Montana 2025 Legislative Session

[Forkyfinder]

Yup, exclusively. I maintain a list of folks from the local community that are proven killers and are good people, or ones who buy me beer.

Have you ever ran out of competent killers?

If not, i hope you see my point.

 

[SixPoint]

Have you ever ran out of competent killers?

If not, i hope you see my point.

Depends on the year to be honest. A highly vetted damage roster with a state funded hunt coordinator would be about as good as it could get for effectively killing as many elk as possible and sparing landowners. Not sure how we could vet hunters on the damage list though.

 

[Mountain Mule]

Depends on the year to be honest. A highly vetted damage roster with a state funded hunt coordinator would be about as good as it could get for effectively killing as many elk as possible and sparing landowners. Not sure how we could vet hunters on the damage list though.

Require a class such as master hunter or equivalent would be a start. Require weapon proficiency, basic understanding of laws/ethics and teach them the basics on how to harvest more elk with the opportunity given. Maybe even have feedback from the landowners and liaison with how the hunts go and hunters can get preference to return when they get good marks and gain strikes against them if they perform in unethical or unlawful manners.

 

[Nameless Range]

I get it. It’s frustrating. But having been on the other side of the coin I can tell you that there are a lot of other property owners out there besides Galt that are wonderful people trying to do the right thing. You can provide more folks access but the majority of those folks probably aren’t going to be successful. Having a heavily managed hunt with serious hand holding is the only effective way I’ve found it possible to reduce populations. That gets expensive quick and the burnout from dealing with hunters is real.

The damage hunt model is certainly flawed though I have shot a couple elk under it. I was on a damage hunt list this year and was drawn. Fantastic landowner. 3 hours from my house. I made that drive 4 times. Twice after the landowner shot me a text that there were elk on his place. Both times by the time I got there, (and took a day of vacation from work), there were no elk on his place. I saw and understand the burden 500 elk on 6000 acres can cause, and know why he wanted damage hunters there but the elk and me were never there concurrently.

I'm no great hunter, but tried to honor the privilege and opportunity, and burned through 2 vacation days and a few hundred dollars in fuel by doing so. I have heard some landowners are becoming interested in the Master Hunter program to find a more effective way around the inefficacy of damage hunts in a balance between opening the place up more but avoiding uncouth behavior.

 

[Carnage2011]

I believe you.... But when theres 15 or so guys a year using it over the last 10 years - i think its more of an excuse than a reality.

The odds someone shows up with a rifle set up to shoot that far, and further, have never been better.

It’s not that simple. I was supposed to do a damage hunt last week. There were ten guys approved for tags. When we went to buy them the licensing system wouldn’t work and said that we had already purchased them. Zero tags were bought and zero were killed. FWP bio is frustrated but nothing can be done apparently. Maybe the system just sucks…

 

[Forkyfinder]

It’s not that simple. I was supposed to do a damage hunt last week. There were ten guys approved for tags. When we went to buy them the licensing system wouldn’t work and said that we had already purchased them. Zero tags were bought and zero were killed. FWP bio is frustrated but nothing can be done apparently. Maybe the system just sucks…

Couldnt you just use a b tag that you bought?

 

[SixPoint]

The damage hunt model is certainly flawed though I have shot a couple elk under it. I was on a damage hunt list this year and was drawn. Fantastic landowner. 3 hours from my house. I made that drive 4 times. Twice after the landowner shot me a text that there were elk on his place. Both times by the time I got there, (and took a day of vacation from work), there were no elk on his place. I saw and understand the burden 500 elk on 6000 acres can cause, and know why he wanted damage hunters there but the elk and me were never there concurrently.

I'm no great hunter, but tried to honor the privilege and opportunity, and burned through 2 vacation days and a few hundred dollars in fuel by doing so. I have heard some landowners are becoming interested in the Master Hunter program to find a more effective way around the inefficacy of damage hunts in a balance between opening the place up more but avoiding uncouth behavior.

If only everyone that signs up for the hunt were as serious and thoughtful as yourself it would be a great system. One year we were doing a damage hunt and a guy got called that lived over 5 hours away. I'll be darned if he didn't come down on his day, shot two elk, asked if we wanted him to shoot a third, got a hotel room and another tag, and the next day shot a third one. Those are the "killers" that we need for late season population reduction. It's the 80 folks we had to waste our time wading through to get to this guy though that are the problem.

 

[Mountain Mule]

If only everyone that signs up for the hunt were as serious and thoughtful as yourself it would be a great system. One year we were doing a damage hunt and a guy got called that lived over 5 hours away. I'll be darned if he didn't come down on his day, shot two elk, asked if we wanted him to shoot a third, got a hotel room and another tag, and the next day shot a third one. Those are the "killers" that we need for late season population reduction. It's the 80 folks we had to waste our time wading through to get to this guy though that are the problem.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I'm fortunate enough that we have a vetted list of employees and locals so that we bypass the damage hunts. Though it gets expensive to hire people to assist on the hunts and coordinate all of the hunters. It's certainly not in the cards for all landowners.

 

[cgasner1]

I really do enjoy when we get to see the other side and have adult conversations thanks guys

 

[SAJ-99]

Legislators get hundreds of not thousands of emails.

Are there retention requirements for emails? There have been many instances where officials vote on something and the comments are ridiculously in favor of the opposite way they voted. Then they say “yeah but I got a lot of calls…” seems suspicious.

 

[SixPoint]

Require a class such as master hunter or equivalent would be a start. Require weapon proficiency, basic understanding of laws/ethics and teach them the basics on how to harvest more elk with the opportunity given. Maybe even have feedback from the landowners and liaison with how the hunts go and hunters can get preference to return when they get good marks and gain strikes against them if they perform in unethical or unlawful manners.

That would certainly work. I also wonder if just making it more of an application process would help too. It's just too easy now with the click of a button and a lot of the folks forget they even signed up or don't understand what it even is when they get called. Seems like they could make it a bit more of a hurdle to weed out the click happy folks.

We went down the Master Hunter road and had mixed results. Some of them definitely rubbed me the wrong way and didn't get invited back. Others clearly didn't listen to the content of the classes. Some were pretty good.

 

[cgasner1]

That would certainly work. I also wonder if just making it more of an application process would help too. It's just too easy now with the click of a button and a lot of the folks forget they even signed up or don't understand what it even is when they get called. Seems like they could make it a bit more of a hurdle to weed out the click happy folks.

We went down the Master Hunter road and had mixed results. Some of them definitely rubbed me the wrong way and didn't get invited back. Others clearly didn't listen to the content of the classes. Some were pretty good.

I’ll bring a couple guys over if you want some elk taken next year. Happy to help normally find myself in the 2 % category happy to try for .2

 

[Carnage2011]

Couldnt you just use a b tag that you bought?

If that was an option don’t you think we would have done that?

 

[El Jason]

Some really good insight from @Mountain Mule and @SixPoint. I’ve directly seen the issues they speak of.

 

[Forkyfinder]

If that was an option don’t you think we would have done that?

I get your point - i guess i had only applied for damage roster where i had already had a B tag.

But kudos for being one of the between 7 and 50 people to even take part in it.

Think we need to edit/change/sharpen - perhaps even USE our existing tools before saying theyre all broken.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Good discussion guys. One observation I have about late season hunts is that I think a lot of hunters perceive of them as “easy” hunts and don’t actually have the skill required to be lethal when the situation calls for it.

I am of the opinion that a lot of the hunters signing up for “easy meat” damage hunts aren’t representative of the quality of hunters who are able to be successful in general seasons.

I personally have never signed up for a late season damage hunt. Mainly, because it isn’t my preferred style of hunting and by the time late season rolls around I have either filled my freezer and don’t need more meat or I have made peace with the critters for the year and am happy to leave them alone until the following year.

I’m personally of the opinion that if I were a landowner with an elk problem ( I am not), I’d let hunters help me with controlling the numbers but it would only be people whom I know to be good hunters and would trust to respect my property who I would be calling rather than random strangers of unknown skill and character.

 

[MTGomer]

Good discussion guys. One observation I have about late season hunts is that I think a lot of hunters perceive of them as “easy” hunts and don’t actually have the skill required to be lethal when the situation calls for it.

I am of the opinion that a lot of the hunters signing up for “easy meat” damage hunts aren’t representative of the quality of hunters who are able to be successful in general seasons.

I personally have never signed up for a late season damage hunt. Mainly, because it isn’t my preferred style of hunting and by the time late season rolls around I have either filled my freezer and don’t need more meat or I have made peace with the critters for the year and am happy to leave them alone until the following year.

I’m personally of the opinion that if I were a landowner with an elk problem ( I am not), I’d let hunters help me with controlling the numbers but it would only be people whom I know to be good hunters and would trust to respect my property who I would be calling rather than random strangers of unknown skill and character.

Same.

If a person goes up north and also does some hunting down south, they’ve been at it from July to December or later. The idea of chasing a cow around in the cold and deep snow….

 

[BourbonSnowCone]

@Gerald Martin looks like they updated things after your history lesson...

Its almost as if the sponsor wasn’t the smartest guy in the room.

 

[BourbonSnowCone]

Are there retention requirements for emails? There have been many instances where officials vote on something and the comments are ridiculously in favor of the opposite way they voted. Then they say “yeah but I got a lot of calls…” seems suspicious.

If it was illegal for politicians to lie then capitol buildings everywhere would be full of dust and mice.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Its almost as if the sponsor wasn’t the smartest guy in the room.

He might be.... In general - its probably not useful to roast legislators.

Besides that, put some respect on the name thats trying to repeal 635. I cant imagine thats popular amongst the special interest groups that try to lobby him.