I will have to find the name but one of the lead biologists in Utah was on a rokslide podcast and the correlation from elk out competing muleys is a theory and has not been proven.
Forget to switch accounts….I knew it
I just reported this comment so nobody else needs to. Bill Christy can’t be controlled.
I have no intention of telling people where I hunt but a considerable amount of the area is wilderness or wilderness study area. The area that I glassed is the winter range for this area. A couple of other areas that I hunt have had the doe tags moved to private land only, recently. I tell the above story to illustrate just how bad it has to get before FWP will restrict even public land doe hunting. In one area where doe b tags have been recently made private land only, the FWP biologist recommended it be made LE permit (it wasn't) 2 years before they got around to restricting doe B harvest on public. This unit is not where I was glassing.
Gravity is technically a theory too....
I think we need peer reviewed studies to blame elk for mule deer decline. Anecdotal isn’t going to cut it.
I did a very, very cursory search. There is more.
wyofile.com
I had a similar thought. What it you just shut down MD hunting for 2 yrs? What would be the impact? I doubt there would be an impact on the internet bitching, but on the actual population structure?
I think at first there would be a lot of long faces. The hunting tactics that worked mid Nov would no long be nearly as effective. I never really understood how the lazy rut hunting made many of Montana's hunters were until I hunted CO in the mid 80s. Opening day I was better then a mile up the mountain on top of the divide between the Rio Grand and the Arkansas. I fully expected not to see another hunter until at least ten in the morning. I was wrong. When the sun came up there was several hunters in sight. If you didn't get after it in CO you went home with tag soup. Over time hunters in Montana would adapt. Those that adapted would be rewarded, those that did not would complain. The same would happen with outfitters. Those that are currently trying to manage the number of deer on the properties they lease would be winners, Outfitter that over hunt the first two weeks and count on the rut to bring in bucks from other properties would have to change. For example, near me a WY outfitter leases 500 acres of open and undeveloped river bottom. The only thing this property has gong for it is that it sets between two large irrigated alfalfa fields on large well managed ranches. A few years ago I heard the outfitter took 15 bucks off of the 500 acres. The only reason he was able to take that many was because during the rut the bucks are traveling back and forth between the two fields. With out the rut he would be lucky to take two bucks a year. The value of that 500 acres would drop out of sight. The landowner would likely make quite a bit more money with BM as the property does have access to quite a bit of public.
Actually it would be even less. Oct has 31 days, the current season is 36 days long.
I am hopeful that in five year that we will see a marked improvement on public land with the elimination of public land doe tags. Unfortunately I am just as confident, as soon as there is improvement there will be loud voices calling for public land doe tags by the truck load.
I have been trying to articulate my positions since the mid 90's. Back then I was all alone, not any more.
I agree that the recent weather has had negative effect on the population. I am confident we will bounce back in the years to come with better weather. The long term trend on public land is not good and just like a bouncing ball, the next bounce is not going to be as high as the last and those bounces are going to continue to slide until there is hardly any bounce at all.
What do you think completely separating mule deer and elk seasons would do? Say, mule deer rifle runs Oct 1-Oct 31, Elk Runs Nov 1-31 or later? I wonder if more people would hunt mulies strictly because there is no elk to hunt? Or, these incidental deer hunters that are actually hunting elk just stick to elk? IDK, I rarely have an elk tag in pocket anymore past bow season, so it wouldn't change my life, but I am curious what you an others think.
Didn't a lot of that area also burn in the early 2000's, specifically 2000-2001?
Fires of 2000.
