More Discounted Non-residents licenses for Montana

[sacountry]

I can tell you from my experience here in AK. 30% of people who draw tags don't hunt them. Same goes for people who get tags. They get them them with intention of going, and don't use them. How accurate that is, no one knows, but I think its close.

I get tags that I never hunt. I'll pick up a tag just to have in case I go after that animal, but I don't. i.e. goat tag. I think having a tag in my pocket will motivate me, but it doesn't, its a goat.

Rough life

 

[SAJ-99]

Rough life

Might also mean that the tags are too cheap. I bought a Turkey permit every year I lived in MT and can say I never hunted a Turkey specifically. There were numerous times I could have shot a Turkey, but never did and never targeted them. I saw it as a donation to FWP for it charging enough on the resident deer/elk combo.

 

[Bambistew]

Might also mean that the tags are too cheap. I bought a Turkey permit every year I lived in MT and can say I never hunted a Turkey specifically. There were numerous times I could have shot a Turkey, but never did and never targeted them. I saw it as a donation to FWP for it charging enough on the resident deer/elk combo.

Too cheap? They're free.

 

[BuzzH]

I think the best estimate of grizzly population in the Bob Marshall and surrounding area is right around 1000 grizzlies.

I can’t imagine they don’t have an effect on calf survival in the spring.

There were many grizzlies in that country in the 50's-70's...along with a pile of elk.

 

[Ben Lamb]

There were many grizzlies in that country in the 50's-70's...along with a pile of elk.

Lions, wolves, black bears, grizz: elk survival in compromised habitats with lowered forage quality is compromised and leads to greater take by carnivores, and the winter.

And R1 bios are pretty clear that habitat is a big issue up there. Good habitat = better over winter survival. Bad habitat= more dead critters.

 

[BuzzH]

Lions, wolves, black bears, grizz: elk survival in compromised habitats with lowered forage quality is compromised and leads to greater take by carnivores, and the winter.

And R1 bios are pretty clear that habitat is a big issue up there. Good habitat = better over winter survival. Bad habitat= more dead critters.

Lots of the Bob is in Region 2, including most of the winter range.

It's all excuses. A large part of the Bob burned in 1988, from Lake Mountain to Augusta...I know, I worked that fire as well as others near Alva and Inez, Rice Ridge, etc. In fact was on that fire the day some crews were burned over and it made it's largest run.

Been other burns since then in the upper Jocko, Seeley, etc.

I dont look at plant communities but 120 days a year as a biological scientist as well as another 50-60 days a year on my own time. Of course haven't been doing it for much longer than 35 years.

You're talking about country I happen to know as well, or I would argue, better than anyone alive on planet earth.

I'm not seeing this degraded habitat, I'm not seeing over utilization of shrub communities and plant diversity is as good as it gets following 10-30+ year old fires. I'm not seeing sterilized soils.

Winter range is also not showing declining conditions either. That country also isn't being developed like other places in Montana, sure some, but not to the extent it's limiting elk numbers.

I'm pretty inclined to say any biologist that wants to claim the southern half of the Bob has habitat issues that they contend is causing the low elk numbers, is full of crap. It's better now than when I started hunting there in 1979.

Was fishing Browns Lake the other day and looking at the Southern Bob winter range. Glassed marcum and mineral and didn't see elk or mule deer. Winter range looked just fine, in fact better since there's hardly any elk utilizing it.

Not buying it...been around long enough and have hunted that country for 42 years straight...and professionally have a clue what I'm looking at and seeing.

It's an over hunting issue, a lack of management issue.

I'm over with the excuses and flat assed lies...well past over them.

 

[BuzzH]

Lions, wolves, black bears, grizz: elk survival in compromised habitats with lowered forage quality is compromised and leads to greater take by carnivores, and the winter.

And R1 bios are pretty clear that habitat is a big issue up there. Good habitat = better over winter survival. Bad habitat= more dead critters.

By the way Ben, when was the last time you quartered a deer or elk from up that way?

The fat on the rutting buck I killed there this fall wasn't but 3-4 inches on the hinds and back. Even an inch of fat on the fronts. Just like the rest of the 120+ whitetails, 49 elk, and 25+ mule deer we've killed.

I haven't found a single winter killed elk in that country since 1993/1994 winter and that year I found 2 very old cows.

Come on...those animals are as healthy as ungulates get. I'll see if I can dig up some pics of the fat on the backs of those poor starving animals that live on the southern winter ranges of the Bob.

 

[BuzzH]

This poor starving 1.5 year old whitetail buck my nephew shot this fall in that degraded southern Bob habitat...

 

[Eric Albus]

By the way Ben, when was the last time you quartered a deer or elk from up that way?

The fat on the rutting buck I killed there this fall wasn't but 3-4 inches on the hinds and back. Even an inch of fat on the fronts. Just like the rest of the 120+ whitetails, 49 elk, and 25+ mule deer we've killed.

I haven't found a single winter killed elk in that country since 1993/1994 winter and that year I found 2 very old cows.

Come on...those animals are as healthy as ungulates get. I'll see if I can dig up some pics of the fat on the backs of those poor starving animals that live on the southern winter ranges of the Bob.

It may be the estimated 1500 elk left are professional habitat degrades. They’re doing a poor job degrading if those stupid deer are that fat….a conundrum.

 

[BuzzH]

It may be the estimated 1500 elk left are professional habitat degrades. They’re doing a poor job degrading if those stupid deer are that fat….a conundrum.

I can't wait to hear whitetails have pushed all the elk out and have out competed them.

 

[sacountry]

I can't wait to hear whitetails have pushed all the elk out and have out competed them.

Yetis

 

[corndog1]

Pretty soon if you've even flown over Montana in an airplane you will get a discount

 

[warmer]

Pretty soon if you've even flown over Montana in an airplane you will get a discount

Dang, I still don’t qualify.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Dang, I still don’t qualify.

Have you ever typed “Montana” in your history of internet activity?

Now you qualify! Discounted license for you and discounted license for you. Everyone gets a discounted license.

 

[warmer]

I was approached by an outfitter from Montana several years ago to install some HVAC equipment in his new lodge, that count?

 

[sacountry]

I was approached by an outfitter from Montana several years ago to install some HVAC equipment in his new lodge, that count?

Depends....did you actually install it or did you just bid the job?

 

[Gerald Martin]

Depends....did you actually install it or did you just bid the job?

Either way he thought about MT so he doesn’t deserve discrimination against his desire to hunt elk at a discounted price.

 

[JohnCushman]

@Gerald Martin will you adopt me so I can hunt in Montana? I'll share the heart...

 

[noharleyyet]

I was approached by an outfitter from Montana several years ago to install some HVAC equipment in his new lodge, that count?

Username checks out...

 

[Elkoholic]

@Gerald Martin will you adopt me so I can hunt in Montana? I'll share the heart...

You are second in line..... brother.