked Michael to skyline himself and waive his hands, which got them to stand up.
View attachment 302409

I find it interesting that many of the dominant bucks in this area were configured like him as big 3x3 or 3x4. I doubt at his peak he was even a 150" buck. Wonder if he was ever a true 4x4. Guess it doesn't matter. I suspect Montana's season structures and heavy hunting pressure make younger 4x4 bucks the primary target and thus we see fewer of them get to the age of this guy.

I would bet money that he never had more than three points per side, and likely had only two on one or both sides some years. In all the bucks I have found years and years of antlers from the general shape is always similar from year to year. Leads me to conclude that the shape and point configuration of the rack baring injury is controlled almost entirely by genes.

Unless this buck is approaching double digits in age, I would not be surprised if this is the best set of antlers he ever grew.

 

[Redside]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but didn't expect this.

 

[huntin24/7]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but didn't expect this.

View attachment 302671

I really hope this is enough to stop this. It would be devastating to the mule deer in region 6, especially the bucks on public/bma where the vast majority of these deer would be killed. These accessible lands are already getting hammered in the regular season.

 

[OpenCountry]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but didn't expect this.

View attachment 302671

It would be nice if the rest of the eastern regions would follow region 4s proposals to go limited entry for mule deer bucks for either a portion or all of the season, along with no public land mule deer doe hunting.

 

[8andcounting]

It would be nice if the rest of the eastern regions would follow region 4s proposals to go limited entry for mule deer bucks for either a portion or all of the season, along with no public land mule deer doe hunting.

Agreed . But I think if it goes LE it needs to be all season . Stopping the general kill on nov 17 isn’t gonna save many deer . It’ll just be more hunters and more deer shot the first 3 weeks

 

[rogerthat]

A little positive news, the areas I hunt have seen a marked drop off in pressure the last week. Not sure if it’s because people are giving up or just going elsewhere. Good to see a few survivors get a little better chance to make it through.

 

[Bambistew]

Not sure if this has been posted here, but I stumbled on it this morning after seeing the R1 check station stats. Anyway a good summary of muledeer stats right or wrong

GOHUNT // The Hunting Company

GOHUNT empowers hunters with the tools, technology, gear, and resources they need to get the most out of their time in the field.

www.gohunt.com

 

[sclancy27]

Not sure if this has been posted here, but I stumbled on it this morning after seeing the R1 check station stats. Anyway a good summary of muledeer stats right or wrong

GOHUNT // The Hunting Company

GOHUNT empowers hunters with the tools, technology, gear, and resources they need to get the most out of their time in the field.

www.gohunt.com

The buck harvest by NR vs R chart is pretty telling....57% of buck harvest in R7 is by NR in 2022. I think that is pretty good evidence to put NR quota per region so they are not absolutely pummeling the deer in one region. It's also interesting that total harvest of bucks has gone up ~37% for NR since 2004 without supposedly increasing tags.....I'm sure those come home to hunt and other tags are making a big difference.

It also supports my observations of license plates from my 7 days out there this fall, I had about a 50-50 split of NR plates to R plates.

 

[ShootsManyBullets]

The buck harvest by NR vs R chart is pretty telling....57% of buck harvest in R7 is by NR in 2022. I think that is pretty good evidence to put NR quota per region so they are not absolutely pummeling the deer in one region. It's also interesting that total harvest of bucks has gone up ~37% for NR since 2004 without supposedly increasing tags.....I'm sure those come home to hunt and other tags are making a big difference.

It also supports my observations of license plates from my 7 days out there this fall, I had about a 50-50 split of NR plates to R plates.

Be honest - they have no clue who killed what in MT. Grandma calls some years and asks a few questions. Some years no one calls. You can say you were hunting anywhere since the general tag covers so many units.
They're pummeling deer in that region b/c the other regions are mostly dog crap or need access to private so that's basically dog crap for most hunters.

 

[Bambistew]

The buck harvest by NR vs R chart is pretty telling....57% of buck harvest in R7 is by NR in 2022. I think that is pretty good evidence to put NR quota per region so they are not absolutely pummeling the deer in one region. It's also interesting that total harvest of bucks has gone up ~37% for NR since 2004 without supposedly increasing tags.....I'm sure those come home to hunt and other tags are making a big difference.

It also supports my observations of license plates from my 7 days out there this fall, I had about a 50-50 split of NR plates to R plates.

They allowed elk/deer combo tags to be split about 6-7 years ago. Not sure how that changed hunter numbers, but I believe I read that something like 25% were split. So 25% of 17000. The come home to hunt is 500 tags and the native licences sell around 1000 more, IIRC. If the would just limit NR to only be eligible for doe/cow tags of they draw a combo tag they would cut down on hunters. I'm not sure anyone has ever figured out how many NR have more than one deer tag, it seems that many just assume 1 deer tags = 1 hunter.l, which is not true.

I crunched some of my own number the other day 35% of MD does are harvested by NR, which wasn't surprising. Make them the same price as a buck tag and they won't sell many.

FWP has the data/tags linked to an actual person, not sure if it's ever been sorted as such. No reason to use tag sales or some other generalization.

 

[DFS]

I would like to know the equation they use to figure out population estimates. (I was told it but it went right over my head). I know harvest is part of the equation. The region 7 population estimates between 2016-2018 I have a real hard time believing.

 

[huntin24/7]

The buck harvest by NR vs R chart is pretty telling....57% of buck harvest in R7 is by NR in 2022. I think that is pretty good evidence to put NR quota per region so they are not absolutely pummeling the deer in one region. It's also interesting that total harvest of bucks has gone up ~37% for NR since 2004 without supposedly increasing tags.....I'm sure those come home to hunt and other tags are making a big difference.

It also supports my observations of license plates from my 7 days out there this fall, I had about a 50-50 split of NR plates to R plates.

I think this would help immensely with pressure. I think we’re to a point we need to strongly look into spreading out resident pressure as well.

 

[sclancy27]

I would like to know the equation they use to figure out population estimates. (I was told it but it went right over my head). I know harvest is part of the equation. The region 7 population estimates between 2016-2018 I have a real hard time believing.

You could ask a biologist what method they use, they are not really that complicated.

Based on my observations and number of animals year to year in the same areas (a poor man's population trend), I can believe those numbers. 2016-2019 I was counting 2-2.5x the number of deer a day than I did last week.

Also, the 2023 pop #'s are on the web now, approximately the same as last year in R7.

 

[sclancy27]

I think this would help immensely with pressure. I think we’re to a point we need to strongly look into spreading out resident pressure as well.

That data is suggesting we address NR first, at least in R7. In no world should NR harvest be greater than R harvest, especially when NR licenses are 12-15% of Resident licenses overall and with Resident license sales falling over the same time period.

 

[huntin24/7]

That data is suggesting we address NR first, at least in R7. In no world should NR harvest be greater than R harvest, especially when NR licenses are 12-15% of Resident licenses overall and with Resident license sales falling over the same time period.

I 100% agree with you on that. Just saying that also needs to start being looked into as well. I have no problem with nr’s coming to MT. My only gripe is their pressure not being spread out, and there probably needs some level of tag reduction as well.

 

[DFS]

You could ask a biologist what method they use, they are not really that complicated.

Based on my observations and number of animals year to year in the same areas (a poor man's population trend), I can believe those numbers. 2016-2019 I was counting 2-2.5x the number of deer a day than I did last week.

Also, the 2023 pop #'s are on the web now, approximately the same as last year in R7.

Curious if you hunted the area prior to 2010?

 

[sclancy27]

Curious if you hunted the area prior to 2010?

I've hunted R7 since 1998.

It's hard for me to draw good parallels between the late 90's early 2000's because we hunted on horses and could cover an unreal amount of country and spooked a lot more deer, which I think caused us to see a lot more deer. We saw a lot of deer in the early/mid 2000's hunting from horses.

 

[antlerradar]

A little positive news, the areas I hunt have seen a marked drop off in pressure the last week. Not sure if it’s because people are giving up or just going elsewhere. Good to see a few survivors get a little better chance to make it through.

Giving up, I a have talked to several hunters that are throwing in the towel. With the weather and the deer numbers this year it is tough to stay motivated for many.