The Hedgehog
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I know. I opted to avoid the 6 label and got the Don’t Tread on Me plates. 1st BHA plates I saw a few years back was a guy I saw trespassing on private - fuggin BHA rats..
Montana mule deer rant
- Thread starter brockel
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Bambistew
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I figured you more for a "Wolves Belong" type guy, personalized with SMOKEMI know. I opted to avoid the 6 label and got the Don’t Tread on Me plates. 1st BHA plates I saw a few years back was a guy I saw trespassing on private - fuggin BHA rats..
Eric Albus
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That’s why I see about a 25-30% fawn crop right now on the mule deer where I’m at, whereas a month ago it was 65-75%.
At home the whitetail dawn crop was great, 80% at least, most having twins which takes percentage higher, and is now less than 30%.
Bullets killing all the fawns? No, it’s coyotes.
Irrelevant
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brocksw
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Eric Albus
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It does to a degree. However during the severe drought of the ‘80’s deer and antelope numbers were unreal. It was nothing to hunt 670-630 areas and see 3-400 mule deer and 2-3000 antelope a day. We’d see maybe 4 or 5 coyotes all fall.
Up at home the mule deer fawns looked very good, as did the whitetail, until the grasshoppers died/moved. The coyote pups (who thrived on the hoppers) got old/big enough to hunt deer. There are very few rabbits, and as a friend of mine who might hunts coyotes with night vision pointed out to me, there are hardly any mice. Normally he sees tons of mice with the thermal/night vision. So, by adding 2 and 2 I come up with 4. Coyotes are very tough on our deer, and not just the fawns.
brocksw
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But weren't deer and antelope populations peaking coming into the 80s?
Edit: sorry for the vague response. I guess I'm saying if MD populations were at all time highs coming into that drought, which I've been lead to believe is likely the case, then isn't it just a case of shifting baseline? There were way more deer coming into the drought in the 80s than there was this time around? Giving the perception of another variable playing a bigger role? Correlation vs causation?
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The coyotes I’ve skinned this year have been fat as ticks. Like skinning a coon. They are eating well that’s for sure
Eric Albus
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Deer/antelope numbers increased during the drought of the 80’s. Populations started to increase in the mid-late 70’s(high fur prices and super cubs),and continued to thru the 80’s. Remained fairly stable until about 1995, coyote numbers were increasing and recruitment of fawns started to tank. Hunting pressure on doe/fawn/bucks was heavy, and by fall of ‘95 numbers were plummeting. In 98-99 we would routinely count 15-25 coyotes a day while in the field and 5-7 mule deer in 670/630. When numbers fell off so did hunting pressure, and we actually could find a few mature mulies in public land.
Today I don’t think lack of numbers will decrease the pressure on public land. Our R population has increased substantially, NR hunters come by the droves for antler less fawns/does/cows/calves. We need to ask FWP to put the resource first and manage it. When the public sees quality on the places they can access they will all wonder, “why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”.
BackofBeyond
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And fur prices for coyotes was still enough to make it worth it. Not saying it’s an outright cause, but a contributing factor.
Nick87
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I've often felt this is a contributing factor to duck numbers in regards to coons being trapped, totally off subject.
Hunters need to get an NGO or form one one to do game surveys to contradict or confirm FWP surveys.
The same NGO could also prepare a survey of both harvest and satisfaction.
FWP could simply add a few questions prior to allowing you to purchase a license and gather a ton of information quickly and easily.
MT hunters need to end the BS of shoot as many animals as you can get tags for. Donating meat, and tossing half of a dried up catcass in a dumpster or worse yet leaving it on the montian needs to change. It's a core value to leave neck, rib meat and shanks for the birds. You can always just shoot another animal. You don't see that shit up here, and people get crucified for it. Many Montanans do not value the animals they hunt for "food."
Montanans are the most selfish people in the US. Everyone hates somone else on a regional and statrwide basis. Either its the place they call home, where they moved from, or something else. Montana and CO to some extent and the only places I've ever been that people born there, consider themselves "natives" but look down their noses at actual natives. All while letting you know that their way is the right and only way. These people are just a generation or 2 generation away from being a "transplant" (more Montana bigotry) themselvesBeing born somewhere is just another reason to hate on someone else in MT.
Until you can show FWP they're wrong nothing is going to change.
Until you can reduce the hate, nothing is going to change. Managing game based on local preference? Hahaha not surprised in the least. Suggesting you have a problem and don't have MT street cred, good luck.
Until Montanans actually put a value on wildlife, nothing will change.
Good luck. The season you're having is the best season of your life. No one notices that until next year. I said this a few years ago. Still ringing true, isn't it.
I can't help but remember that there used to he easily 3-4x as many mule deer in the places I used to hunt and spend time as a kid and young adult. Places in SW MT where you'd see 2-300 deer on winter ranges have 20-30 now maybe. We'd see 20-50 deer a day while hunting elk in the mountains, and my dad and grampa would talk about the giant bucks and all the deer they'd see in their early days. The deer are gone and not coming back. It's silly to belive we can manage them for abundance and quality and shoot them like we do. Many of those same places today, you'd be lucky to cut a track much less see a deer.
It would be interesting to see how long we've been bitching about this. I know I have for over 20 years and was persecuted for suggesting maybe we not hunt mule deer in the rut.
Until hunters actually show up, nothing will change. The longer you go with such terrible numbers the more people will remember it as normal. Just lower the quotas, set objectives lower, and all will be good.
I have 1000 bucks that says in 10 years we'll be having these exact same conversations. But it will be, do you remember how good it was in 2022 and we will be quoting Onteriohunter and how good he had it.
Good luck. Singed, a 5th generation "native" who hates 6 plates.
I agree with all this.
But also….F them transplants. ‘specially the flatlander ones, the California ones and the Texas ones, and ones that refer to “Yellowstone” the show, as part of their regular vocabulary. Including the west ones that travel east to hunt deer and the east ones that travel west to hunt elk. Definitely any that hunt where I do.
-another 5th generation naTiVe that doesn’t even live in Montana currently.
brocksw
Well-known member
When I've listened to biologists like Kevin Monteith and his crew, talk about the Mule deer populations of the past, they really discount predators as being much of a factor in overall populations.
They talk about this on the meateater podcast in detail. They attribute the "groceries" and other environmental factors to be the larger reasons populations were doing so well. Perhaps they are wrong, but I've yet to hear anyone more qualified than these guys, discuss this matter.
Ep. 162: Landscape of Fear | MeatEater Podcasts
Steven Rinella talks with Dr. Kevin Monteith, Dr. Matt Kaufmann, Jared Oakleaf, and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: genetics that rewrite our understanding of animals; big game guts; learning how to migrate; who pays for wildlife research?; brain scrambling, extreme sports, and wildlife capture...
antlerradar
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Just my own observations, and not scientific, The deer hear has crashed in my part of Montana. Just yesterday my father commented that mule deer numbers are the lowest he has ever seen, he is almost 80.
When Forest Mars bought Diamond Cross the outfitter implemented heavy handed predator control. Mule deer numbers were high even when the herd on the Custer a few miles away was suffering. The new owners of Diamond Cross put in place a no predator hunting policy a few years back. Mule deer numbers have been on the decline ever since even with the very limited hunting. Would be interesting to compare the deer numbers and predator control between Diamond Cross and Coffee's.
The only herd around me that is doing well is the small town herd, those numbers are stable, even growing.
There are likely may factors leading to the downturn in mule deer, Drought, Bullets, Elk to name a few, but I would also include the increase in coyotes, lions and bears.
When Forest Mars bought Diamond Cross the outfitter implemented heavy handed predator control. Mule deer numbers were high even when the herd on the Custer a few miles away was suffering. The new owners of Diamond Cross put in place a no predator hunting policy a few years back. Mule deer numbers have been on the decline ever since even with the very limited hunting. Would be interesting to compare the deer numbers and predator control between Diamond Cross and Coffee's.
The only herd around me that is doing well is the small town herd, those numbers are stable, even growing.
There are likely may factors leading to the downturn in mule deer, Drought, Bullets, Elk to name a few, but I would also include the increase in coyotes, lions and bears.
There’s a creek bottom that runs two sections north of town where I grew up that I started snaring on 13 years ago. There was hardly any deer that would hang in that creek bottom the first year. After two years of pulling 40+ coyotes out of that creek a year I started to see deer. That creek was a natural travel corridor for coyotes and I believe it was right on territory boundaries. The following years I’d still pull 20+ coyotes out of it but the deer numbers continued to climb to the point of having to really pay attention on snare locations. 6 years ago the place sold and the new owners like to save the coyotes for the tournaments. About 4 years ago you could start to see the deer numbers dropping. Just went by and glassed it the other day and didn’t turn up a single deer.
brocksw
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This scenario, and @antlerradar 's story in the post above, seem to match the opinions of some of the experts in the field. I believe it was Jim Heffelfinger that talked directly about the impact of predators on Mule Deer. My apologies for essentially regurgitating other peoples work/opinions. But Jim stated that you have to really hit predators intensely, in a small, localized area to really have any measurable positive impact on fawn survival or adult populations. He stated even on a surface area the size of hunting unit, it would be nearly impossible to hit predators enough to have a major impact. It's extremely expensive and difficult, and he felt that the money and effort it would take to do such a thing, would be better spent towards habitat work and putting more "groceries" on the landscape.
I'm not discounting either of your accounts, it just seems that the experts I've heard discuss the matter, don't seem to lay as much validity to predation control being a significant factor in Mule deer populations in an area the size of the eastern half of MT.
Since these aren't my own thoughts, I can't really argue for or against, but I do tend to trust the credible mule deer biologists.
TheJason
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In order for predator control to work it also has to be timed correctly.
brocksw
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It was Jim Heffelfinger that I heard that from.
34:13 he address the question from Rinella and briefly goes into some studies that have been done. He even talks briefly about a study in Idaho that was done regarding predator control and timing. I believe this is what @JLS might be mentioning.
www.themeateater.com
34:13 he address the question from Rinella and briefly goes into some studies that have been done. He even talks briefly about a study in Idaho that was done regarding predator control and timing. I believe this is what @JLS might be mentioning.
Ep. 373: Shirker Bucks, Baubellum, and Binturongs | MeatEater Podcasts
Steve Rinella talks with Jim Heffelfinger, Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Seth Morris, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: How Jim got canceled from Instagram and how to help him make a comeback by following him at @cervidnut; Jim's book, Deer of the Southwest, is back in print; the...
