FWP Comm. Mtg. (elk hunting access agreements)

[Hank375]

The master list for the elk hunting access agreements is out and it looks like we got about a week to go over the 50 applications before they are approved by the commission on Thursday. I scanned over few of them and I was surprised at how many go to out of state landowners. #14 on the list must have multiple part owners of the ranch. The applicants all list a local address but a little google searching and they don't look so local.

#19 on the list applied to get (2) of the either sex permits. One would go to the owner and the other will go to a James Alexander Settle. On the application it says that he is a "full time employee" for the ranch, however a little googling and you will see he's also a Power Company Lineman who lives in Tennessee. Seems like it might be difficult to be a full time employee on a ranch in Montana and also a Lineman in Tennessee. I guess if you count the hours spent for a few trips out to hunt on the ranch every year maybe then you can be considered a "full-time employee". I don't know..... maybe everything is legit, but I hope FWP is doing a little checking into the application and not just rubber stamping every application.

https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/commission/2023/jun/elk-hunting-access-agreements/2023-eha-master-list-.pdf

 

[Nameless Range]

Same as last year, there are folks on that list who don't even qualify for landowner preference - don't even own a section of land. I dug into it last year, but kind of gave up hope on putting the effort in this year, given that last year, all applicants were passed along to either get their permits, or in the few cases where applicants exceeded the 10% beyond the quota ( something in reality that doesn't exist), were passed on to the next phase of a draw.

It's a corrupted program, and goes to show we need to be very careful about the well-meaning being bastardized.

 

[antlerradar]

Looks like FWP is giving away some real good bull tags for very little.

 

[Beignet]

There’s some gem comments buried in the 2022 EHA Evaluation Report. It’s in the June 8 Commission agenda.

For example, from one of the landowners:

“FWP needs to get back to wildlife management without input from politicians.”

And from a hunter on a different property:

“In my opinion, this landowner exploited the program to get a coveted either sex tag in an area that has few available, especially because he is not a Montana resident. He was obviously not concerned with removing "problem" elk from his property as he set us up for failure from the start.”

The committee will also be discussing some other important subjects in the next meeting, like changing current either sex mule deer general tags to buck only in some districts and fishing restrictions on imperiled trout waters. Probably worth having a peek at the link above, even if just for the EHA comments.