Montana mule deer Expectations.

[brocksw]

I'd like to see a survey presented to Montana residents where they ask "How important is it to you to hunt mule deer in the rut?" rather than "How important is it to you to hunt mule deer every year?"

It shows that in the pie charts on the 3rd page?

 

[Big Fin]

My expectation, is predicated on what I see on public land. The private land expectation would be different.

I am interested in mule deer, but I hardly ever shoot one. Hell, I ate my last three MT deer tags. I could have easily filled them. Maybe I'm getting soft.

I try to think of it in the context of someone other than me. I get to hunt a lot. Would I feel different when it was back in the day when I got only weekends and a few week days to hunt; back when I was looking to put as much venison in my freezer as possible?

When I think back to those days, I would have gladly hunted in October, if that is when the season was open. I wasn't tied to November mule deer hunting for any reason other than the season was open and I wanted to be out chasing deer. Even with that season open, I shot one mule deer in Eastern Montana in 1993 and shot my next Montana mule deer in 2012. All years in between I shot whitetails, even when I traveled to Eastern Montana for deer hunting. Since then my tally has been close to the same, taking another mule deer on limited entry tags in 2014 and 2018. My prior three limited entry tags didn't get burned on mule deer, rather I shot a whitetail those years.

I chase mule deer in WY, CO, and NV when I can. They have a way better age class, though if I want to hunt regularly I'm relegated to September and October hunts. Montana is for my whitetail itch. What I have seen in hunting mule deer in those other states is that you can still have abundant opportunity with season dates outside the rut.

I could care less if a 5.5 year-old mule deer scores 200" or 140". For me, it is about having diversity in the age class. Maybe someone can point me to studies that show age class is not important for mule deer herd health. If that has been studied, I've failed to read it. I suspect states have adult buck-to-doe ratios in their objectives for some biological measurement criteria. So, until I read otherwise, I'm going with the premise that having a diverse age class is helpful.

Back to my first point; private and public land herds. It is almost like we have two subsets of mule deer in Montana; herds that live primarily on private land and herds that live some/mostly on public land. If you did a study of each herd, you would see extremely different profiles in herd health, no matter what criteria herd health was measured by.

So, until things change, my expectations are very low for public land mule deer. My expectation is that Montana will continue to drive public land mule deer further into the ditch, then complain to FWP that all the mule deer are on private lands. I expect these public land mule deer will continue to go unappreciated, borderline abused, in terms of management policy. I expect Montana hunters will ignore the resident hunters population increases, the loss of private access that contributes to more public land harvest, and the blame will go on coyotes, wolves, lions, and non-residents.

I also expect Montanans to continue thinking that our Constitutional right includes November rut hunting for mule deer with a rifle. Those who want to defend rifle rut hunting, in spite of any warnings we might have about the health of the public land subset, will claim it is a bunch of trophy hunters pushing the change. I'm not a trophy hunter or meat hunter; I'm just a hunter. I like deer. I like knowing they are doing well on both public and private. That's as complicated as I can make it for my advocacy on behalf of Montana's public land mule deer.

 

[Nick87]

A few more buck from the past to show what Montana has produced.

This buck was taken within walking distance from where I grew up. Shot in 1961 and has a typical frame that nets over 200. I sure would like to know what has happened to this buck. The hunter was from Harrisburg PA.
View attachment 211632

This buck was taken by Avon Fjell in the late fifty's. Avon took the buck to a local big buck contest, won the contest and sold the head to a Nebraska hunter for a grand total of 75 dollars. View attachment 211634

Two of the monsters that use to hang in the print shop a t St. Labre. I don't know much about the nontypical, I think it is a Crow Rez buck. I do have some history with the with the other. Back in 1980 rumors started spreading about a monster "forty inch" buck living in a nearby canyons. The buck is 37 inches wide. Dad and I hunted there a few time and never saw the buck, but did see the biggest set of deer tracks I have ever seen. I can still remember dad commenting on how those tracks had to have been left by a monster of a buck even though I was 14 at the time. A few years later I found a set of sheds with the same upturned mainbeams and other similar characteristics. The manager of the print shop at St Labre had many big deer hanging in the shop. Some he had shot, some he had bought from other Native Americans. When I saw this buck in the print shop, I knew it was the buck I found the antlers from in the early 80's and certainly the forty incher of 1980. I never could get a straight story from the manager and it is likely he may not have known the true story. When he retired he sold all the heads in the print shop to a collector. I would sure like to know were these bucks are now.
View attachment 211635

Incredible bucks, be near impossible to hold it together if they were encountered in the wild. At least for me.

 

[8andcounting]

There are mule deer in MT. Hunting is not just about killing a 150" plus buck. If you want to go and shoot at mule deer, go. It's a great place to do so.

It used to be . It’s not anymore

 

[brocksw]

Another interesting document. Maybe FWP is basing their "success" with mule deer on the graphic in the lower left corner of the last page?

 

[OntarioHunter]

When I see various wanna be instafamous social media douches, including those from some well known brands that we’ve all heard of, and they are taking scrubby little muley bucks 5 miles from the truck just to have some kill content… Well, that’s how I know it’s probably going to suck out there. My expectation is to shoot an elk and not really worry about a mule deer because I don’t have the time needed to find that needle in the haystack. I have a lot of respect for the handful of guys who are consistently getting close to the 200” mark.

And I'm betting you'd shoot a raghorn 5x5 and be tickled pink. But gawdamn those guys who shoot deer the same age!

 

[8andcounting]

My expectation, is predicated on what I see on public land. The private land expectation would be different.

I am interested in mule deer, but I hardly ever shoot one. Hell, I ate my last three MT deer tags. I could have easily filled them. Maybe I'm getting soft.

I try to think of it in the context of someone other than me. I get to hunt a lot. Would I feel different when it was back in the day when I got only weekends and a few week days to hunt; back when I was looking to put as much venison in my freezer as possible?

When I think back to those days, I would have gladly hunted in October, if that is when the season was open. I wasn't tied to November mule deer hunting for any reason other than the season was open and I wanted to be out chasing deer. Even with that season open, I shot one mule deer in Eastern Montana in 1993 and shot my next Montana mule deer in 2012. All years in between I shot whitetails, even when I traveled to Eastern Montana for deer hunting. Since then my tally has been close to the same, taking another mule deer on limited entry tags in 2014 and 2018. My prior three limited entry tags didn't get burned on mule deer, rather I shot a whitetail those years.

I chase mule deer in WY, CO, and NV when I can. They have a way better age class, though if I want to hunt regularly I'm relegated to September and October hunts. Montana is for my whitetail itch. What I have seen in hunting mule deer in those other states is that you can still have abundant opportunity with season dates outside the rut.

I could care less if a 5.5 year-old mule deer scores 200" or 140". For me, it is about having diversity in the age class. Maybe someone can point me to studies that show age class is not important for mule deer herd health. If that has been studied, I've failed to read it. I suspect states have adult buck-to-doe ratios in their objectives for some biological measurement criteria. So, until I read otherwise, I'm going with the premise that having a diverse age class is helpful.

Back to my first point; private and public land herds. It is almost like we have two subsets of mule deer in Montana; herds that live primarily on private land and herds that live some/mostly on public land. If you did a study of each herd, you would see extremely different profiles in herd health, no matter what criteria herd health was measured by.

So, until things change, my expectations are very low for public land mule deer. My expectation is that Montana will continue to drive public land mule deer further into the ditch, then complain to FWP that all the mule deer are on private lands. I expect these public land mule deer will continue to go unappreciated, borderline abused, in terms of management policy. I expect Montana hunters will ignore the resident hunters population increases, the loss of private access that contributes to more public land harvest, and the blame will go on coyotes, wolves, lions, and non-residents.

I also expect Montanans to continue thinking that our Constitutional right includes November rut hunting for mule deer with a rifle. Those who want to defend rifle rut hunting, in spite of any warnings we might have about the health of the public land subset, will claim it is a bunch of trophy hunters pushing the change. I'm not a trophy hunter or meat hunter; I'm just a hunter. I like deer. I like knowing they are doing well on both public and private. That's as complicated as I can make it for my advocacy on behalf of Montana's public land mule deer.

You pushed eastern Montana deer hunting like no other . Advertised it like crazy . Your selling point in your videos was the amount of public land to hunt on and the length of the seasons , so what’s changed ?

 

[OntarioHunter]

NR B11 license sales are far exceeding the statutory cap due to the allowance of turning in the deer portion of the B10 & reissue of it as a B11.

Plus the 500 Come Home To Hunt permits & god knows how many others due to native hunt & the college kid giveaway.

There absolutely should be OTC areas in MT for deer. But the expectation should meet the management criteria. Improving habitat means you improve carrying capacity and distribution across shared landscapes so you end up with less damage to landowners and more opportunity for quality and quantity hunting.

The 500 Come Home to Hunt tags have never been completely dispensed in any given year. There's always lots left over. I messed up my application last year and simply waited till I got to Montana and bought a surplus tag. That was safest. I've had problems in the past with my tag getting lost in the mail (no doubt because some FWP postage meter robot doesn't understand US bulk postage won't work for Canadian addresses).

 

[Redside]

My expectations are that draw odds will be worse for LE permits as at least one unit has been eliminated with the new changes as far as I understand. So there will be a 1000 people looking for a new unit to put in for.

If I want, I'll get to hunt the unit I've been putting in for the past decade on a general tag, along with hundreds, maybe 1000's of other hunters when the unit previously only saw a handful of mule deer buck hunters.

I know Hank is mainly to blame because he wanted to simplify regs and I know CWD is a complicated issue, but I can't help to think that FWP was high fiving because they got to please the boss and kill old deer. When CWD is around it seems they hate old deer since they're more likely to have it, even if it was only whitetail that test positive down on the river. Unless that way of thinking changes I just don't see where they will want to have many deer around, much less old deer. Each time a new unit has a positive case it'll get the same treatment until it's that way across all of MT.

So I guess you could say my expectations are low for mule deer in MT.

 

[BenInMT]

And I'm betting you'd shoot a raghorn 5x5 and be tickled pink. But gawdamn those guys who shoot deer the same age!

Sometimes they don’t even have horns and I am tickled pink

 

[tjones]

And I'm betting you'd shoot a raghorn 5x5 and be tickled pink. But gawdamn those guys who shoot deer the same age!

edited......
I had a brief moment of weakness, then came to my senses.

 

[Point Creep]

And I'm betting you'd shoot a raghorn 5x5 and be tickled pink. But gawdamn those guys who shoot deer the same age! I poop in a trash bag, then light it on fire.

Elk are actually delicious compared to a mule deer.

Here's the rub, why we'll never have quality deer hunting again in MT.

1) Residents will line up to kill tiny little young mule deer bucks and does, and do it with a smile. After all, it's their God given right, everywhere, through Thanksgiving, in the name of tradition, convenience, and to get out with their families and enjoy nature, etc. There was a study that proved that.

2) Non-residents will come in herds for a guided hunt where they are all but guaranteed a mediocre mule deer. Industry groups like MOGA will never budge on those attractive and long client scheduling opportunities, and oppose anything that would be an obstacle to their licensing.

 

[RobertD]

Incredible bucks, be near impossible to hold it together if they were encountered in the wild. At least for me.

Right there with you dude, those bucks are really something

@antlerradar I know you were illustrating a more important point but want to say thanks for sharing those great photos and backstories on some unbelievable bucks.

I guess I'd also like to add that in a way it angers me how we've allowed people to stigmatize trophy hunting and how some use that as a strawman for arguing against restricted mule deer buck harvest.

I think it's important for everyone to realize that those of you pushing for more protective mule deer policy don't do it as some sort of evil plan to ensure you get a big buck for the wall. The real glory is in allowing the landscape to express its full potential and produce bucks like those... when you can say, X drainage has produced this fantastic buck, it becomes a special testament to good management and stewardship that means more than just a head on a wall. I hope we can communicate those values to new hunters and non-hunters to kinda clean up the black eye "trophy" hunting has gotten.

 

[RobertD]

I know a guy signed up for a game damage hunt for deer in 703. The Fwp called him last week they have a landowner 10 miles east of circle that wants him to come and would like him to buy 5 more tags that the Fwp will sell him . Unbelievable that Montana treats mule deer like I treat mice . I kill every one I can .

This seems friggin nuts to me. A depredation hunt for whitetails in Georgia is structured so differently than that. Thinking of a DNR guy calling me and saying go shoot five deer off so-and-so and they won't count against your limit, that's about as likely as them calling me with a sheep tag.

To carry that hunt out that way ("We will just sell you some extra tags") it's like you said, it's as if they're a damn field pest like a mouse or rat or coyote. Crazy.

 

[Big Fin]

You pushed eastern Montana deer hunting like no other . Advertised it like crazy . Your selling point in your videos was the amount of public land to hunt on and the length of the seasons , so what’s changed ?

Eastern Montana is not the only place with public land mule deer. Region 3 had some very good mule deer hunting when I moved here in 1991. It has gone downhill since then and shows no sign of improving. My recent comments to FWP proposals opposed almost every mule deer proposal for Region 3. Our group got some changes to Region 3 mule deer that were in place until around 2005, at which time FWP said the objectives had been met and they went back to the old season structures. The Department's view on public land mule deer in Region 3 has not changed in any material respect for my 31 years of living here.

As for Eastern Montana, I hunted Eastern Montana many times, shooting my first mule deer in that part of the state in 1993. I hunted antelope there most every year until the tough winter of 2010-11. I've not hunted antelope there since that winter.

The first filmed episode in Eastern Montana was a turkey hunt in Season 1 of OYOA. Then in Season 2 when I shot an elk and Bart shot a mule deer. Nothing changed. While filming there I've shot whitetails, an elk, and a turkey. I never shot a mule deer, though two guests ended up shooting a mule deer and three guests ended up shooting whitetails. We have taken four Montana mule deer on camera in Region 3/5.

Yes, there is public land to hunt. Yes, season are long. Nothing about that has changed. I've been advocating to change Montana mule deer seasons for a long time, even though I've only taken on mule deer from there. None of that has changed my perspective that Montana needs better mule deer management, especially on public land.

My first time advocating for change in Eastern Montana mule deer was in 1997 when we tried to get FWP to lower Region 7 antlerless deer tags following that terrible winter. We took it to the Commission. We went to Miles City to meet with the Regional Supervisor. They did cut tags that year, mostly because the Commission thought it was a good idea, not because Region 7 wanted to do it. Then, FWP bounced the antlerless tags back up a few years later.

Since I moved here 31 years ago, a lot has changed, but Montana's view on managing public land mule deer has not changed. I have been asking for changes for over 20 years, as have many others. But, that has been a minority opinion of resident hunters, something that has not changed.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

This seems like a reasonable expectation of MT mule deer hunting. I would imagine @Greenhorn is 100% correct majority of res hunters are plenty happy to have this experience and a shit ton of NR hunters would love to get to experience this.

 

[8andcounting]

Eastern Montana is not the only place with public land mule deer. Region 3 had some very good mule deer hunting when I moved here in 1991. It has gone downhill since then and shows no sign of improving. My recent comments to FWP proposals opposed almost every mule deer proposal for Region 3. Our group got some changes to Region 3 mule deer that were in place until around 2005, at which time FWP said the objectives had been met and they went back to the old season structures. The Department's view on public land mule deer in Region 3 has not changed in any material respect for my 31 years of living here.

As for Eastern Montana, I hunted Eastern Montana many times, shooting my first mule deer in that part of the state in 1993. I hunted antelope there most every year until the tough winter of 2010-11. I've not hunted antelope there since that winter.

The first filmed episode in Eastern Montana was a turkey hunt in Season 1 of OYOA. Then in Season 2 when I shot an elk and Bart shot a mule deer. Nothing changed. While filming there I've shot whitetails, an elk, and a turkey. I never shot a mule deer, though two guests ended up shooting a mule deer and three guests ended up shooting whitetails. We have taken four Montana mule deer on camera in Region 3/5.

Yes, there is public land to hunt. Yes, season are long. Nothing about that has changed. I've been advocating to change Montana mule deer seasons for a long time, even though I've only taken on mule deer from there. None of that has changed my perspective that Montana needs better mule deer management, especially on public land.

My first time advocating for change in Eastern Montana mule deer was in 1997 when we tried to get FWP to lower Region 7 antlerless deer tags following that terrible winter. We took it to the Commission. We went to Miles City to meet with the Regional Supervisor. They did cut tags that year, mostly because the Commission thought it was a good idea, not because Region 7 wanted to do it. Then, FWP bounced the antlerless tags back up a few years later.

Since I moved here 31 years ago, a lot has changed, but Montana's view on managing public land mule deer has not changed. I have been asking for changes for over 20 years, as have many others. But, that has been a minority opinion of resident hunters, something that has not changed.

Ok thanks Randy

 

[OntarioHunter]

The game changer for muley populations on the West Side since the 80s and 90s has been wolves. I ran onto tracks of a pack when I was hunting south of Dillon this past fall. They were clearly chasing muleys. Think about it. Which animals are they going to be able to cull first, healthy spry young muley bucks or stiff legged old timers? I think we know the answer. Yes, wolves are making their presence known on the East Side now but thankfully that terrain lends itself more favorably to predator control. They can be seen easier there at long distance and we have guns that can reach them. Personally, thanks to wolves, I doubt we'll ever see the mountains producing the quantity of monster bucks they did back in the seventies and eighties, no matter what FWP does ... short of once again exterminating wolves. And we know that's not going to happen.

 

[Straight Arrow]

The game changer for muley populations on the West Side since the 80s and 90s has been wolves. I ran onto tracks of a pack when I was hunting south of Dillon this past fall. They were clearly chasing muleys. Think about it. Which animals are they going to be able to cull first, healthy spry young muley bucks or stiff legged old timers? I think we know the answer. Yes, wolves are making their presence known on the East Side now but thankfully that terrain lends itself more favorably to predator control. They can be seen easier there at long distance and we have guns that can reach them. Personally, thanks to wolves, I doubt we'll ever see the mountains producing the quantity of monster bucks they did back in the seventies and eighties, no matter what FWP does ... short of once again exterminating wolves. And we know that's not going to happen.

Yep, they're showing up in places where I don't want to see them.

 

[Ben Lamb]

The game changer for muley populations on the West Side since the 80s and 90s has been wolves. I ran onto tracks of a pack when I was hunting south of Dillon this past fall. They were clearly chasing muleys. Think about it. Which animals are they going to be able to cull first, healthy spry young muley bucks or stiff legged old timers? I think we know the answer. Yes, wolves are making their presence known on the East Side now but thankfully that terrain lends itself more favorably to predator control. They can be seen easier there at long distance and we have guns that can reach them. Personally, thanks to wolves, I doubt we'll ever see the mountains producing the quantity of monster bucks they did back in the seventies and eighties, no matter what FWP does ... short of once again exterminating wolves. And we know that's not going to happen.

The deer bio for R1 in the 1990's was documenting the decline of mule deer and the increase in whitetail before wolf populations were what they are now. R3 has whitetail up in the high mountains now, where there used to only be mule deer. A buddy popped a whitetail buck a thousand feet below the summit of Emmigrant peak a couple of years ago - traditional mule deer habitat, not whitetail.

Elk are known to outcompete deer, whitetail displace mule deer, habitat on public land is in the shitter, and it's full of noxious weeds on timberland and public land, but yeah, a slowly increasing population of wolves that are known to prefer elk to deer are surely the cause of the decline in mule deer, while simultaneously resulting in an exploding whitetail population.

F'in woofs.