MT FWP Tentative Season setting meetings

[onpoint]

Another point I want to make and I know this sounds racist, but these indians hunting year-around because of some b.s. agreement in the 1880's is crazy. Let them go get high and poach on the reservations. They are taking a lot of moose, mule deer, elk, bighorn, etc that aren't theirs. They lost the war, and sold a majority of their land and the govt. took away the other part. They need to get over it and go get a job. Indians growing up in Oklahoma were no different than anyone else in the 70's -80's until the govt ruined them.

FYI, Not a season setting nor regulation issue.

 

[375H&H]

What are your thoughts on the tribes being able to hunt MSG and draw elk/deer without complying with the FWP?

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[BuzzH]

Supreme court has ruled that treaties are "high law", whining about native hunting rights afforded them via treaty is a dead end. Move on.

 

[Schaaf]

Buzz we agree again, a 10-14 day rifle season would help. And the hunting in Western Mt must suck, all I see is Western Mt rig after Western MT rig, followed by Wa. rig after Wa. rig pounding the Candadian border waiting for the next 200 inch buck to jump out of Sask. 39 different rigs we counted one day up on the border, hunting an area of about 8 sq. miles....ridiculous.

Were I king, here is how it would go... Archery season Sept. 1-Oct. 5, Rifle season Oct. 10-Oct. 25, muzzle-loader season Nov. 1-8(no scopes, no in-lines, primitive only), Nov. 10- Sunday after Turkey Day archery only(the fear of a bow hunter in camo will help keep poachers with rifles away)....Now we have more license sales for FWP, a still too long season filled w/ opportunity, and less impact on the resource... WIN-WIN

We will wind up at LE permits for hunting the most popular season, and eventually it will be all LE as the population of Mt continues to grow. But we must place a value on our resource and put it ahead of the wants of the people. The fact that people will not limit themselves is self-evident, so the Dept. is going to have to step in and place limits on the resource. I hope they do this ahead of a violent escalation. I know of 3 instances where conflict could have turned into a deadly confrontation in the field.

Someone in a prev. post said it is a good thing those Sask bucks do not need a passport...they are right on, were it not for Sask there would hardly be a decent buck in NE Mt..

Absolutely agree with this, Eric. Even down to bucks jumping the border.

 

[onpoint]

I believe this is a season setting or regulation issue, is it not?

Feel free to go to one of these meetings, bring it up, see where it gets ya'...............

 

[tjones]

I believe this is a season setting or regulation issue, is it not?

It is not. See post #166

 

[Big Fin]

I believe this is a season setting or regulation issue, is it not?

It is not. It is an issue of law. Not a single thing a season setting entity can do to affect those hunting rights. I wish the tribes did some of their hunting differently, but what they do is completely within their rights.

 

[Big Fin]

On a side note, as someone who grew up next to two reservations and has some great friends who are indigenous people, some of the comments in recent posts are as uninformed, misinformed, ignorant, and offensively stupid as any posted here in a long time. That ignorance is obvious to anyone familiar with the history and struggle of tribes, over the last two centuries and through today. A good way to find your password no longer valid is to continue with such ignorant comments. It won't be tolerated here.

If you want a discussion of tribal hunting rights, the complete deriliction of BIA/DOI as trustee of tribal assets/land, and many other issues affecting tribes, start a different thread.

Carry on ......

 

[HighWildFree]

Nice to see that some would really be willing to make a big sacrifice..

I meant reasonable as in a reasonable compromise. Shorter seasons are an uphill battle. Small steps.

 

[airlocksniffer]

What are your thoughts on the tribes being able to hunt MSG and draw elk/deer without complying with the FWP?

Treaty rights. As much as some folks think that is not acceptable, native peoples got the short end of the stick here. Not to mention many of these treaties were signed under the gun.

 

[MTGomer]

signed under the gun.

Sounds like good grounds on which to question their validity.


But that really is a whole other topic. Worthy of a whole other thread, that could max out the word count limit if this forum has one.

No easy answer to it.

 

[JLS]

Supreme court has ruled that treaties are "high law", whining about native hunting rights afforded them via treaty is a dead end. Move on.

Although what you stated is completely factual, and common sense, it never prevents folks from putting forth the opinion the tribes should simply renegotiate with us. That's about as likely as me telling the bank they need to renegotiate my interest rate on my mortgage. It sure sounds good, but ain't gonna happen.

 

[JLS]

JLS, Where you at? mtmuley

Patience Grasshopper, I had to finish up some last minute Christmas shopping, chauffer a kid, and fulfill volunteer duties at a kids' party at church.

Choose your weapon seasons are a double edged sword. If you are looking to limit harvest and that is your only avenue of doing so, it probably won't have much of an affect. It may limit it some, because you always have the sorry ass bowhunters like myself who dig the bolt action out of the closet when they can't kill an elk during archery season.

It CAN be effective in limiting hunter crowding. It seems the number of archery hunters in SW Montana has skyrocketed in the last ten years. A choose your weapon may or may not improve this, because you have to figure there will likely be a significant portion of that group who will select the archery only option. I'm not sure how many of these folks double dip seasons?

It could also create more crowding issues during modern season. It would likely force some folks to spend more time rifle hunting because they are no longer taking time off during archery season.

I have a couple of intense dislikes about choose your weapon hunting. Number one, for younger and inexperienced hunters, it really limits their ability to just go out and hunt, and have fun. Want to try bowhunting? Great, but with choose your weapon it's all in or all out. There is no option to try it and see if you like it without completely sacrificing your season. My other dislike about is if the state then introduces a "multi season permit", which allows the drawee to hunt during any of the seasons with the appropriate weapon. I've seen this used as a revenue producer and quite frankly, I really don't like it. It's essentially the same concept as special fees in Wyoming, you draw a permit, pay more, and get extra opportunity.

At some point, you can't have your cake and eat it too. There are a number of ways you can work things to more effectively control harvest without severely impacting hunter opportunity. There are a number of methods I personally would look at first prior to going to a choose your weapon system. It's always struck me as somewhat odd to allow people to apply for limited entry trophy units with no risk at all. I.e. you apply for your 270 mule deer permit, and if you don't draw, you drive over to the Custer and shoot a buck. Why not have some sacrifice associated with the LE opportunity? If you don't draw a LE mule deer permit you hunt whitetails or nothing? Make people choose if they want to hunt both archery and rifle elk season, or be able to put in for a LE elk permit. Make people choose a region for elk and a region for deer. Adjust the season length to achieve your desired harvest based on number of tags.

Montana relies on self distribution by hunters. I'm not a big fan of micro managing hunt districts, but I certainly think it's time to evaluate if the macro management is really working, and if it's really management at all.

 

[JLS]

Ok, I'm fine with that.

Back to the point of the MTFWP tentative season structure. If I attend a meeting in Region 1 can I express my concern about a regulation proposal in Region 3 or do I need to attend the Region 3 meetings? I'm concerned about the MTFWP increasing elk b tags from 25 in 2012-14, to a increase of 150-175 in 2015-17, and now a proposed increase to 400-500 when based on their own survey methods and the FWP biologist says the district only contains 1600-1800 elk. That is a possibly harvest of 10%-25% of the entire herd.

A harvest rate of 25-30% is the rate at which population dynamics should show about 0% herd growth.

 

[antlerradar]

Montana relies on self distribution by hunters. I'm not a big fan of micro managing hunt districts, but I certainly think it's time to evaluate if the macro management is really working, and if it's really management at all.[/QUOTE]

It is time to scrap this management philosophy. It only has a chance of working if there is good access to everything and that is not reality today.

 

[Pagosa]

On a side note, as someone who grew up next to two reservations and has some great friends who are indigenous people, some of the comments in recent posts are as uninformed, misinformed, ignorant, and offensively stupid as any posted here in a long time. That ignorance is obvious to anyone familiar with the history and struggle of tribes, over the last two centuries and through today. A good way to find your password no longer valid is to continue with such ignorant comments. It won't be tolerated here.

If you want a discussion of tribal hunting rights, the complete deriliction of BIA/DOI as trustee of tribal assets/land, and many other issues affecting tribes, start a different thread.

Carry on ......

Randy and other - My apologies for offending anyone. I grew in Northeast Oklahoma, next to the Kenwood Reservation and my family are Cherokee descendants. I'm not a Political Correct person, and Poaching is a acceptable way of life to a lot of Indians. I wasn't aware that the current status of the treaties, governed by the DOI, were intended to allow hunting on areas outside of the reservation land; I thought the treaties were related to Tribal lands only. That is misinformed/ignorance on my part. I heard about 15 years ago that the Colorado DOW Commissioners were going to allow tribal members to begin hunting areas outside of the Southern Ute/Mtn. Apache tribal lands, because of the treaties. So I had assumed the State Agencies were not enforcing the laws, but were caving into the Tribes demands. My thoughts were not directed to put down Indians, but to determine how the laws could be changed to stop the POACHING of hundreds or possibly thousands of trophy mule deer, elk, bighorn, moose, and bison outside of regulated seasons. This activity effects all legal hunters. I will move on and not bring up the issue of tribal poaching anymore. Again my apologies for offending anyone. Preston Nelson

 

[Schism]

I’ve read several posts in this thread but not all so if this has been asked please forgive me.

Would it be too difficult to require a mandatory online harvest report at the end of the season? A few states and reservations I hunt require this but MT does not. Wouldn’t this information be of utmost value in determining season states, lengths, regions, tag allocations, etc? Without this comprehensive data aren’t we and the MTFWP speculating a lot more than necessary in today’s era of technology?

 

[JLS]

I wasn't aware that the current status of the treaties, governed by the DOI, were intended to allow hunting on areas outside of the reservation land; I thought the treaties were related to Tribal lands only. That is misinformed/ignorance on my part. I heard about 15 years ago that the Colorado DOW Commissioners were going to allow tribal members to begin hunting areas outside of the Southern Ute/Mtn. Apache tribal lands, because of the treaties. So I had assumed the State Agencies were not enforcing the laws, but were caving into the Tribes demands.

It completely depends on the tribe and the treaty. Some treaties allotted land for tribal reservation and nothing else. Some treaties allotted land for tribal reservation while allowing for hunting/fishing/gathering in usual and accustomed areas. This is why the Nez Perce tribe can hunt bison at Gardiner, or the Salish Kootenai tribe can hunt moose anywhere west of the continental divide in Montana, or the Yakama tribe can hunt deer and elk along the Columbia River.

Sometimes tribes begin exercising a tribal right even though they never have in the past. This usually catches folks off guard and creates a heck of a stir. I can't speak directly to the Colorado issue, but my guess is someone in the tribe realized they had opportunity they were not using. Sometimes these issues end up in court because usual and accustomed areas are not always easily defined, and sometimes treaty language is a little nebulous as to what it actually allows. As Buzz said, once the court rules on this, it's undisputable law.

It's always a hot button issue, but if the tribe is exercising their hunting rights within the boundaries of the treaty, it is not poaching in any way shape or form.

 

[airlocksniffer]

Would it be too difficult to require a mandatory online harvest report at the end of the season?

I think this is sorely needed. I'll get my usual call from FWP at the end of the season but they only ever ask about wolves and moose. Not sure if this has been attempted in the state legislature-perhaps Ben or other folks can chime in.

 

[huntin24/7]

I've lived in MT for a little over 10 years, all in the NE part of the state, but I scout and hunt the area pretty hard. Here are a few of my observations. For the first 4-5 years I lived here, we were in a generalunit that was a 3 week season ending around Nov 10th every year. During those years, I hunted basically all state land, BMA, and the kind of private land they allow anyone who asks permission. For those first few years, I could go out and see at least one 3 year old 150-160ish buck every day, and there was usually a better buck on or around those chunks of property I could hunt. Then we changed to a 5 week season which I was excited for at first because I had more days off to hunt and more of the rut. It didn't take long to start noticing a change in these areas. The biggest things I've noticed in the last 5-6 years since this change are: the really good locked down private properties remain great and virtually unchanged, I can scout hard and maybe find 1 buck most years in that 140+ size on the block and state land with a few exceptions, and even though this area is about 2% public land plus some decent sized BMA's, a pretty high proportion of the muley b tags get filled on a small amount of the overall property in the unit. I did some hunting further west this fall where there is more state land and found more of the same with lots of spike-2 year old bucks. Basically, with the exception of a handful of well managed private properties, the age class has gone to crap. Anyways, that only 10 years worth of observation, so take it for what its worth. Even though it would be much less convenient with the amount of time I get to hunt, I'm all for shortened seasons and other changes to improve age structure and overall herd health.