Ballot Initiative to End NR Big Game Hunting?

[rogerthat]

I may be incorrect and I understand this thread and forum is a small sample size but it seems the Montana residents who have chimed in on here don’t believe NR are the ONLY problem.

The residents that have their heads squarely planted up their rears are the ones that believe it’s the only problem. Your guess is as good as mine how many that is. I don’t know any and i haves lived here for almost half a century

 

[antlerradar]

I can understand the OP frustration with nonresidents. I have had the same frustrations, It really comes to a head when you run into a camp of a half dozen nonresidents that are looking to cut there fifth doe tag on the Custer. This is more of a management problem than it is a nonresident problem.
Would the hunting get better ? I think it would, fewer hunters on public would be nice and a good portion of that would come from residents that would refuse to pay the higher license fees. How much better is debatable and would likely only be temporary with out a change in management.
That being said, there is no chance that this would pass. I-161 passed by if I can remember 6 to 7 percent. Just about all of the people that voted no on I-161 are voting no again. I-161 made nonresidents pay for all the loss in FWP revenue, now residents would have to pay and that increase would be significant. When I was on the license and funding committee two thirds of license sales was funded by nonresidents. To make up for the loss resident license fees would have to triple even if the demand curve for resident licenses is a vertical line. The curve is not a vertical line so in all likely hood you are looking at close to a four fold increase in resident license fees. Now you have to add in residents that do not feel the increase in fees is off set by the benefit of no nonresidents into the voting no column.
There are plenty of residents that have family and friends that live out of state. Many of them likely voted for I-161 and it is going to be hard to convince them that there child can not hunt Montana so the rest will have better hunting.
Nonresidents hunters bring in millions of dollars into the state and many people depend on this money. Those people will fight like hell to see this initiative defeated. My bet is it would go down by a two to one margin.
My suggestion if you are hell bent on an initiative to improve hunting is to take a bit out of the apple in stead of trying to stuff the hole thing in your mouth at once. Maybe rework the 454 program so it is more sportsman friendly and we don't end up with poor agreements like the one with the Wilks, or as others have suggested, have a hard cap on Nonresidents of 17500 Deer/Elk combos and 6000 Deer combos.

 

[DFS]

That’s a lot of nonresident deer tags when they all end up in one area.

 

[antlerradar]

That’s a lot of nonresident deer tags when they all end up in one area.

And that is why nothing is going to get better if we don't change management.

 

[BenInMT]

After 16 pages of reading i am still not sure if this was a troll post or not.

I’m not sure either and I wrote it. It’s better than debating which 6.5 mm cartridge is the best for long range elk hunting.

 

[brockel]

I’m not sure either and I wrote it. It’s better than debating which 6.5 mm cartridge is the best for long range elk hunting.

Factory loads or handloads

 

[mdhunter]

As a NR I obviously think the idea of eliminating NR hunters is bad. Who is going to stand with you when hunting on federal land is challenged? Without NR hunters no one will even care what happens with federal land and hunting in MT.

 

[Walkathon]

Everyone complains about R7 mule deer population going down the drain and the heavy amount of hunting pressure, yet the mule deer doe tags issued by the MT FWP are valid on public land. Makes no sense to me at all. Why not make the mule deer doe tags valid on private land only? I've hunted public land in this area, and there isn't a mule deer overpopulation problem on any of the public land I've hunted on. More deer on public land survive, and I'd assume it would decrease the pressure on public as well. My 2 cents as a NR.

 

[Big Shooter]

4point restrictions kill off the good genetics and you end up with old 3 pts that can’t be touched. Only true way is to limit opportunity whether that’s getting rid of general over the counter tag or moving the rifle season out of the rut. Montana’s issue is a growing population of resident general tag holders and a deer population that’s not keeping pace

Spot on!!

 

[Big Shooter]

Everyone complains about R7 mule deer population going down the drain and the heavy amount of hunting pressure, yet the mule deer doe tags issued by the MT FWP are valid on public land. Makes no sense to me at all. Why not make the mule deer doe tags valid on private land only? I've hunted public land in this area, and there isn't a mule deer overpopulation problem on any of the public land I've hunted on. More deer on public land survive, and I'd assume it would decrease the pressure on public as well. My 2 cents as a NR.

Albus and I tried that prior to the commission meeting for Region 6&7…….wasn’t even considered as both biologists as well as commissioners don‘t think there is a problem with the numbers. Wow!

 

[brockel]

Albus and I tried that prior to the commission meeting for Region 6&7…….wasn’t even considered as both biologists as well as commissioners don‘t think there is a problem with the numbers. Wow!

To bad we couldn’t take a chunk out of it and get them to do 1 mule deer doe tag good for public and the rest private. Maybe easier to convince biologists of that. Although some of them have only been in the area for 10 or so years so they think these are the glory years which they just might be when we look back and compare in another decade. But then again I’ve had them tell me that rut hunting has no effect on the number of bucks running around

 

[SwaggyD]

Albus and I tried that prior to the commission meeting for Region 6&7

I talked a biologist in Region 6 a few years ago about the mule deer numbers. It was right after a year when there was a bunch of snow early and a lot of deer had already moved down from Canada before the season even ended. All of those deer he said counted. Ever since, there hasn't been much snow up there during the season and those deer that were counted for license allocation were included. Just doesn't make any sense.

 

[88man]

Hunter expectations are very high these days, R and NR. Attitudes have been shaped by watching hunting porn and a sense of deserving what we want when we want it regardless of the natural factors at play. You watched it on video and thats how it should be! Some folks just will never be happy but then again the good old days are gone. So keep worrying about where that guy is from and what kind of gear he is wearing and weapon he is shooting and how you can use local politics to get what you want at this time and place. Might be the right time to quit hunting and just go camping if you can find a spot. That Bozeman airport is growing more and more daily flights planned every month. Alaska has been calling since the 60's. Wait till that high speed rail goes to Bozeman from San fran and from Austin to Denver to Bozeman.

 

[SwaggyD]

Attitudes have been shaped by watching hunting porn and a sense of deserving what we want when we want it regardless of the natural factors at play.

Or, and hear me out on this, they have been shaped by being out in the field and seeing first hand the good old days disappearing.

 

[88man]

Or, and hear me out on this, they have been shaped by being out in the field and seeing first hand the good old days disappearing.

spot on> the hunting has got so bad in Montana these days that a group of our friends go there every other year or there abouts and have been over 50% on bulls since I was a kid. These guys have been hunting montana since the 80's and have bounced around some but they don't complain and they never heard of youtube either. You might have bumped into them as they sound like Hutterites. Seriously.

 

[brockel]

Or, and hear me out on this, they have been shaped by being out in the field and seeing first hand the good old days disappearing.

Wouldn’t take long on the eastern side of the state to get back to what it was. A simple delete button on a computer could save 11,000 mule deer a year.

 

[antlerradar]

Everyone complains about R7 mule deer population going down the drain and the heavy amount of hunting pressure, yet the mule deer doe tags issued by the MT FWP are valid on public land. Makes no sense to me at all. Why not make the mule deer doe tags valid on private land only? I've hunted public land in this area, and there isn't a mule deer overpopulation problem on any of the public land I've hunted on. More deer on public land survive, and I'd assume it would decrease the pressure on public as well. My 2 cents as a NR.

Quite a few of us long time locals are thinking WTF on this too.
Back when doe tags were first proposed for places like the Custer in the 90's I thought it was a good idea. This was my thinking. Back in the 90's I would locate a half a dozen good bucks a year on the Custer, most were in places with few roads. More than a few of those bucks were taken by roadhunters during rut when the bucks left the back county and shacked up with a group of does easily visible from well traveled roads. My thinking was that early season hunting pressure on the does would push the does into the road less places and the bucks would have a better chance of surviving. I was wrong. While some does did move off the roads, Most just stayed in there home range and died or if they did move they went to private land. The bucks now also often move to private land during the rut and unless the private has close to zero hunting they do not live if they have any size to there head gear.

 

[rogerthat]

Albus and I tried that prior to the commission meeting for Region 6&7…….wasn’t even considered as both biologists as well as commissioners don‘t think there is a problem with the numbers. Wow!

The first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem. On deer Montana fwp can’t seem to get past step 1. Until they do meaningful deer hunting changes aren’t going to be on the menu

 

[brockel]

The first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem. On deer Montana fwp can’t seem to get past step 1. Until they do meaningful deer hunting changes aren’t going to be on the menu

Things are going to have to completely tank for multiple years before anything is done. Or them starting to see leftover non resident licenses which won’t happen.

 

[Gr8bawana]

@BenInMT these "best ideas I've had all day" are fantastic! Please keep them coming. Really looking forward to what you can come up with all on your own for tomorrow's idea

Yup right up there with burning poop!