Well... restricting tags is definitionally reducing oppprtunity. How does idaho compare as far as NR opportunity? Season duration? Season time?
Butte Skyline Sportsman Association writes, Just as hunter frustration with nonresidents had exceeded a breaking point, so had our frustration with the laborious process of securing accurate nonresident hunting license information.
missoulacurrent.com
Presumably, the idea is that tag numbers and opportunity would increase when the herd recovers. (By the way how do we define "recovery"?) Other than reduction in doe tags, when has this ever actually occurred? Buck harvest is not a major factor in herd numbers. Does, habitat, and winter weather control deer numbers.
I just see contradictions in the messaging. Criticism of NR shooting forkies has nothing to do with population. It is a trophy hunting argument. "Reduce hunting pressure to save the herd" has been expressed throughout this thread in words and sentiment. Western states have been cutting mule deer tags for decades; where is the improvement?
Region 7 does seem to have a big imbalance in R/NR hunting pressure and I think Montana would be justified in setting NR quotas for each region to spread out the NR hunting pressure, but again this isn't so much a deer herd population argument as it is a statement of overall hunting experience. Idaho had several areas where NR were 40% of the total hunter numbers and others where it was 5%. We evened that out which reduced hunting pressure in some areas while increasing it in others so it is a double-edged sword but seems to have been a net positive in my opinion.
I think hunters have poor memory. I have watched something similar play out in various parts of Idaho. When the deer population is high, hunters numbers go up and success rates go up. Quite a few large bucks are killed and most everyone is pretty happy, and as long as people are seeing and killing deer they don't seem to mind the presence of other hunters. Then a bad winter or two knocks down the population, hunter numbers decline, there are fewer big bucks (but no one remembers to attribute that to missing age classes of fawns from winter kill, it has to be the fault of hunting pressure). Here in Idaho, like much of the west, we are seeing low herd numbers as the result of 3 bad winters beginning in 2016-17, then 2019-20, and most recently 2022-23. Hunter numbers are low and yet I have heard more complaints about crowding than I ever did when deer numbers and hunter numbers were high. Then we hear calls for reducing tag numbers, shortening seasons, etc. And I get blank stares from other hunters when I remind them about the 3 big winter kills we've had in the last 8 years.
I'm an outsider looking in at this situation in Montana. There is a lot that I am not up to speed on and there is a lot of the discussion that is very similar to what I see play out in Idaho. I read the proposed changes from the advisory group and I just think they are trying to change too many things all at once and without sufficient supporting data. It seems that a good first step would be to actually start collecting harvest reports and other hunt info to fully quantify the variables. I think Montanans are running the risk of ruining a good thing for themselves by throwing out the current season dates before addressing other issues.
