If you don’t have sustainable wildlife management you don’t have sustainable funding.
Montana season structure proposal 2.0
- Thread starter cgasner1
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Gerald Martin
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Never underestimate the department’s ability to print tags and provide “opportunity”
Carnage2011
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Our wildlife management is sustainable. You may not like it, but the deer aren’t going extinct.
Right. Because of private land I know that. That is the only thing stopping it.
OpenCountry
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Wouldn’t knowing exactly how many people are hunting region 6 and 7 by picking your region be part of that data?
cgasner1
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Mandatory reporting would help to know what coming out
Gerald Martin
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It’s comforting to me that the main criticism so far is we aren’t going restrictive enough. I wouldn’t have thought that!
How about we keep archery going through the first week of October and just have the last two weeks of October be rifle season for mule deer? Think that would fly?
How about we keep archery going through the first week of October and just have the last two weeks of October be rifle season for mule deer? Think that would fly?
cgasner1
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We didn’t even tell them about the blow gun season yet.It’s comforting to me that the main criticism so far is we aren’t going restrictive enough. I wouldn’t have thought that!
How about we keep archery going through the first week of October and just have the last two weeks of October be rifle season for mule deer? Think that would fly?
Carnage2011
Well-known member
Not a chance. I think the people of MT are already going to have a meltdown. If you cut deer season to two weeks it’ll be a riot.It’s comforting to me that the main criticism so far is we aren’t going restrictive enough. I wouldn’t have thought that!
How about we keep archery going through the first week of October and just have the last two weeks of October be rifle season for mule deer? Think that would fly?
It would be, and that was part of the original thinking behind pick your region. I would prefer not to potentially increase the pressure in R6 and 7 even more for a couple of years based on the assumption that regional caps would be implemented a few years down the road. If the caps didn’t get implemented, the situation in those regions would be even worse than it is now.
Even if regional caps did eventually get implemented, a very likely scenario is that the quotas would be set so high that they wouldn't do any good. The same thing happened to some of the elk districts in R4 and 5 when they broke up the 900 archery bundle. The quotas were set so high that there were hundreds of leftovers. That doesn’t do anything to help crowding.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Just take the antelope regs, do a ‘find-replace’ antelope with mule deer and submit that.
Well that is fwps job. To manage the wildlife. Set the qoutas to manage a healthy herd.
And everyone would still apply for the tag. So fwp would not lose any money.
Nobody is going to starve to death because they didn't get 40 lbs of mule deer meat every yr.
And everyone would still apply for the tag. So fwp would not lose any money.
Nobody is going to starve to death because they didn't get 40 lbs of mule deer meat every yr.
OpenCountry
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It seems like both of those roads still lead to the eastern half of the state continuing its downward spiral for mule deer if there isn’t a reasonable cap put in place at some point.
You’re going to end up with more hunters each year hunting the east side of the state for deer with or without pick your region so in the end the resource still takes a beating. No different than years past. Imo it makes sense to keep the pick your region so you at least have a general idea of the shocking number of folks hunting both of those regions. Better to start building the data now instead of kicking the can down the road another few years.
Agreed!
Worst case scenario hard winter hits, and EHD hits region 7. Now everyone is forced to hunt there.
I see it from the working groups side. We can’t always get what we want and have to start somewhere.
They keep referring to socially acceptable and having a realistic expectation of getting anything implemented. If we want this to go anywhere, folks on both sides of the argument have to be willing to compromise.
This is a start and I think that is what they are aiming for.
They keep referring to socially acceptable and having a realistic expectation of getting anything implemented. If we want this to go anywhere, folks on both sides of the argument have to be willing to compromise.
This is a start and I think that is what they are aiming for.
cgasner1
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So I realize to some sense that most people on ht are fairly like minded. You guys got to realize that I’d bet for everyone of you that thinks we should have left the regions needs to realize the state probably has 100 people that think it’s insane. So far this group has done 3 podcast put together a website and a pile of other things behind the scene. We are going for a win for wildlife with this and the change we felt had the best chance at getting that. The charts that have been put together are quite eye opening while 2.0 isn’t where we started hopefully getting the ball rolling if it needs more fwp can make those changes down the road. I think the best thing anyone on here can do it this point is show us support to any group your sending money to. We need the help the more groups willing to sign onto the better the odds that something changes.
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targetpanic
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I appreciate the time and effort that the group put in to come up with a comprehensive proposal. We traveled from Mass to Montana in 2018, 2020 and 2022 to hunt mule deer. The decline in numbers of deer seen between each of those trips was scary. We decided after 2022 that we would be taking a break from MT and starting to use some of the points we had acquired in other states.
I do have a couple of questions (and I apologize if they were addressed in the proposal but I missed them). Would Non Residents still be applying for a Big Game Combo? Would they still have to specify Mule Deer or Whitetail? If so, the they would have to make 2 trips out there if they wanted to rifle hunt both Mule Deer (October) and Elk (November)...or they could hunt Whitetail and Elk at the same time, is that correct?
I do have a couple of questions (and I apologize if they were addressed in the proposal but I missed them). Would Non Residents still be applying for a Big Game Combo? Would they still have to specify Mule Deer or Whitetail? If so, the they would have to make 2 trips out there if they wanted to rifle hunt both Mule Deer (October) and Elk (November)...or they could hunt Whitetail and Elk at the same time, is that correct?
cgasner1
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Yes 2 trips. Or you can hunt whitetail with elk. Trying to save a constellation prize when people can’t find elk.
huntin24/7
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I probably missed it somewhere, but how would this work for non residents? Would they draw a tag first and then choose whether they would hunt October mule deer or November whitetail?
