ShootsManyBullets
Well-known member
I like cashing checks...
I'm trying to figure out why we can't have 5,000 whitetail doe tags too? I guess they live more on private so we shouldn't slaughter them.
R7 mule b tags
- Thread starter 8andcounting
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I'm trying to figure out why we can't have 5,000 whitetail doe tags too? I guess they live more on private so we shouldn't slaughter them.
8andcounting
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There is ..... they are Otc but limited to two for residents and 1 for Nonresidents
thusby
Well-known member
Think I could fill 200 whitetail doe tags on the milk with 200 feet of riverfront.
Walkathon
Well-known member
Would be nice if the mule deer B tags were for private land only and there were fewer tags. I'm a NR so my opinion doesn't really matter, but I don't feel like the public land in R7 is overpopulated with mulie does based on my hunting experiences. My non-scientific, non resident thoughts on the subject.
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Last season in the Custer I saw and spoke with multiple pickups loaded with 4 guys all packing mule deer doe tags. Several were from Wisconsin. Later I was stopped at a FWP check point on 10 Mile after they had just taken down their decoy. The decoy was a mule deer buck. I told them they were using the wrong bait since most guys driving around had doe tags and were looking to expend as little energy as possible filling their tags. I wouldn’t be surprised if this season they use a muley doe decoy.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Increasing worries about spread of CWD might have something to do with it. Also, a lot of private land owners (re: rangers and farmers) view wildlife like cockroaches. Not all, but enough that the FWP's "target" numbers have to be viewed in context of having no relation to reasonable carrying capacity. The irony is palpable.
antlerradar
Well-known member
With the new CWD regulations you could add head and spine removal. You could even have a skull cleaning station for those extra special three pointers.
antlerradar
Well-known member
CWD has little to do with the 11000 doe tags. FWP is going to use CWD to justify current management that has changed little in the last 20 years. If FWP was serious about trying to slow the spread of CWD they would try to get the doe tags filled with does that are concentrating on the river bottoms. The high density deer populations on the river bottoms is where CWP is going to most likely show up first and spread the fastest, not the low density pine and juniper hills of the Custer. Giving out 11,000 anywhere goes region wide tags does little to get those tags filled where they need to be filled.
I am sure that there are plenty of landowners complaining about too many deer. Probably many of the same ones that when hunting season comes around are happy to have does to bring the bucks down out of the hills where they are easy for guys with size 54 pants to shoot them from a suburban. If landowners are the driving force behind 11,000 doe tags, make the vast majority of the tags only good for private land.
I personally would like to see zero tags good for public but a good compromise in my opinion would be to allow the hunter to fill the first doe tag on ether public or private and the next four if purchased could only be filled on private land.
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antlerradar
Well-known member
Sadly I think Buzz is right. We are going to have to hit rock bottom before any meaningful changes in management.
Greenhorn is also right in that big chunks of private land are going to keep us from ever hitting rock bottom.
This is a recipe for tragedy of the commons on public an ever increasing commercialization on private land.
Greenhorn is also right in that big chunks of private land are going to keep us from ever hitting rock bottom.
This is a recipe for tragedy of the commons on public an ever increasing commercialization on private land.
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8andcounting
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Agreed . And you live there so I’ll ask this , is there a Lot more mule deer now than there was in 2011-2014 when after a few rough winters fwp issued 0 mule deer doe tags in r7 ?
8andcounting
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0-11,000 in five years seems like a high number especially after the winter of 2017-2018 which was brutal in SE Montana
antlerradar
Well-known member
I would say that the deer on private are holding numbers and may be even increasing. The Custer is an different story. Last year the spotlight survey showed a decrees in the number of deer. This year the surveys have yet to be completed but from what I hear the numbers are not good.
Just from my own hiking on the Custer if you compare deer numbers today to the 80's and 90's when there was no doe hunting. There was far more deer in the 80's and 90's.
Nope. My pancreas tried to kill me last week. I'm firmly off the sauce & in the whining category now. Whine on.
SAJ-99
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https://www.gohunt.com/read/skills/...er-population-and-harvest-breakdown#gs.w3rtz0
Let's just admit that Montana is an opportunity state and FWP has to balance the competing priorities of numerous stakeholders. They did what they should have done in 2012 and limited tags. It worked. Today, populations are way above long term averages. Maybe not in Custer, but Custer is a only small part of Region 7. There are certainly a lot more hunters now than in the 80's and 90's and it gets harder to increase the age class of bucks. But sheer numbers should be fine. Nature will fill the void. if you look at the numbers in the link and compare harvest to population and harvest to permits, you will see a stark difference. Maybe that is because deer amass on private land with no hunting or maybe because most hunters are road hunters and don't want to walk too far.
Let's just admit that Montana is an opportunity state and FWP has to balance the competing priorities of numerous stakeholders. They did what they should have done in 2012 and limited tags. It worked. Today, populations are way above long term averages. Maybe not in Custer, but Custer is a only small part of Region 7. There are certainly a lot more hunters now than in the 80's and 90's and it gets harder to increase the age class of bucks. But sheer numbers should be fine. Nature will fill the void. if you look at the numbers in the link and compare harvest to population and harvest to permits, you will see a stark difference. Maybe that is because deer amass on private land with no hunting or maybe because most hunters are road hunters and don't want to walk too far.
8andcounting
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Another one sucked in by fwp . Harvest stats ? Most guys never get called .......
BuzzH
Well-known member
Anyone that hunted in the 80's-early 2000's can tell you how bad the hunting is in large portions of Montana for mule deer. One area I hunt, that wasn't uncommon to see 50-60 mule deer a day, I haven't seen a single one in 6-7 years. Not a doe, not a buck, none. I know where to find them if they exist in there, been hunting that area for 40 years.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Sucked in by FWP? No sure what that means, but I'm not buying into some hair brained conspiracy theory that FWP is trying to screw us all in some big joke. I don't agree with every decision they make but I have always been given an honest answer from employees there, and even more honest answers after a beer or two.
Harvest stats are collected through random sampling. I am not going to explain statistical methods on this site because it isn't worth my time. Just be sure that we all know the numbers are wrong, but the degree by which they are wrong should be consistent from year to year.
The Hedgehog
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Could you butter somebody up with a couple beers and ask them about the rational behind so many muley doe tags.. I'm sure it all makes perfectly good sense.
BuzzH
Well-known member
SAJ-99, not to change the subject from deer to elk, but here's a question for you.
Lets say you had an elk area, maybe specifically unit 202 near Missoula. Historically you flew that unit and found 600-800 elk. A couple years ago, you flew it and found only 8. Then you flew it again this year and found none, as in, not a single elk. You also concluded that in Mineral County in the surrounding units, you had 9 calves per 100 cows and just stated that bull to cow ratio's were really low. You also set up a check station on one of the major drainages in the area for most of the 5 week rifle season and check 2 bull elk the entire time.
Speaking biologically, what would you do with that area:
1. Think about closing the season.
2. Continue with 11 weeks of OTC elk hunting same as you've done since the 1950's.
3. Shortening the season or going to permit only.
Take a guess what decision the FWP made, and then try to tell me how you would have any faith in a Department that made that decision.
Look, I get no pleasure from blasting the FWP, but they have ruined a lot of good hunting in Montana, just a fact. Most any other state I can think of, would never allow this crap to continue, but MTFWP flat wont make any kind of meaningful changes.
People in upper management of the Department should be fired over this. IMO.
Its tragic, it really is.
Lets say you had an elk area, maybe specifically unit 202 near Missoula. Historically you flew that unit and found 600-800 elk. A couple years ago, you flew it and found only 8. Then you flew it again this year and found none, as in, not a single elk. You also concluded that in Mineral County in the surrounding units, you had 9 calves per 100 cows and just stated that bull to cow ratio's were really low. You also set up a check station on one of the major drainages in the area for most of the 5 week rifle season and check 2 bull elk the entire time.
Speaking biologically, what would you do with that area:
1. Think about closing the season.
2. Continue with 11 weeks of OTC elk hunting same as you've done since the 1950's.
3. Shortening the season or going to permit only.
Take a guess what decision the FWP made, and then try to tell me how you would have any faith in a Department that made that decision.
Look, I get no pleasure from blasting the FWP, but they have ruined a lot of good hunting in Montana, just a fact. Most any other state I can think of, would never allow this crap to continue, but MTFWP flat wont make any kind of meaningful changes.
People in upper management of the Department should be fired over this. IMO.
Its tragic, it really is.
stealthy_bowman
Well-known member
Don’t understand why they don’t just make these tags not valid on NF and BLM. Seems like that would be a simple solution. I’ve hunted that region a good bit on public and don’t see a reason for all the doe tags, the deer numbers are simply not there to warrant it.
