The real answer to that is break up those regions more (seriously, R7 elk is managed as 2 units functionally....WTF). That way you can actually target those populations on private with licenses only valid on private and manage the public elk also. Everyone wins in that scenario
That makes sense, and they are issuing way too many tags
A guy I know that is very familiar with 799 told me once that the area actually has 3 “herds” of elk if you will and fwp should break that unit up and manage accordingly
Yes. 700 is better, but you could even break that up into 2 units at least, East and West
An issue I see with the two week cow only private land hunt will be access to those private lands, especially in region 7. Somehow there has to be some incentive for land owners to allow access or simply having a hunt and issuing tags will have no impact.
I agree with you 100%. This part of the plan will not have the intended effect.
I think something along the lines of payment would be necessary, although a lot of the private land that is not in Block Management is outfitted. I think striking an agreement to let hunters come in for two weeks in October on outfitted land to chase elk around would be rather difficult if not impossible.
I’d bet more cows will get killed in your area than people think. But in some areas that are having issues they will continue to have them till the ranchers let people hunt
A former hunt buddy and I had a great relationship with a gent who owned a hay/cattle operation in the general P-burg area. We'd go down there and help with operations (hard work though always a great time) - in turn, he let us hunt his land. He passed. His sons came in, whom we worked with, and advised us they were making $$$ leasing land to outfitters who have exclusive rights to hunting on the land aside from direct family and close friends and apparently the frieinds was a lease "negotiated" quantity.
If you ever go to a block management appreciation dinner you are going to be scared to death. I did when I was part of the region 7 CAC . I am pushing 60 now and I would have been one of the youngest people in the room. Going to be a lot of turnover in the next ten to twenty years.
There are some places, mostly owned by billionaires where getting cow hunting is going to be next to impossible.
I think the technology thing gets thrown under the rug. Growing up (I'm not even old) 300+ yard shots were very rare because there was no rangefinders. When UT came out with their "open sight only rifles" proposal (it got shot down) I thought it was an awesome idea. We are going to have to start policing tech if we want to maintain some level of opportunity in the future.
Mentioned this during the public comment phase.
I would rather not complicate it and would be perfectly fine going back to traditional only (recurves/longbows no sights) in archery season and open sites only in rifle season. This coming from a guy who can shoot a compound bow and rifle a long ways. At some point we have to consider what is fair chase and also maintains opportunity for the future. I see opportunity as a tag, not in the method of which you can fill it.
Montanans feel entitled to "opportunity" as having a pocket full of tags, multiple species and sex, and months of open season that are often valid for all of them for more than half the state. We've opportunitied ourselves out of fair to middlin hunting of any sort. Until people are willing to give something substantial up, there will be no trending in the other direction.
