SE Montana winter kill

[antlerradar]

The past few years the forest service has done spotlight surveys on the Custer during the month of Aug. Today I was taking to an forest service employ and asked how the surveys went. The 2018 mule deer numbers are roughly 66% of the numbers in both 2016 and 2017. Not a complete wipe out but not real good. Especially if you take into account that the numbers in 16 and 17 were not exceptionally high on the Custer.

 

[8andcounting]

Yet the Fwp says the mule deer in SE montana are 29% above the long term average which I find hard to believe .

 

[antlerradar]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that much of FWPs numbers are from winter range surveys. Surveys that are taken before many of the deer die in early spring.

 

[belly-deep]

Also hard winters are particularly tough on bucks, as they end the rut right when the bad weather hits. So a 33% population drop probably means even worse for mature males.

 

[mn taxidermist]

Did they also survey the whitetail numbers

 

[8andcounting]

http://fwp.mt.gov/news/newsReleases/hunting/nr_2803.html

 

[8andcounting]

I like in the press release how they throw on the fact that "there's lots of opportunity for hunters with the 11,000 mule doe tags in r7"

 

[8andcounting]

Maybe the private lands have a ton of deer , but I'm guessing public land can't withstand those kind of tag numbers

 

[antlerradar]

Did they also survey the whitetail numbers

Yes. I don't know about whitetail.

 

[timmy]

FWP survey numbers are laughable. Thank goodness for private landowners providing at least some sort of management. Montana FWP is a joke.

 

[The Hedgehog]

Come enjoy SE MT. It's the jackpot for all non-resident hunters! LMFAO

Going into the 2018 hunting season, biologists expect that there will be strong cohorts of 3- to 5-year-old bucks on the landscape. Deer in the 6- to 8-year-old range will still be relatively few and far between, as these age classes would have survived as fawns or been born following the severe winters when fawn production and survival rates were low. The number of 5-year-olds this year should be modest, as they would have been born in 2013, a year with healthy fawn production but fairly low numbers of deer. Numbers of 3- and 4-year-olds will be better, and there will once again be high numbers of yearlings and 2-year-olds. Buck numbers as a whole are phenomenal; the region-wide average was 46 bucks:100 does following the 2017 hunting season.

 

[antlerradar]

I wish I could be as optimistic as FWP.
It could be that both the Forest Service (33% decline) and FWP's (11% decline) numbers are accurate. As I remember last year there was a big jump in the number of doe tags issued. I have long contended that far to many of the doe tags are filled on the Custer. The surveys could be backing this up.

 

[8andcounting]

I wish I could be as optimistic as FWP.
It could be that both the Forest Service (33% decline) and FWP's (11% decline) numbers are accurate. As I remember last year there was a big jump in the number of doe tags issued. I have long contended that far to many of the doe tags are filled on the Custer. The surveys could be backing this up.

I'm sure that's true . At $75 each the doe tags are a bargain for a NR especially when a deer combo is $600 . So I'm guessing some guys coming in are buying several I think u can have 7 legally .

 

[Pagosa]

I spent a little time up there in Custer NF, and deer sightings were few. I can see triple the amount of deer on a short drive in Northwestern Montana.

 

[8andcounting]

According to Fwp Custer should be full of 4.5 year old 4 points . The sconies and blue platers will be happy

 

[belly-deep]

Come enjoy SE MT. It's the jackpot for all non-resident hunters! LMFAO

I got quite a chuckle out of the FWP’s upland bird forecast this year too.

I think they quit hiring biologists and now employ advertising agents to help sell NR licenses.

 

[Fire_9]

Hunted down there this past weekend and the numbers seemed pretty dismal. I didn’t cover a ton of country but saw about a dozen deer on public ground in a day and a half of hunting. I started hunting that area in 2010 and would easily see 50-70 deer a day. The lush alfalfa fields barely had any deer on them

 

[joelweb]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that much of FWPs numbers are from winter range surveys. Surveys that are taken before many of the deer die in early spring.

Most I saw this year were flown in April.

 

[antlerradar]

Most I saw this year were flown in April.

I am not sure when the flights were taken in region 7. I was under the impression that it is Feb. April seems kind of late.
On normal year many of the deer have moved off of winter range as the county is snow free and the bottoms and some of the up lands have all ready started to green up. This was not a normal year. The first part of April there was still deep and hard snow except where the wind blew the ground bare or on the south facing slopes. If FWP takes their survey in the first part of April the numbers this year were likely inflated by deer that on a normal year would have left the winter range and been missed in the count. This year those deer were stuck on winter range and may have been included in the count.

 

[GaPointer]

I know a lot of folks go to Region 7 and it seems that's where a lot of feedback is coming from. Any info on region 3 or 5? I think I am heading into one of those 2 area the first or second weekend of rifle.