Gerald Martin
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#MMGA
Montana season structure proposal 2.0
- Thread starter cgasner1
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#MMGA
Forkyfinder
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He locked up R of Mt for sure. But - joes trying his best. We'll all know more tuesday. Im guessing HT missed joe saying this.
2015 for me.
SAJ-99
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It's a NR vs R argument because it is convenient. Montana tradition, or something. The core problem is that a large percentage of FWP budget is funded by these tag sales and the NR tags generate the vast majority of that revenue. This limits FWP's ability to appropriately manage the resource in tough times because they rely on the revenue from those sales. Tags can be cut for a year or two (see the B tags), but it tends to leave a huge hole in the budget. Catch-22. A large group of hunters (Not necessarily represented on HT) almost hates FWP and NRs equally, but are dependent on the NR revenue and dependent on FWP giving them opportunity. So the dance continues.
I think the number of R hunters that have private hunting leases is vastly underestimated by most public land guys. They want long hunting seasons and hunting during the rut and it seems they get heard more than the average Joe.
After seeing a trailer load of seven 2 points and one small 4 point headed back to western Montana I don’t think they care. We are just getting started. Opportunity at its finest.
They certainly missed out on the neck roasts. A joke I’m all too tired of hearing.
Flatbrimmer
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Truly agree. That’s why I haven’t shot one and that’s what I tell everyone that wants to shoot a 2.5 year old 4 point mule deer. They get way bigger than that
Flatbrimmer
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Nick87
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You haven't shot one because you don't know what one looks like?
Flatbrimmer
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No because I seem to be one of the few that do. Let’s see all yours….
antlerradar
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Second this and that number is not going to get smaller.
Remember, regional caps were never part of the proposal. The only correct way to do that would be to have pick your region for a few years to get the data on where hunters are going. In those few years, R6 and R7 would likely suffer big time because you'd have large numbers of hunters in those regions without the option to go elsewhere. We'd also be doing that with the hopes that the commission and department would be willing to implement caps a few years down the road. If they were willing to implement caps, the next thing is we'd be hoping for them to set those caps at levels that would actually make an impact on hunting pressure. You guys on here from R7 especially know that the R7 staff has expressed no concern over the current situation there, so I don't have a lot of faith in them pushing to reduce hunting pressure. That probably doesn't matter anyways as the current commission seems to prefer to take management into their own hands, and they'd likely set the numbers without any input from biologists. Based on what I've seen from them lately, they typically lean towards expanding opportunity rather than reducing it (increasing archery antelope quota range, extending bear season statewide). The one exception to that is what they did with mule deer doe hunting on public this year. If regional caps were implemented, we'd be totally at the mercy of the commission in hoping the tag numbers were set appropriately. I'd guess that would go real similar to when they broke up the 900 archery elk bundle. You'd have some areas where they'd get the numbers right (799), and some that they'd get totally wrong (411). When they get it wrong, pressure actually gets worse because people don't have the option to move around to try and get away from other hunters. I've seen it first hand with the archery elk permits. As other have mentioned, the commission would have a lot of pressure from outfitters to keep those numbers high.
I agree, choose your region with regional caps would be the way to go IF the caps weren't set too high. Choose your region without regional caps could potentially make things worse, and is not a chance we're willing to take.
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Perhaps a different way to say this is that NR's choose to hunt MD at significantly higher rates than residents.
Most of those NR's don't have mule deer in their states, or they are highly restrictive. Montanans value hunting mule deer, but the majority of MT hunters select whitetail. No midwesterner is going to get excited about a tree stand whitetail like they do a big country mule deer buck.
The tag is the fun ticket. Every hunter dreams of the big buck filling their scope or sight. When that dream doesn't materialize then the next best option is the buck standing in front of you. Then it's antlerless. People tend to lionize the comraderies and family time that hunting camp brings. That should extend to NR's who tag along with an antlerless tag, maybe just not 6 of them.
sclancy27
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For all those saying R6 and R7 have too much pressure (I'm not arguing, just looking for thoughtful responses), what metric would you use to set the caps on those regions for NR, R or total? @DFS @Flatbrimmer or others?
rogerthat
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I know you didn’t ask me Sean but I will give you my .02 anyway
. When I discuss things with the bios, they do have hunter estimates for areas. I’m not sure how or what methodology these are based upon (and from hunter surveys I have taken, I would probably question there validity) but currently I would start with the numbers from the bios. Looking at that in whole across the state I would break those allocations up based on public access and game populations. It would be pretty simple for a GIS whiz to put some starting numbers together. Even I could do this in a couple days of work. This would be better than the commission just pulling numbers out of their arse. However a better approach would be to require the fwp to get the data before implementing anything and that’s where I stand on all this at this juncture. I don’t see a downside to that. I need to know the juice is worth the squeeze. Right now I feel we are in the current US congress giant omnibus mode where we just have to pass it to know what’s in it.
I actually just took a bull elk through a game station on Sunday. I got asked what hunting district and they counted the points on the bull. Other than that they only wanted to know how many bears I saw, whether they were black or grizzly and how many wolves. It would have been pretty easy to get the rest of the info needed.
Historical harvest for region 7 mule deer bucks used to be 60% resident 40% nonresident roughly depending on the year. That started to shift around 2010 to now where it’s almost opposite. Certainly doesn’t seem unreasonable to shift that harvest back to 60% resident and 40% nonresident, that is still extremely generous.
