I don't see anything in what Nameless posted up that is any where close to the looney toons bills proposed by the Legislature yet. Yet being the key word. I do see plenty that has been on the wish list of many of the upper level employees of FWP for a long time.
I think we need to be very carful about trying to use this proposal to score quick political points. Doing so is sure to cause people to retreat to their corners and then we who care about how this is going to effect public land and wildlife are going to lose.
There have been bills to do a lot of this over the last 20 years. I'm not trying to score political points, just pointing out that it's not simply FWP or the Governor's office, but that there is a lot of pressure applied to FWP from the legislature as well. These kinds of bills are nothing new, they're just more likely to get signed now so folks are paying attention.
For example: 2013 had a bill to eliminate the unlimited permit category. We opposed that because it should be a commission action and not up to the legislature to decide how season structure should be done.
2009-2017 there were bills galore to eliminate the ability to have LE permits in districts that were over objective, specifically tied to the Breaks bundled permits.
Ignoring that pressure from the Legislature ignores a huge amount of influence and possible outcomes based on historic efforts. Shoulder seasons, for example, were the legislature's desire. The bill from 2015 was a clear bell for FWP to step on it and get rolling, and they did. My apologies if you thought that was a partisan jab, it wasn't.
There's some of what's posted I'm not against. After listening to the Bio for the Helena area, I think consolidating some elk units does make some sense. Example: the elk that utilize the Spotted Dog also head over to the Black & Colorado Mtn areas. That's some pretty tough country to get in and around in and it's a lot of roadless country as well where elk have the kind of security necessary to hang on public lands. it spans two regions as well once you cross the divide. There should be consideration for that rather than trying to force a square peg in a round hole. Other areas I think that's a disaster waiting to happen.
For cow elk, the current mish-mash of permits, licenses and special shoulder season tags needs to be refined and more cogently put forward. The ability to purchase 2 B licenses now should help streamline that (that's not a comment on the wisdom of shoulder seasons or multiple tags for cow elk, just a Comment on what would make it easier for hunters to discern).
Similarly, the unlimited mule deer permits don't really have the effect that folks want them to. In my experience, it simply forces people into shooting the first legal deer they find and it gives the impression of a quality hunt when there likely isn't much above that 150" mark running around between the truck hunters & cow elk hunters anymore. Limited Entry for mule deer would be a better approach to this than either OTC or Unlimited.
Moving the Marias River WMA draw from where it is now to a permit system could work, but then you're just locking folks in to hunting only the WMA rather than giving them the flexibility to move across districts.
As this unfolds, it's also important for all of us to remember that regulation simplification was started under the previous administration and is being followed through and seemingly accelerated under the current one. There is place for politics in the discussion, but it's certainly not binary, and it's most assuredly not one party or another's flag to hoist.
I tend to agree with
@Sytes more and more on how this gets presented. Everyone has a hair trigger these days and it takes a lot of effort to try and maintain that appearance of impartiality and not simply fall into the tired lines of political horsechit. But it also doesn't mean we ignore the history of how we got here or gloss over who is sharing responsibility. But it does mean that hunters need to put their ideas forward as to how seasons should be structured, even if folks feel like they won't be listened too. FWP is populated with public servants. 99% of them live this. A few don't.
