Montana General Season Structure Proposal 3.0

[Forkyfinder]

Our original proposal would have solved most all these challenges being brought up.

Problem is nobody wants to give anything up, because that affects “ME” and I don’t like it.
Pick your region, separate wt tag and separate md tag. Pick your region and species when you buy, apply. If you apply for permit area and fail to draw no MD hunting that year.
NR, pick 5 day window M-F to hunt, Nov 15-29 draw only NR, unless hunting private land.

All but your last sentence is great. Even thats a lot more palletable than what the current proposal does.

No idea why each revision got dramatically worse.

 

[Rack Daniels]

Is there any actual reason why they have no interest in nr regional caps?

Yeah it’s called conflict of interest.

Everyone’s got brothers cousins nephews blah blah blah that come out from Michigan or Minnesota or Wisconsin or whatever to come shoot something. Reduced opportunity worries from residents are speaking for the NONresidents they bring along. Be it family or clientele.

 

[Rack Daniels]

Our original proposal would have solved most all these challenges being brought up.

Problem is nobody wants to give anything up, because that affects “ME” and I don’t like it.
Pick your region, separate wt tag and separate md tag. Pick your region and species when you buy, apply. If you apply for permit area and fail to draw no MD hunting that year.
NR, pick 5 day window M-F to hunt, Nov 15-29 draw only NR, unless hunting private land.

I like this and I can appreciate when a guide himself wants to limit the window and stay off public lands when performing job duty.

 

[MontanaMuley]

Our original proposal would have solved most all these challenges being brought up.

Problem is nobody wants to give anything up, because that affects “ME” and I don’t like it.
Pick your region, separate wt tag and separate md tag. Pick your region and species when you buy, apply. If you apply for permit area and fail to draw no MD hunting that year.
NR, pick 5 day window M-F to hunt, Nov 15-29 draw only NR, unless hunting private land.

That seems very restrictive.. Are you saying all of those or one?

 

[Eric Albus]

That seems very restrictive.. Are you saying all of those or one?

ALL

 

[Gerald Martin]

All but your last sentence is great. Even thats a lot more palletable than what the current proposal does.

No idea why each revision got dramatically worse.

Everyone along the way has wanted to protect “their” opportunity. Anyone wanting to change from status quo will run into this if they’re engaging with different user groups through the process.

 

[Hobbes]

Hopefully the decision is made to prioritize mule deer some day instead of special interests. Someone needs to step up, grow a pair, and tell some folks what they can do with their "me, me, me" management practices.

Considering the political efforts to influence season structure, It's apparently going to require a governor that is serious about MD that tells a director "you will do this, this, and this" instead of a committee approach that's DOA. However, everyone knows how unlikely that is. It shouldn't be that way, but we all know that it is. It'll stay bogged down in political influence and budgets and likely remain status quo with a few token concessions until there is no other option. (I'm in a glass half empty mood today.)

Someone asked does that mean more deer or more big bucks. I fail to see how a herd made up of 25 does to 1 forky, is remotely close to a healthy herd regardless of totalpopulation, so yes there should be more mature bucks in a healthy herd in my own opinion. (I made that ratio up so don't get worked up over it.)

 

[Tukudeka]

I fail to see how a herd made up of 25 does to 1 forky, is remotely close to a healthy herd regardless of totalpopulation, so yes there should be more mature bucks in a healthy herd in my own opinion. (I made that ratio up so don't get worked up over it.)

I couldn’t agree more. Makes so much sense logically. Unfortunately, I have failed to find any evidence of this in the literature. Definitely evidence out there that timing/synchronization of breeding changes with age structure…. But as far as viability of the population…. Nothing. I suspected future generations, across evolutionary temporal scale, will uncover the speculation you and I share. Until then the opportunity and maximum sustained yield crowd have no scientific evidence standing in their way.

 

[Hobbes]

I couldn’t agree more. Makes so much sense logically. Unfortunately, I have failed to find any evidence of this in the literature. Definitely evidence out there that timing/synchronization of breeding changes with age structure…. But as far as viability of the population…. Nothing. I suspected future generations, across evolutionary temporal scale, will uncover the speculation you and I share. Until then the opportunity and maximum sustained yield crowd have no scientific evidence standing in their way.

Does your search include whitetail studies? I can recall reading material on whitetails years ago where states allowing no doe harvest (KY at the time)and only bucks had lopsided the herd to the point there were piles of does per buck, very few bucks made it past 2 years old and a rifle season in the rut. The result..........piles of deer and no mature bucks. At some point it clicked they needed to kill does , back off on the slaughtering of forkys and spikes, and restructure the herd. Maybe it was only for mature bucks but it sure as heck improved KYs deer herd. This was probably 30 years ago and most studies that I recall were coming from strictly managed TX herds. (From my experience, getting many Montanans to recognize anything that comes from outside of it's borders is near impossible and will almost surely nullify any argument that's being made.)

I know......wrong species, wrong state, but some data has to be transferable to herd health. However id not recommended killing mule deer does on any public land I've been on in the near future, but that's just my own observations.

 

[rogerthat]

You guys need to check out the age data I posted in the Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement thread before you get carried away on age structure. Not sure how to link a thread

 

[Hobbes]

You guys need to check out the age data I posted in the Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement thread before you get carried away on age structure. Not sure how to link a thread

There are so many threads on this that I can't keep track of what I have or haven't read but I'll look for it.

 

[Ben Lamb]

There are so many threads on this that I can't keep track of what I have or haven't read but I'll look for it.

Baptism by MD thread is a right of passage here.

 

[rogerthat]

There are so many threads on this that I can't keep track of what I have or haven't read but I'll look for it.

It will be in the last couple pages I think

 

[Hobbes]

Baptism by MD thread is a right of passage here.

Ive noticed. I've seen similar threads on other websites. I almost always wish id just read them and not contributed. However, I'm somewhere on the road tonight and have a really good local cold one in front of me. And.......I have MD on my mind after doing an about face today for a photo of a private land buck near the road.

 

[El Jason]

Baptism by MD thread is a right rite of passage here.

 

[Elktrack]

Which one of you did this??

 

[DFS]

View attachment 377553
Which one of you did this??

It was pretty messed up actually there were several kids in the room.

 

[Hobbes]

They couldn't set the meeting up to prevent sharing by attendees? I think the meeting creator can make it so listening and submitting written questions is your only option.

 

[Elktrack]

Yeah that’s pretty f’d up.

 

[Forkyfinder]

There are so many threads on this that I can't keep track of what I have or haven't read but I'll look for it.

Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement

I can understand that many hunters are willing to accept even lower quality hunting. I wounder how many of them will also be willing to accept the ever increasing commercialization that is sure to come with it. Quality or more accurately lack of quality hunting has always been a driving force...

www.hunttalk.com

Think its this post.

@rogerthat