Montana season structure proposal 2.0

[Nameless Range]

For elk, because that is the only thing FWP has data for, in 2012 non-residents accounted for about 12% of Hunter days on the landscape. In 2022, they accounted for 15% of the hunter days on the landscape. Both the resident and nonresident cohorts increased in hunter days at about the same rate.


I think it would be a mistake to turn our noses at any incremental change in the right direction - and to be clear by “right”, I mean proposals that serve Montanans. Bluntly, of all of the proposals this group came up with - which I wholeheartedly support - a reduction in nonresident hunter days on the landscape would probably be an easier sell to Montanans than any of the aforementioned proposals. I fully believe reducing nonresident hunters would not be nearly as effective and experience-changing as the OP’s Season Setting Proposals 2.0, so I understand functionally why it isn’t part of the platform, but tactically, if you go out on the landscape and talk to Montanans you will not get away from what they see and feel about NRs, and in fact, I don’t think many Montanans will be open to these changes until it happens. They will want to see that first. As has been mentioned previously, this is chiefly a social issue, but that doesn’t really say anything about whether or not it can be ignored.

Given the fact that nonresident tags sell out annually anymore, there’s clearly room for an adjustment in cost to offset revenue resulting from a potential reduction in tags, which I understand would require legislative branch buy-in, but I don’t see that being any harder than the buy-in necessary for these proposals. Or something else, for elk, NRs average 8 days per season per hunter on the landscape statewide. Could nonresident hunters be limited in the amount of days they could hunt? Limit them to six days and you have taken 35,000 Hunter-days off the landscape. Though there is certainly overlap, I wish the data for days spent hunting deer was out there.

To me, we can talk about one issue as well as the others. All worthwhile questions though probably for a different thread.

 

[DFS]

And that’s where you and I will heartily disagree.

The mule deer hunting in the breaks north of Lewiston absolutely tanked in the early to mid 2000s when cow elk hunting went ultra liberal. Every person up there hunting cows also had extra packers who were also toting a deer tag. During the rut. Same thing happened on the Custer.

What you see now is just a continuation of what began decades ago. The R/NR issue is ancillary to the greater issue.

One of the areas I used to enjoy hunting and still spend a lot of time in has little to no elk, it is currently far worse than the Custer for hunters both western Montana and nonresidents not as many locals as there used to be though. They are targeting deer not elk. Anecdotal of course and we know that means nothing.

 

[Rie Bread]

Echoing Gerald. Whats the increase in residents the past 3-4 seasons? I know I added 4 to population of the state

 

[rogerthat]

And that’s where you and I will heartily disagree.

The mule deer hunting in the breaks north of Lewiston absolutely tanked in the early to mid 2000s when cow elk hunting went ultra liberal. Every person up there hunting cows also had extra packers who were also toting a deer tag. During the rut. Same thing happened on the Custer.

What you see now is just a continuation of what began decades ago. The R/NR issue is ancillary to the greater issue.

Have you talked to the local fwp staff about this? You might get region 4 to agree but I’m 100% sure you won’t get region 7. You see hunting has never been better per their data. Our anecdotal observations are just that…anecdotal nothing.

 

[bigsky2]

And that’s where you and I will heartily disagree.

The mule deer hunting in the breaks north of Lewiston absolutely tanked in the early to mid 2000s when cow elk hunting went ultra liberal. Every person up there hunting cows also had extra packers who were also toting a deer tag. During the rut. Same thing happened on the Custer.

What you see now is just a continuation of what began decades ago. The R/NR issue is ancillary to the greater issue.

Elk hunters kill mule deer.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Echoing Gerald. Whats the increase in residents the past 3-4 seasons? I know I added 4 to population of the state

Total resident license sales have actually declined in the past 10 years. Total resident hunter days have increased by @ 8% if my memory serves me correctly. @sclancy27 is the numbers guys when it come to stats and data.

 

[Nameless Range]

Echoing Gerald. Whats the increase in residents the past 3-4 seasons? I know I added 4 to population of the state

In 2012, residents spent 772,000 days hunting elk on the landscape.

In 2022, residents spent 803,000 days hunting elk on the landscape.

 

[TheJason]

One of the areas I used to enjoy hunting and still spend a lot of time in has little to no elk, it is currently far worse than the Custer for hunters both western Montana and nonresidents not as many locals as there used to be though. They are targeting deer not elk. Anecdotal of course and we know that means nothing.

I believe you. Wouldn’t it be better though, if season structures changes were implemented to improve hunting in other areas so yours didn’t see as much pressure?

@Nameless Range is right, it’ll be far easier to sell a cut in NR opportunities. Charge ahead with it. Full speed. You could be 100% right and in 5-10 years you’ll be in mule deer hay days again.

My prediction is you’ll still have other major underlying issues and still be disappointed with the current situation.

Edit: Political capital can come at a cost and I thinks it’s wise to really evaluate the path forward. How much political capital was spent over I-161, and how much did it improve hunting in Montana?

 

[Straight Arrow]

It’s worth noting this downward spiral started way back when folks thought a Billings plate was the equivalent of a NR.

Worse than that back then as the Billings guys on the Jardine road stole my teenage son's six pt bull elk standing wounded by the fence unable to get over it, after my son tracked in down the mountain for two hours.
And the Billings guy whose head filled my scope as I was aiming at a bull elk up Gallatin Canyon and he was running and shooting in front of me to get to the elk first. Shudders yet at that image of the back of his head in my scope. But really there are bad hunters from all over. Billings' hunters just seem to get the limelight. (perhaps deservedly)

Managing and constraining hunters, whether resident or non resident, and somehow finding hunting pressure relief for deer and elk in certain areas is obviously warranted. The devil's in the how-to and in convincing hunters that unlimited long seasons' opportunities are adversely impacting hunting quality and wildlife population health.

 

[DFS]

I believe you. Wouldn’t it be better though, if season structures changes were implemented to improve hunting in other areas so yours didn’t see as much pressure?

@Nameless Range is right, it’ll be far easier to sell a cut in NR opportunities. Charge ahead with it. Full speed. You could be 100% right and in 5-10 years you’ll be in mule deer hay days again.

My prediction is you’ll still have other major underlying issues and still be disappointed with the current situation.

Mule deer rut hunt needs to stop, that is my favorite thing about this proposal. That alone will not fix the quality of hunt on public land. Nonresident caps and forcing residents to pick a region or better yet a district. I know things are unlikely to improve the odds are stacked against mule deer and we aren’t helping.

 

[Rie Bread]

Total resident license sales have actually declined in the past 10 years. Total resident hunter days have increased by @ 8% if my memory serves me correctly. @sclancy27 is the numbers guys when it come to stats and data.

Woah wild data there! Thank you.

 

[MTGomer]

I’m surprised mandatory reporting was so controversial a few pages back.


A reliable baseline of data should be the bare minimum. Without mandatory reporting, incomplete data can be used as an excuse to do or not do anything.

We should either go to mandatory reporting or discontinue reporting all together. The phone survey BS is BS.

 

[antlerradar]

View attachment 353976

Those are ugly numbers, unfortunately I could see the solution being getting more residents to hunt in 6 and 7.

 

[Gerald Martin]

For elk, because that is the only thing FWP has data for, in 2012 non-residents accounted for about 12% of Hunter days on the landscape. In 2022, they accounted for 15% of the hunter days on the landscape. Both the resident and nonresident cohorts increased in hunter days at about the same rate.


I think it would be a mistake to turn our noses at any incremental change in the right direction - and to be clear by “right”, I mean proposals that serve Montanans. Bluntly, of all of the proposals this group came up with - which I wholeheartedly support - a reduction in nonresident hunter days on the landscape would probably be an easier sell to Montanans than any of the aforementioned proposals. I fully believe reducing nonresident hunters would not be nearly as effective and experience-changing as the OP’s Season Setting Proposals 2.0, so I understand functionally why it isn’t part of the platform, but tactically, if you go out on the landscape and talk to Montanans you will not get away from what they see and feel about NRs, and in fact, I don’t think many Montanans will be open to these changes until it happens. They will want to see that first. As has been mentioned previously, this is chiefly a social issue, but that doesn’t really say anything about whether or not it can be ignored.

Given the fact that nonresident tags sell out annually anymore, there’s clearly room for an adjustment in cost to offset revenue resulting from a potential reduction in tags, which I understand would require legislative branch buy-in, but I don’t see that being any harder than the buy-in necessary for these proposals. Or something else, for elk, NRs average 8 days per season per hunter on the landscape statewide. Could nonresident hunters be limited in the amount of days they could hunt? Limit them to six days and you have taken 35,000 Hunter-days off the landscape. Though there is certainly overlap, I wish the data for days spent hunting deer was out there.

To me, we can talk about one issue as well as the others. All worthwhile questions though probably for a different thread.

@Nameless Range,

I think what you wrote here is dead on accurate and deserves further discussion.

During our group discussions to come up with “Season Structure Proposal 1.0” we identified the increases of NR deer and elk licenses over the past decade as one of the issues we wanted to address. Changing those numbers requires legislative action and will affect FWP’s budget.

We concluded that we would view a return to the historic NR license caps of 17,000 deer/elk combos and 6,600 deer only licenses for either sex tags and NR’s receiving up to 10% of total antlerless tags as an appropriate number that would alleviate social angst from residents who feel pressured out of public hunting areas, relieve some pressure on the resource without being punitive to the outfitting industry that relies on NR hunters or reducing FWP’s operating budget too dramatically.

We believed that we could reduce the total amount of either sex tags sold by @ 3500-5000. Predicting the reduction of antlerless tags is a bit more difficult due to OTC single region tags and some of the elk areas that do not have caps and NR’s are not restricted to 10% by law.

We knew that could face significant opposition from some legislators and from the department and without going into too much detail we definitely received word that our plan would face a head on fight.

However, political will is an ever evolving thing and with department personnel changes and politicians hear from a frustrated public, it might be that the social environment is ripe to have some of the legislation change that we thought might not be a battle we could win.

 

[Treeshark]

We believed that we could reduce the total amount of either sex tags sold by @ 3500-5000.

Any ideas what the financial impact on BMA funding would be from this? I assume the math is probably not as simple as it would first appear, as some of these currently are not being charged at full NR fee (which should piss R’s and full fee NR’s off equally).

 

[SAJ-99]

I’m surprised mandatory reporting was so controversial a few pages back.

To be clear, going to mandatory reporting isn’t controversial. I think everyone is for it. Some people (me) argued that the it isn’t going to solve anything and the data probably won't be materially different than what you see now. The good news is I think there is a bill for 2025 to implement it (LC1970). Call your Rep. I would love to look back in 5 years and say I was wrong on this one.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Any ideas what the financial impact on BMA funding would be from this? I assume the math is probably not as simple as it would first appear, as some of these currently are not being charged at full NR fee (which should piss R’s and full fee NR’s off equally).

You bring up a very good point. I think intial estimates would have been a negative impact of @ $5 million. However, I thin some of those estimates were counting the full price of NR tags and many of the tags we would have been targeting are being sold at reduced price and or are being resold as separate tags when they’re returned after the general license/permit draw.

I agree completely that both R and NR should be pissed that any NR licenses are sold at reduced price. Especially since everyone else ends up subsidizing the few folks who benefit from Montana Native and Come Home to Hunt half priced licenses.

 

[Treeshark]

Especially since everyone else ends up subsidizing the few folks who benefit from Montana Native and Come Home to Hunt half priced licenses.

Exactly. It would behoove Montana residents to target these first to preserve critical BMA and department funding.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Exactly. It would behoove Montana residents to target these first to preserve critical BMA and department funding.

A problem is that those licenses are pet carve outs for a few politicians whose family members benefit from the ability to come home to hunt. Until political winds blow strongly enough to convince those decision makers it’s in their better interests to protect the interests of the majority of MT residents those licenses probably won’t go away.

Something else that both R and NR should be upset about is that those licenses were added to the previously set statutory caps on NR licenses. If you’re a NR who goes through the draw, buys the points and waits your turn in line like everyone else and pays full price for the experience, you now have to compete with NR’s who get to bypass all the restrictions of other NR’s and buy their guaranteed OTC license for half price.

Even worse, if you’re a resident hunter you get to compete with additional NR’s who are paying only half of what we charge all other NR’s just because they have connections to residents of the state or were Montana’s version of “anchor babies.”