Montana mule deer rant

[Tlrussell]

Just guessing, but 95% of people in Indiana probably hunt private land. Probably their own or maybe family or friends. Even giving GPS coordinates doesn't matter because other people can't hunt it anyway. In Montana, the number of people hunting public is much higher. Hunters spend years finding a spot that doesn't have 7 trucks at the trailhead. They don't even want to post a region in some cases, much less a unit.

A potential option would be to collect the data and not publish it and protect it from FOIA requests. That said, FWP collects this data using current method, so they already have unit harvest info (and people lie, but you can't fix that). Mandatory harvest would be more robust data set.

So you are implying that it’s a privacy matter?

 

[TheJason]

I'm on the fence about the college student discount. UM has the #1 wildlife biology program in the country (and MSU has one that's not too shabby either). I know UM has been building a sort of hunter recruitment program to help get kids into hunting and IMHO it'd be a shame to keep interested students from being able to participate because of the price of a NR tag. And not just wildlife students.

I guess if there's a way to partner that program in particular with the discounted college tag prices, I'd support that. Great way to recruit new hunters. Which I guess isn't critical for Montana, but is certainly becoming a huge issue nationwide.

I really have a hard time believing discounted tags for college kids are even remotely a pressing issue when you are shooting deer through the end of November with modern firearms. All the while, you are not doing anything to manage Hunter distribution in anyway whatsoever. But, that’s just my opinion.

 

[SAJ-99]

So you are implying that it’s a privacy matter?

To many hunters it would be a privacy matter. Legally, I'm not sure.

What I am trying to do is think of arguments against something so a rebuttal can be made. For the life of me I can't figure out who would be against mandatory reporting.

 

[brockel]

I'm on the fence about the college student discount. UM has the #1 wildlife biology program in the country (and MSU has one that's not too shabby either). I know UM has been building a sort of hunter recruitment program to help get kids into hunting and IMHO it'd be a shame to keep interested students from being able to participate because of the price of a NR tag. And not just wildlife students.

Hunter recruitment is not an issue for western hunting.

 

[golfer]

So you are implying that it’s a privacy matter?

I think if you’d be required to drop a pin or provide coordinates of where one took a critter for mandatory reporting there would be a lot of false pins or coordinates. This is due to the fact that all that information is public and could be obtained through FOIA.

Like it was previously said or mentioned mandatory reporting should be required, if you don’t you cant apply or buy tags the next year. I think asking what region is a good starting point.

 

[mtmiller]

HD or R at min. Better than where we currently are.

 

[Beignet]

No need for penalty. You check in your game online or through the fwp app. Indiana already does all of this. Hell, after you input the county of harvest, it pulls up a map and has you drop a pin where you killed it.

As long as fwp goes 100% electronic that works

The new app seemed to be what FWP was leaning on in lieu of mandatory harvest reporting when I brought up the subject at elk meetings this summer/fall.

I was disappointed that they absolutely shot down any sort of “mandatory” requirements.

Hell, they seemed to think the current post-season phone call system was giving them a good enough picture.

 

[300stw]

I’d like to see transferable landowner tags so NR could plan their hunts easier. This current system is a pain in the butt.

on private land only

 

[300stw]

Would like to see zero public land mule deer doe tags or severely restricted unless over objective.

I don’t think fwp will ever go for a draw for mule deer unless it gets far worse and non resident tags go unsold so I’d settle for general tag October 1-31. Possibly a limited draw November rifle hunt or possibly make it a limited draw muzzleloader hunt. Get rid of the traditional season stuff in December.

I’d like to eliminate all the come home to hunt, native Montanan, I believe there’s a college student tag as well. To many people wanting their piece of the pie and that pie isn’t getting any bigger

I’d like to see mandatory harvest reporting or loss of license the following year. This data would be huge for future management (hopefully) decisions. Could be made extremely simple to do on fwp website. We already have mandatory reporting for 11 other species why not have it for fwps biggest money makers?

and triple the price of all resident tags and licenses, what we pay is criminal in todays world

 

[Treeshark]

on private land only

 

[SAJ-99]

HD or R at min. Better than where we currently are.

Hell, they seemed to think the current post-season phone call system was giving them a good enough picture.

Im confused. Where do you think we are currently? I'm not convinced the results will be that much different. From a statistical perspective, what they do now is pretty normal -Estimate a population distribution from a randomly collected sample. Mandatory reporting would be much much better, but I doubt we will get some enlightening information from the change. Hopefully someone has insight that would cause me to question that. I have been asked what unit I harvested in (and they publish the data that way), but I'm not sure everyone gets asked the same ???s. What I think the problem is revolves around lack of transparency in the process. We can't expect them to explain the statistical methodology to hunters, but they can tell us what data they collect.

The estimates appear to be published based on units already.

FWP :: Harvest Estimates

 

[brockel]

Im confused. Where do you think we are currently? I'm not convinced the results will be that much different. From a statistical perspective, what they do now is pretty normal -Estimate a population distribution from a randomly collected sample. Mandatory reporting would be much much better, but I doubt we will get some enlightening information from the change. Hopefully someone has insight that would cause me to question that. I have been asked what unit I harvested in (and they publish the data that way), but I'm not sure everyone gets asked the same ???s. What I think the problem is revolves around lack of transparency in the process. We can't expect them to explain the statistical methodology to hunters, but they can tell us what data they collect.

The estimates appear to be published based on units already.

FWP :: Harvest Estimates

Was told that a lot of the survey calls when you say district 704 is where you got your deer a lot of the surveyors don’t know the different districts so it just gets filed under region 7. That was from a biologist Mandatory reporting system could absolutely help this out

 

[4ohSick]

So you are implying that it’s a privacy matter?

I don't want Jersey Greg knowing my honey hole within 100 miles! Those sheisters can't be trusted! But I'll continue to vote for them no matter what. I'm complicated...

 

[SAJ-99]

Was told that a lot of the survey calls when you say district 704 is where you got your deer a lot of the surveyors don’t know the different districts so it just gets filed under region 7. That was from a biologist Mandatory reporting system could absolutely help this out

So i tell them 704 and instead of writing 704 they just write down region 7? Seems more likely the hunter would get confused and not know 704 or 705 and just say region 7. At least in a mandatory system, you can write rules that require a field be filled in. The only thing you have to worry about after that is people lying.

 

[brockel]

So i tell them 704 and instead of writing 704 they just write down region 7? Seems more likely the hunter would get confused and not know 704 or 705 and just say region 7. At least in a mandatory system, you can write rules that require a field be filled in. The only thing you have to worry about after that is people lying.

Just relaying what our biologist said when we talked about electronic mandatory reporting.

 

[antlerradar]

on private land only

not at all is better.

 

[golfer]

So i tell them 704 and instead of writing 704 they just write down region 7? Seems more likely the hunter would get confused and not know 704 or 705 and just say region 7. At least in a mandatory system, you can write rules that require a field be filled in. The only thing you have to worry about after that is people lying.

Isn’t the hunter supposed to know where they are at? I’d think they’d want to write down the district/unit number for better records. I would also think things could be drastically different from Baker to Colstrip to Terry?

 

[brockel]

Isn’t the hunter supposed to know where they are at? I’d think they’d want to write down the district/unit number for better records. I would also think things could be drastically different from Baker to Colstrip to Terry?

I don’t think it really matters to them if you know your district if it’s a general tag that’s good for almost the entire state considering we don’t adjust for districts anyways

 

[MTLabrador]

How the hell did we get to transferable landowner tags from this? Hard no. Hunt Utah or New Mexico if that’s what you want.

 

[Treeshark]

That was me, sorry. Tangental to this discussion IMO.

1. Mandatory electronic deer registration upon harvest.

2. Stop shooting antlerless on public.

3. Allow transferable landowner tags, helps with population problems on private (real or just an excuse for bitching). Economic benefit to resident landowners and state economy.

4. Shorter rifle season, not during rut.

The end.