In your opinion is LE or October the best for mule deer
I think both do different things.
If you are concerned about antler size, then limited entry is the best way to manage for older age class bucks and antlers over 160 inches. If locals want to go limited entry, more power to them. Much like you, I've not shot a mule deer buck because I haven't found one that trips my trigger. I don't have any problem with people shooting forkies either. If that's what you want, then take it. No judgement from me! Limited entry has other issues associated with it that make it less desirable from the public, and from landowners and outfitters. Landowners feel burned by LE elk licenses in parts of the state, they love it others. Outfitters face more uncertainty with limited entry in areas that had previously been general, so some sort of expectation of certainty is needed from their perspective, and limited entry makes that much harder.
October would spread people out, especially if you have to choose your region and species. I think it would also cause a lot of hunters to choose their hunts more carefully. For example: If I am fairly sure I am going to pull a good elk tag, I may not want to hunt mule deer in 6 or 7 because that breaks into my time for elk, so with that premium tag in my pocket, I'll select whitetail in the region I'm likely to draw from. Similarly, when you look at the amount of antlerless tags sold and used on public land (both deer & elk), you see where the largest increase in hunter pressure is coming from, so making antlerless effectively "limited entry" on public land, or removing it altogether in some instances, works to address the increased hunter pressure issue without getting to limited entry or antler point restrictions. Adding the private land only cow elk season in mid-October would likely push elk back on to public after archery season (on those properties that allow it), but that season also does not conflict with antlered hunting of elk, so the thinking is that by removing the antler portion of the issue, more landowners will be willing to allow antlerless hunting if they outfit because you aren't infringing on the business operation side of the equation, and from what we've heard from some landowners in 3,4,5,6 & 7, they'd love a bit of a respite from shoulder seasons and go try a two week season up front, then follow it up with a two week cow season in December.
For areas like SW MT that get a ton of elk pressure but may not be a destination for mule deer, I think that a split season would spread pressure out over a longer timeframe than the concentrated 6 weeks for archery & 5 for rifle, leading to better success rates on elk and deer on public land, while still allowing for generous antlerless harvest on private land.
To me - this all comes down to hunting pressure on public land. The Mule Deer aspect is critical, but the proposal itself is a much larger bite at the apple of "why is MT public land hunting taking more time to kill the same number of animals?" In that regard, I think the proposal does bring about some better conditions than currently exist without going to a more heavily controlled model like limited entry. Montanans have been crystal clear that they want to be able to hunt mule deer every year, and that antler size isn't an issue. There's some magic in that approach that helps keep hunting available to everyone, regardless of their station in life and I think that's worth defending. Will a small percentage of bucks make it past 3-4 years old? Probably. Is that the most important metric for success for me? Not at all.
The most important metric for success for me is that Montanans find a path forward together to bring about a change in how hunting happens under a specific time-frame in order to be more effective in terms of managing deer and elk in the field than the current model. In order to measure that, you have to implement the season at some level or we're all just offering our conjecture online.
