Montana General Season Structure Proposal

[Gerald Martin]

As you probably guessed, I’m less concerned about how Saskatchewan funds their game department than I am with how MT would fund ours if NR’s were cut out of hunting deer and elk. NR license dollars make up over 70% of MT FWP’s budget.

Unless you’re willing to have general fund (taxes) money become part of FWP’s funding model or see resident license fees quadruple don’t expect to see MT FWP entertain the idea of excluding NR’s.

Good luck with getting the MT legislature to pass either of those funding models.

 

[Carnage2011]

This has been a pretty good thread, so let's keep it that way. There is no chance we get rid of NR deer licenses, so we don't need to waste time talking about it.

 

[Rie Bread]

Best thing that could happen is the worst winter ever and kill all the deer and start over

Or we can shoot them all and let FWP sort it out

 

[Forkyfinder]

This has been a pretty good thread, so let's keep it that way. There is no chance we get rid of NR deer licenses, so we don't need to waste time talking about it.

Think a good proposal would be elimination of NR doe tags and allocating a heavy portion to outfitting.

At least then the pressure is gauranteed to he distributed on otherwise unhuntable land.

 

[Carnage2011]

Think a good proposal would be elimination of NR doe tags and allocating a heavy portion to outfitting.

At least then the pressure is gauranteed to he distributed on otherwise unhuntable land.

There are a lot of public land outfitters. I’m not in favor of any set asides for outfitters. I’d be fine with private land only doe tags to keep public land does from getting hammered.

 

[Sytes]

I'd imagine many of you received the FWP newsletter. For those who didn't, figure worth sharing a bit of a break for mule deer in the breaks.

A few interesting choice descriptions for the status of mule deer.
It's better than nothing, that is certain. IMO, limited draw should expand and at a giddy-up speed. I believe, between weather and open Elmer Fudd season the toll on MD, throughout MT, continues to decline. Good to see a public FWP declaration of the issues MD face.

*Bold added for this post.

Missouri Breaks mule deer hunters will see significant regulation changes in 2024​

LEWISTOWN – The Missouri Breaks region of central Montana is a favorite area for deer hunters, but this year hunters will need to carefully check the regulations, since opportunities to hunt mule deer have dramatically changed due to low population levels, and mule deer hunting is extremely limited or non-existent over many Missouri Breaks hunting districts.

After several years of severe droughts, mule deer populations in this area of Montana have suffered steep declines. In response to the low numbers, biologists have significantly changed the hunting regulations, and some hunting districts (HDs) now require a special permit to hunt mule deer for the entire season, while another requires a permit for part of the season.

Specifically, Hunting Districts 410 and 417 are now permit-only to hunt mule deer bucks during the general or archery seasons, while HD 426 requires a permit to hunt mule deer bucks during the last two weeks of the general deer season. The deadline to apply for these permits was April 1, so hunters who did not already draw one of these limited permits cannot hunt mule deer bucks in these districts this year.

Sonja Andersen is the FWP wildlife biologist based in Lewistown for the last 13 years.

"This is not a trophy management effort nor is limiting buck harvest going to bring the deer back totally on its own—we need healthy does producing fawns for that to happen, which is habitat and weather-driven,” Andersen said. “But our deer numbers are near record lows here and even with very limited doe harvest we aren’t seeing improvement, especially given the 2020, 2021, and 2022 drought years on top of a bad 2022-23 winter. Biologists have only so many levers to pull when managing populations, and limiting buck harvest was one of our only remaining options.”

Mule Deer B Licenses to hunt antlerless mule deer are also extremely limited this year and were only available by special draw with a deadline to apply of June 1. In addition, the antlerless B Licenses in HDs 410, 411, 412, 417, 419, and 426 are valid only on private land, as is the case in FWP Regions 6 and 7.

“The Breaks have been getting lots of pressure lately, especially since Covid. There’s a lot of public land, and we’ve liberalized elk harvest, so there are a lot of hunters, and pressure on the deer has grown tremendously,” Andersen said. “These efforts are just as much hunter management as deer management. While we can ease off the hunting pressure, it’s still going to take some years with favorable weather and good precipitation to improve habitat and see a rebound in mule deer populations.”

 

[peterk1234]

“The Breaks have been getting lots of pressure lately, especially since Covid. There’s a lot of public land, and we’ve liberalized elk harvest, so there are a lot of hunters, and pressure on the deer has grown tremendously,” Andersen said.

Any chance so called influencers played a role?

 

[Pagosa]

Sonja is a great biologist, I wish there were more like her.

 

[Sytes]

Sonja is a great biologist, I wish there were more like her.

It sure sounds like she's emphasizing the MD issue for one of her main areas. Wish it would spread.

 

[Gerald Martin]

“The Breaks have been getting lots of pressure lately, especially since Covid. There’s a lot of public land, and we’ve liberalized elk harvest, so there are a lot of hunters, and pressure on the deer has grown tremendously,” Andersen said.

Any chance so called influencers played a role?

Most elk hunting in the Breaks is by permit only and it’s been a highly popular area for for decades. Increasing elk populations and liberalized cow tags and harvest in response to landowner complaints about over objective elk herds increased pressure from cow hunters who also had a deer tag in their pocket.

My wife drew a north side bull elk tag the same year FWP increased cow tags from 200 to 700 in that unit. On opening day there wasn’t a time that I couldn’t glass up an orange vest within the 3-5 miles of visible area I could see. We saw a multiple small mule deer bucks hanging in camps over that time as well.

Incidental deer harvest in areas with low security cover and high numbers of hunters targeting elk has a huge impact on certain areas.

 

[Forkyfinder]

“The Breaks have been getting lots of pressure lately, especially since Covid. There’s a lot of public land, and we’ve liberalized elk harvest, so there are a lot of hunters, and pressure on the deer has grown tremendously,” Andersen said.

Any chance so called influencers played a role?

Na - i dont really think so.

When i moved to billings 10 years ago - it was pretty universally regarded for the best deer and cow elk hunting. All over the office i worked in. Most of the people i met all said that too.

Influencers "ruining" things gets way too much attention/focus. Word of mouth "ruined" a ton of elk areas in SW montana before youtube was invented.

 

[Pagosa]

It sure sounds like she's emphasizing the MD issue for one of her main areas. Wish it would spread.

Hopefully they dont kill off the remaining populations per CWD control/containment.
It took some balls to go before the commission and director and state her reasoning and studies of mule deer. I find it ironic the biologist in Region 7 think everything is peachy.

 

[DFS]

After a couple weeks of bow season it has never been more evident to me, observing pressure from nonresident bird hunters and archery hunters that nonresident regional caps are a very key factor that is missing. The proposal is dead in the water to me without them.

 

[sclancy27]

After a couple weeks of bow season it has never been more evident to me, observing pressure from nonresident bird hunters and archery hunters that nonresident regional caps are a very key factor that is missing. The proposal is dead in the water to me without them.

A helpful thing would be to suggest a way in which to structure regional caps to make them useful.

 

[DFS]

A helpful thing would be to suggest a way in which to structure regional caps to make them useful.

I have nobody listens.

 

[sclancy27]

I have nobody listens.

 

[Forkyfinder]

I have nobody listens.

How do you decide where/how the allocations end up?

I like giving outfitters half the NR tags and putting them on private land only. But thatll never happen

 

[DFS]

It’s extremely hard for me to post because I have been limited.
Region 6 and 7 could handle 15-20 percent (that may be high) of nonresident hunters per region. A significant amount should go to private land only, not outfitters lets say 20%. Western Montana can figure out the allocations from there because I am not familiar with it enough to make a guess.

 

[Carnage2011]

How do you decide where/how the allocations end up?

I like giving outfitters half the NR tags and putting them on private land only. But thatll never happen

Why should we give tags to outfitters? I don’t know why people want to do this. There is no reason to give them preference over the general public. If we want to have a subset of private land only tags that fine. But an outfitter shouldn’t be required.

 

[sclancy27]

It’s extremely hard for me to post because I have been limited.
Region 6 and 7 could handle 15-20 percent (that may be high) of nonresident hunters per region. A significant amount should go to private land only, not outfitters lets say 20%. Western Montana can figure out the allocations from there because I am not familiar with it enough to make a guess.

From the harvest data I have looked at, the primary issue with NR is they harvest MD at significantly higher rates than residents across the state. Basically, we need to incentivize a decent portion of NR to chase whitetails instead of mule deer. I think a whitetail season during the rut and mule deer season well outside the rut can provide that incentive.

I believe the same incentive can also lessen resident pressure. IMO, very few people are going to sacrifice a week to hunt deer in October. In contrast, there are a lot of people doing that, or longer, to hunt in November. Lessen the number of days in the field, lessen the resident pressure.

2 birds, 1 stone.