Montana General Season Structure Proposal

[bigsky2]

Maybe stretch that archery elk into day October 10th.....

Please.

On the flip side, there’s benefits to the August opener too. It would be possible to locate bulls in the summer and hunt them while they are still in their summer hangouts. With the archery opener varying anywhere from Sept 1-Sept 7 in our current system, I find that opening week is kind of a crap shoot as far as whether the bulls have made their move or not.

 

[cgasner1]

I like having to pick species, but out of curiosity, what was the reasoning for not allowing a guy to mule deer/whitetail in October and also whitetail in November? I see some pushback there for having to pick one or the other, and not sure the whitetail would be that affected

Help spread pressure for part of it. The other is a shooters gonna shoot no way around that. Would be ideal for a guy to start passing on forky mule deer to whitetail hunt. Till last weekend of whitetail season and he kills a spike whitetail. Taking pressure off one resource to pound another is a bad change.

 

[bigsky2]

I like having to pick species, but out of curiosity, what was the reasoning for not allowing a guy to mule deer/whitetail in October and also whitetail in November? I see some pushback there for having to pick one or the other, and not sure the whitetail would be that affected.

Splitting up whitetail and mule deer hunters will help the hunter crowding issue. We also didn’t want to put excess pressure on whitetails by allowing them to be hunted for two straight months.

 

[Nameless Range]

Well done everyone. I love it.

One thing I would say, is that I think some of these proposals have to be adopted in conjunction with one another if they are to be effective.

For example, as mentioned earlier, I think forcing folks to pick their region might make them think twice about committing to somewhere far off without the relief valve of a mid november rutting buck in their backyard. I'm thinking of region 3 mostly - where the amount of people who live there to mule deer is quite high. If pick your region was adopted but the change in antlered mule deer season wasn't, I could see a real bad thing happening to the general districts of region 3 - a larger number of hunters than typical leveragin the rut. I do like the fact that pick your region would give decision makers some good data on hunter numbers relative to local herds that they don't currently have.

Thanks for all your work on this everyone. I hope it gains traction and will do whatever I can to fuel it.

 

[SAJ-99]

Instead of asking if you like it, I suggest people ask if they can accept this to improve the situation for mule deer? Then rank the pieces in order of importance - selecting specific unit, change in dates, mandatory reporting, etc.

There are opinions that can be worked through with debate (and beer) and then there are problems that have to solved to go forward. The $ is in the latter category. What was the conversation around this below? Seems like a big number.

FWP has indicated this could result in a $9 million dollar drop in revenue, but our estimates based on current resale value and loss from refund put this figure closer to $4-5 million. Regardless, this is a significant funding issue that cannot move forward without significant increases in cost from the resident hunting community.

 

[DFS]

Does this have a chance in hell of being taken seriously by fwp? They don’t think we have any problems or need any changes.

 

[Big Sky Guy]

As a group we welcome your feedback on these proposals. I’m anticipating significant discussion to occur about this proposal and a lot of interest from readers who may not normally interact on the forum. I’d like to request that members refrain from hijacking this post into anything that descends into personal attacks or tangents that degrade our conversation.

I definitely think this is all an improvement over what we have now. Thank you to all whom worked on this for your time and thought in putting this together.

Anyway to word the pick your region to include all neighboring units around a region? Basically treat all regions as a ven-diagram to satisfy those that live near these borders and hunt more than one region (but still keep what I think is at the heart of the proposal in keeping hunters less able to drive all over the state at will).

 

[Visiting Hunter]

Instead of asking if you like it, I suggest people ask if they can accept this to improve the situation for mule deer? Then rank the pieces in order of importance - selecting specific unit, change in dates, mandatory reporting, etc.

There are opinions that can be worked through with debate (and beer) and then there are problems that have to solved to go forward. The $ is in the latter category. What was the conversation around this below? Seems like a big number.

FWP has indicated this could result in a $9 million dollar drop in revenue, but our estimates based on current resale value and loss from refund put this figure closer to $4-5 million. Regardless, this is a significant funding issue that cannot move forward without significant increases in cost from the resident hunting community.

Personally for me it would be to raise conservation license sales to around $25. Would be somewhere around a extra $9 million in revenue.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Instead of asking if you like it, I suggest people ask if they can accept this to improve the situation for mule deer? Then rank the pieces in order of importance - selecting specific unit, change in dates, mandatory reporting, etc.

There are opinions that can be worked through with debate (and beer) and then there are problems that have to solved to go forward. The $ is in the latter category. What was the conversation around this below? Seems like a big number.

FWP has indicated this could result in a $9 million dollar drop in revenue, but our estimates based on current resale value and loss from refund put this figure closer to $4-5 million. Regardless, this is a significant funding issue that cannot move forward without significant increases in cost from the resident hunting community.

We did have conversations about this topic. General consensus among us was that we’re willing to see a significant increase in the cost of resident licenses in order to keep NR licenses within the statutory number of 6,600 NR deer tags.

Personally, I feel like FWP needs to be willing to accept some reduction in funding from the resale of the returned deer/elk combo tags since they created a product that didn’t exist when the NR caps were implemented.

 

[EYJONAS!]

Not to pick on @EYJONAS! but since he brought it up.

The hunter pressure curve doesn't curve nearly as much if that happens, so the pulse pressure of no hunting of elk on public from Oct 1-31 and only cows on private in the middle of the month would be largely negated.

Part of the idea is to reduce hunter days by spreading the pressure out, then a quick pulse to push animals off of private and onto public after 4 weeks of archery, 2 weeks of rifle mule deer. As hunter days increase, hunter success falls, while problematic concentrations increase on private, leading to lower hunter success rates.

If you draw a limited entry permit, the idea that the hunter pressure is already lower than a general unit would allow for the traditional 6 & 5 week seasons, especially if the antlerless elk harvest is very limited on public (less pressure).

Id be pretty shocked if private ranches are gonna be busting cows in mid October and dispersing any elk off their place before the new General season comes into effect. But I understand your thought on it. Id rather hunt elk when it's below 90 degrees though to

 

[Ought Six]

If you really want feedback from the general hunting population get pages like Trophy Bucks and Bulls of Montana and Montanica extreme adventures or whatever it’s called to post it and see what kind of comments come up

 

[Carnage2011]

Overall I think this could help with the age class of Mule Deer bucks. A few things I'm a little concerned about. 1) I think a month of mule deer rifle pressure on public will push a lot of elk to private before the rifle season starts. I do think this may be offset by the lack of hunting pressure from deer hunters during the November elk season. 2) The October cow season will probably be a waste of time. Many working cattle ranches are doing fall cattle work at that time and likely aren't going to have hunters running around. Also, the ranches that are leased for bull elk hunting will not want people in there before rifle season spooking bulls. 3) If we want the October cow season to have some effect then I'd we get rid of the December season. That's the one that most people are going to fall back on instead of the October hunt. I do understand that part of the incentive of hunting cows on private in October is also to push elk back to public for the rifle elk season.

As far as the budget shortfalls go. If we have a deficit of $9M per year that could be offset by a $50 tag increase for residents. If I remember correctly there are roughly 187,000 tags sold to MT Residents? Maybe I'm off there, but that's what is stuck in my head. That's still dirt cheap in the grand scheme of things.

The one thing I do find a little interesting is that many people complain about the length of season in MT driving deer and elk onto inaccessible lands. This proposal would literally have hunting every single day from August 25th-November 30th on public land. That seems like a lot. That's two more weeks than we currently have.

All in all I do think this is well thought out and has good intentions. It checks several of the boxes that many people in MT want. Hunting over Thanksgiving, opportunity to hunt ever year. Those are the two big ones and this proposal checks out. I'll continue to think about it and see what other ideas/effects I can see.

Thanks to everyone that put in the time to sit down and think through some ideas.

 

[Carnage2011]

If you really want feedback from the general hunting population get pages like Trophy Bucks and Bulls of Montana and Montanica extreme adventures or whatever it’s called to post it and see what kind of comments come up

There isn't two firing braincells between everyone combined on the Montanica extreme page. They'd be yelling at the wall without having a reason why.

 

[Ought Six]

There isn't two firing braincells between everyone combined on the Montanica extreme page. They'd be yelling at the wall without having a reason why.

Agreed but we’ll need their buy in and support for any changes to ever occur

 

[EYJONAS!]

There isn't two firing braincells between everyone combined on the Montanica extreme page. They'd be yelling at the wall without having a reason why.

Wtf are you talking about only the finest post on those sites.

 

[SAJ-99]

We did have conversations about this topic. General consensus among us was that we’re willing to see a significant increase in the cost of resident licenses in order to keep NR licenses within the statutory number of 6,600 NR deer tags.

Personally, I feel like FWP needs to be willing to accept some reduction in funding from the resale of the returned deer/elk combo tags since they created a product that didn’t exist when the NR caps were implemented.

Does FWP agree? Increasing cost of these tags has always caused some blowback. As a NR now, not my pig not my farm, (until you increase my fees, which is typically the result LOL).

The one thing I do find a little interesting is that many people complain about the length of season in MT driving deer and elk onto inaccessible lands. This proposal would literally have hunting every single day from August 25th-November 30th on public land. That seems like a lot. That's two more weeks than we currently have.

That is the cost of keeping Opportunity. And to your point, those animals will be on private before the season starts. It doesn't fix that problem, but I don't think it was intended to.

 

[Carnage2011]

We did have conversations about this topic. General consensus among us was that we’re willing to see a significant increase in the cost of resident licenses in order to keep NR licenses within the statutory number of 6,600 NR deer tags.

Personally, I feel like FWP needs to be willing to accept some reduction in funding from the resale of the returned deer/elk combo tags since they created a product that didn’t exist when the NR caps were implemented.

I don't think a reduction in funding for FWP is a good idea in any way shape or form. I understand what you are saying, but the research side of things is what always seems to get cut first. That doesn't help us now or in the long run.

 

[Straight Arrow]

That's two more weeks than we currently have.

With elk shoulder seasons we have August 15th until February 15th currently, so a net reduction in hunting opportunity days/weeks would occur.

 

[Nunyacreek]

I love it even though it certainly curtails my opportunity. To paraphrase Aldo Leopold, what good is a limitless season with nothing to hunt? I also agree that although there may be good and thoughtful changes to the proposal all the parts sort of work together you don’t want to pick and choose some over others.

 

[Sytes]

Could throw my tidbits about R1, 2, and 3 though reality - I am super impressed HT was able to find the caliber of members to amicably search for a start towards improvement. The idea of a citizens "commission" in a sense, it pretty flipping cool.

Thanks all for the dedication towards the welfare of our wildlife and to collectively find enough mutual agreement for this pdf. Still reading though - This is one reason why Hunt Talk is better than the rest for hunt social media sites.

Okay, I'll share... Traditional muzzleloader should take the first or last week from archery! There said it! I said it beforehand when this citizens committee was in the process and listening to the joe's and jane hunters ramble. I Don't Get No Respect! - Rodney Dangerfield (humor intended)