Montana season structure proposal 2.0

[SAJ-99]

I'm with you on this and it was my feedback when the proposal first came out.

I personally like the proposal but I do think it’s a lot of moving parts and will make it difficult to gain traction with the average public hunter and FWP. I just think of all the people at work going on about how many b tags they filled over the weekend.

Antelope regs are something FWP and hunters are already familiar with. Just copy paste but also implement the mandatory reporting so you can adjust quotas accordingly. Then cut 2.5 weeks off the back end of deer season and add an extra week or two to the front end of all the mountain units. Keep the prairie a short season with limited special permits for rut hunts. Just some ideas. Everything’s struggling but deer seem to be in the worst condition. I’d focus on deer.

I don’t think a lot of people would give up the first two weeks of elk season to drive across the state to shoot a forky. People have limited time to hunt, and I think a lot of guys would apply for a deer tag for the same unit they’re elk hunting rather than a deer tag on opposite ends of the state. Just my 2 cents.

FWP (and MT hunters approve) treat antelope like a finite resource with local populations being affected by a variety of natural factors as well as hunting and are quick to adjust tag numbers in reaction to the changes in the variables.

In contrast, FWP treat deer like an infinite resource, largely homogenous throughout the state and only slight affected by other variables so they can be hunted for weeks on end, in the rut, with little impact on population dynamics. Mostly the only adjustment made is to doe tags.

I never could make sense of the differences. I think it is clear FWP does this because that is what the majority of MT hunters want. Until that changes, any other suggestions or ideas have an uphill battle. Breaks units going to LE are a glimpse of the future.