Montana - Time to Shake it Up?

[Ben Lamb]

Holy crap you guys have lost your minds. What percentage of region 7 has conifers? Im not sure what we arguing about at this point. Everyone agrees habitat is very important. In most places it’s the most important but specifically in eastern Montana with Mule Deer bucks you have lead poisoning issues that have to be dealt with first before habitat matters at all. I can say with 100% confidence we are not habitat limited in eastern Montana whatsoever when it comes to trophy mule deer bucks. Back to being off this thread for me. I should have stayed off in the first place.

Regardless of the number of conifers, this conversation has turned into something that's far more than the usual stitch & bitch mule deer threads turn into.

Great debate, solid points and lots of data to back it up.

 

[rogerthat]

I think that is exactly the situation we are in Eastern MT and I would go as far to say all, or most, of MT when it comes to mule deer. I just don't think, without seriously addressing habitat, we will ever see anything close to the "glory days" of mule deer just by cutting back on success rates (seasons, more primitive weapons, whatever method).

Im opposite. I don’t think without seriously addressing our management practices we will ever see the “glory days” again with all the habitat work in the world. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion even if it’s wrong. Guess we will see.

 

[antlerradar]

Another big thing you can easily see in aerial imagery is crop conversion.

Crop conversion is a non issue on the Custer and surrounding land, If anything the advent of pivots has made irrigated alfalfa available to even more of the mule deer population.

 

[sclancy27]

Im opposite. I don’t think without seriously addressing our management practices we will ever see the “glory days” again with all the habitat work in the world. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion even if it’s wrong. Guess we will see.

I think we need both, but if we were to live in a world where we could only do 1 but we could do it perfectly I would pick habitat. Thus, I see that as more important.

Crop conversion is a non issue on the Custer and surrounding land, If anything the advent of pivots has made irrigated alfalfa available to even more of the mule deer population.

Are those pivots providing good winter range when mule deer are primarily on browse?

 

[antlerradar]

Im opposite. I don’t think without seriously addressing our management practices we will ever see the “glory days” again with all the habitat work in the world. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion even if it’s wrong. Guess we will see.

I would argue that if we don't address management, mule deer will go extinct on large blocks of pubic land long before the habitat improvements have a chance to kick in. They are close to that in some of the great places I hunted in the 80's right now. Habitat is the long game, it is what we need to do for our kids.

 

[Mtn-time]

That may be true in western Mt, for the most part habitat has not changed in eastern Montana since the 80's,except for the better and mostly those changes have been the product of an act of God.

I think eastern MT mule deer would indirectly benefit from improved habitat in western MT.

 

[antlerradar]

I think we need both, but if we were to live in a world where we could only do 1 but we could do it perfectly I would pick habitat. Thus, I see that as more important.

Are those pivots providing good winter range when mule deer are primarily on browse?

Pivots do not provide winter range. However with out fail the first comment I hear from everyone that guts a doe on our hay fields is "I can not believe how fat this deer is". That fat is what helps deer survive the winter when the snow is deep. The condition of the winter range is not an issue, I can walk up in to the winter range right now and it is loaded with winterfat, rabbitbrush and lots of other high quality deer food, most of it has not been chewed on.

 

[Perlodid]

I feel like I know the answer, but just out of curiosity - does anybody have recent doe/fawn mortality data for eastern Montana? FWP, university research, anybody? I feel like that would help explain a lot of the habitat variables/range conditions quicker than anything else, at least for the purpose of mule deer management.

 

[antlerradar]

I feel like I know the answer, but just out of curiosity - does anybody have recent doe/fawn mortality data for eastern Montana? FWP, university research, anybody? I feel like that would help explain a lot of the habitat variables/range conditions quicker than anything else, at least for the purpose of mule deer management.

I don't have anything recently, but not long ago I read that adult doe mortality in eastern MT was running about 5% and the places studied in western MT were running much higher. Lead poisoning is by far the biggest reason for doe mortality on public land in eastern Montana.

 

[brockel]

I can show you huge chunks of public land in eastern Montana that mule deer have almost disappeared from that don’t have conifers and the only crop around it is the pumpkin patch that sprouts up at the end of October and leaves end of November. This land use to have a very good deer population.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I've conferred with a few other folks and this is my thinking right now:

Let's make sure this group can agree on some basic things first and then, when we have something a bit more solid, we can go out for other people, etc.

I know that some folks have been getting calls, etc about this, as others are eager to join. This effort isn't just a one and done meeting - it should be viewed as the start to something broader that will hopefully grow once we get some ground rules and basic understandings set.

Any updates on this being scheduled Ben? Apologies if I missed it.

 

[MTTW]

It was 2016-17, SE MT, 4 years post ~300,000 acres burning on the Custer Nat'l forest. Lower deer numbers post 2010-2011 winter and a huge turnover in habitat in 2012 with those fires caused an incredibly rapid increase in MD populations (I know no one here believes FWP data, but anyone familiar with those areas noticed how many deer suddenly appeared on the landscape).

Then you get drought, habitat senescence post fire and the effects of over-browsing during droughts and winter and there is less carrying capacity on the landscape. Those burns are not nearly as productive for mule deer as they were in 2013-2018 or 2019.

That population "explosion" was a blip in an otherwise downward population trend.

I'm saying compare aerial photos for conifers (junipers) from the 30's to present day. You could even pick the 50's. Conifer encroachment is, generally, bad for mule deer and good for elk, from a habitat perspective.

This is what I was thinking of.

FWP releases Region 6 mule deer and whitetail deer population trend numbers

www.montanaoutdoor.com

https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/conservation/deer/2022-mt-mule-deer-estimates.pdf

 

[DFS]

This is what I was thinking of.

FWP releases Region 6 mule deer and whitetail deer population trend numbers

www.montanaoutdoor.com

https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/conservation/deer/2022-mt-mule-deer-estimates.pdf

I hate that they only go back 10 years for their LTA. They are erasing years of useful data. I believe this is a big part of why a few of the western Montana guys are so out to lunch with the changes I’ve seen over the last 30+ years. You aren’t fixing region 7 with habitat improvements, that is laughable at best. The habitat here is great, it isn’t limiting anything.

 

[brockel]

It was 2016-17, SE MT, 4 years post ~300,000 acres burning on the Custer Nat'l forest. Lower deer numbers post 2010-2011 winter and a huge turnover in habitat in 2012 with those fires caused an incredibly rapid increase in MD populations (I know no one here believes FWP data, but anyone familiar with those areas noticed how many deer suddenly appeared on the landscape).

Then you get drought, habitat senescence post fire and the effects of over-browsing during droughts and winter and there is less carrying capacity on the landscape. Those burns are not nearly as productive for mule deer as they were in 2013-2018 or 2019.

That population "explosion" was a blip in an otherwise downward population trend.

I have my doubts that the fires in the Custer caused that much of a blip in the mule deer counts when fwp only has two places in the Custer they count and one wasn’t part of the burned area. Here’s the areas fwp counts in region 7

 

[DFS]

I have my doubts that the fires in the Custer caused that much of a blip in the mule deer counts when fwp only has two places in the Custer they count and one wasn’t part of the burned area. Here’s the areas fwp counts in region 7
View attachment 311389

I think they expanded the area on Otter creek, they also don’t have the counts when numbers were high early 2000’s. Or at least told me they didn’t. There are a lot of factors working against the mule deer over here.

Technology changes and open country might be one of the biggest ones that hasn’t been mentioned much. Hunters have became much more efficient and target the bigger bucks of any species.

Information on how and where to hunt is readily available. On-x and so on

The decline of western Montana displaced a lot of hunters.

Failure of fwp to see or adapt to any changes.

When you have a state wide tag open during the rut things will not bode well for mule deer with those changes.

No doe tags on public is a much needed change. This could have a very positive effect to our mule deer population on public. It would not be hard to see positive changes but a focus on region 7 habitat isn’t going to get us even close to where we should be.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I spaced out a little bit during the habitat improvement/ hunter management discussion.

But it seems to me that a both/and situation is an optimal approach.

Change hunting pressure and reduce mortality while improving habitat. Everyone wins. Especially wildlife.

 

[brockel]

Information on how and where to hunt is readily available. On-x and so on

This has changed things more than people realize I think. I know I hunt more areas now that I didn’t before when there are no fence lines to follow. The old county plat map books didn’t give enough detail.

 

[antlerradar]

I think they expanded the area on Otter creek, they also don’t have the counts when numbers were high early 2000’s. Or at least told me they didn’t. There are a lot of factors working against the mule deer over here.

Otter Creek is the only trend area on the Custer, Olive Creek is well east of the Custer. Otter Creek was expanded to the west some years back( I can not remember the exact year off the top of my head.) I think it was a good and needed move by FWP. The entire trend area burned in one night one July day in 2000. Over all it has been a good thing for deer, it was a disaster for quality bucks. The fire also likely messed with the flight survey. Just not conceivable to me you could go from dense pine in 1999 to burnt sticks in 2000 and not greatly increase the percentage of deer observed, but I have never done a flight survey.

 

[brockel]

Otter Creek is the only trend area on the Custer, Olive Creek is well east of the Custer. Otter Creek was expanded to the west some years back( I can not remember the exact year off the top of my head.) I think it was a good and needed move by FWP. The entire trend area burned in one night one July day in 2000. Over all it has been a good thing for deer, it was a disaster for quality bucks. The fire also likely messed with the flight survey. Just not conceivable to me you could go from dense pine in 1999 to burnt sticks in 2000 and not greatly increase the percentage of deer observed, but I have never done a flight survey.

The map I posted came from their 2021 presentation they showed us in Miles City of their adaptive harvest management

 

[DFS]

The map I posted came from their 2021 presentation they showed us in Miles City of their adaptive harvest management

Im fairly certain it has been expanded to include a larger area. The wildlife manager said it happened but couldn’t say when.