Recent content by DFS
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Biologist wants to increase doe harvest in region 3 units - Help!
Yeah.. Montana doesn’t do those fancy studies where they are checking does and fawns fat and body weight. The most likely option is a landowner complained or somebody told the biologist they saw a lot of deer. -
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Biologist wants to increase doe harvest in region 3 units - Help!
This makes me think there is going to be a push for more doe tags in other areas of the state. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
@Forkyfinder i can’t remember the years exactly but it was between 2010-2012 we had back to back bad winters. The better bucks were already gone by then but we had deer still before that point, from my perspective. That is around the time that Newburg came in as well, this had a big impact... -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
It wasn’t that many years ago they had record counts in a couple public land flight areas. With staff turning over and a shifting baseline things changed . I never saw the 2015 spike that that graph shows. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
Washing the data every 10 years is a sure fire way to keep the best unit in the west on track. I’m not sure it matters though there were high counts in 2015 and I didn’t ever see them come back from the 2010-2012 winters. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
In all fairness you started the exchange not sure what you expected. It’s hard for many of us to understand how someone could be completely happy with the current state of mule deer in this state. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
You’d think if everybody is so satisfied with the mule deer hunting they would leave the comments on, on their Facebook post promoting the upcoming meetings. That was going to be my entertainment tonight. Disappointed once again. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
This data is very interesting, it makes me wonder if a 5 week rut hunt where you can be extremely selective isn’t the best way to target the older age class bucks. People are shooting the younger bucks with good genetics and that is allowing the older undesirable bucks to live longer. Or it’s... -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
“They aren’t into knee jerk reactions” that was a favorite of mine. But they sure as hell poured the coals to the mule deer does long before they had recovered after bad winters. I think it takes a FOIA request to get your hands on their flight count data, it makes you wonder what they are hiding. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
I don’t have anywhere close to as much experience as buzz but he isn’t wrong. I have went to season settings for the last 15 years, the staff lectures you on how buck size hasn’t changed, the animals didn’t die they just migrated. Bad winters, bad droughts, habitat changes. Not once do they look... -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
With the mule deer survey and their age data I’m afraid it’s game, set, match. I personally don’t know another hunter that is happy with the current state of mule deer hunting they might not agree how to fix it but they aren’t happy. Fwp is gaslighting us and without our own data they will... -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
Historically our counts never move. They are between 30-40/100 since I started paying attention at least -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
Is region 7 down to 20/100 buck to doe ratio? I haven’t seen the counts this year, if that’s the case the wall is breaking here. -
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Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement
The mule deer survey and the ground breaking age data is game over for positive change they won’t even have an open mind, their decision is made up. I think it would be hard to find many region 7 residents that are ok with nonresident harvest exceeding residents. Might be the only hope we have...
