Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement

[cgasner1]

We could all switch to hammers?

 

[antlerradar]

Maybe I am looking at it wrong, but I see a graph that shows aum's trending up and buck harvest trending down.

 

[kwyeewyk]

Maybe I am looking at it wrong, but I see a graph that shows aum's trending up and buck harvest trending down.

Yeah sure looks like it, trend lines would be interesting to see. Also there are ways to test correlation, why not include some real statistics to back up the assertion?

 

[rogerthat]

Yeah sure looks like it, trend lines would be interesting to see. Also there are ways to test correlation, why not include some real statistics to back up the assertion?

They don’t do real statistics at fwp. They drink koolaid and have pillow fights.

 

[R.K.]

View attachment 297410
View attachment 297411
Mismanagement with the managers Monday.

So the last decade saw a 20% increase in AUMs since the 1940s and a 40% decrease in buck harvest. I’m also curious about average age of those bucks. In the face of increased hunting pressure, this means success rates have tanked despite improved forage conditions.

This is a slap in the face to every hunter in the state. The management must change for the good of the resource and those who they are held in trust for.

 

[DFS]

So the last decade saw a 20% increase in AUMs since the 1940s and a 40% decrease in buck harvest. I’m also curious about average age of those bucks. In the face of increased hunting pressure, this means success rates have tanked despite improved forage conditions.

This is a slap in the face to every hunter in the state. The management must change for the good of the resource and those who they are held in trust for.

We are being set up for season setting. More of the same.

 

[antlerradar]

I have never been sold on proactive management and this graph isn't helping me buy in. Lets just call it what it is. Proactive management is just a fancy name for doe tags as the introduction of doe tags is about the only thing that has really changed with management since the 80's when proactive management was started. Now lets look at the graph. In the years prior to proactive management buck harvest was above ten thousand 56% of the time, after proactive management harvest only reached ten thousand 19% of the time. Proactive management did eliminate the bad years, but it also eliminated all of the great years too. The new normal is never terrible but also never good. This reminds me of McDonald's, provide a product that is never great, never terrible, but consistent everywhere and the people will come even if the product is below average.

 

[Eric Albus]

The graph really tell us one thing, guesstimated buck harvests mirrors estimates of aum’s but at a lessor number….generally estimated, and once disseminated really tells us about range conditions and cattle numbers. Why the increase in aum’s? Perhaps CRP being grazed instead of getting farmed?

Unless i missed something on the graph

CRP being torn up and farmed could impact wildlife numbers, as could grazing it. But then again we can see back in the 60’s-70’s buck numbers were good, and the soil bank (old time CRP) wasn’t a popular program like the newer CRP was. So that shoots this theory in the foot.

Looks to me like it boils down to WAY to much pressure, on to little resource. Predators, 2 legged and 4 are keeping mule deer numbers in the tank.
Maybe a few million meatballs with 10-15 aspirin rolled up would make a dent on the coyotes. Or blood soaked sponges dropped by every hunter could be the answer.

I’ll probably be in trouble for incitement and encouraging littering.

 

[Eric Albus]

I have never been sold on proactive management and this graph isn't helping me buy in. Lets just call it what it is. Proactive management is just a fancy name for doe tags as the introduction of doe tags is about the only thing that has really changed with management since the 80's when proactive management was started. Now lets look at the graph. In the years prior to proactive management buck harvest was above ten thousand 56% of the time, after proactive management harvest only reached ten thousand 19% of the time. Proactive management did eliminate the bad years, but it also eliminated all of the great years too. The new normal is never terrible but also never good. This reminds me of McDonald's, provide a product that is never great, never terrible, but consistent everywhere and the people will come even if the product is below average.

Their “proactive management “ is AHM,adaptive harvest management, and it only addresses the female harvesting. It works for ducks(FWP plagiarized AHM from D.U.) not for bucks. Why? On account the duck harvest is limited to actual nest counts and the daily limit.

 

[rogerthat]

In my mind you can apply any little management wrinkle you want but when your baseline management is a 5 week general season uncontrolled rut hunt with rapidly growing resident population demographics and rapidly growing western hunting interest that is recipe for disaster 100 times out of 100. Meanwhile the brain trust bios at fwp are “knocking it out of the park” in their minds. I have very little hope for our mule deer in this state. It is just a fact at this point

 

[Tlrussell]

Limited antelope tags- plenty of antelope.

Limited elk tags- shoulder season

Can’t shoot ranchers cows or sheep- cows and sheep everywhere.

No one eats prairie dogs- everywhere.

Best thing we recognized this trip was the word is out the deer hunting is shit. Opening weekend of general season and broadus was a ghost town. Got a hotel room at 6:30 on Saturday when we decided to stay the night. Bar was dead. We had a great time hunting antelope. No truckloads of orange, no deer either, but…..

 

[Dakotakid]

Biologist last week said mule deer numbers down by, I heard her say by 76% lowest since 1960. Fawn rates this spring were 10 per 100 does.
I don’t know the answers, all I can say is that mule deer are safe from me.

Harvest rates don’t explain the very low birth rates.

 

[Tlrussell]

Biologist last week said mule deer numbers down by, I heard her say by 76% lowest since 1960. Fawn rates this spring were 10 per 100 does.
I don’t know the answers, all I can say is that mule deer are safe from me.

Harvest rates don’t explain the very low birth rates.

We have buddies that ranch and outfit down there. What we did see were lots of does with deer of the year. We were in an area that has sparse public land available to road hunters. We did see deer are larger swaths of public. Talking to other guides, “fawns and does”

 

[brockel]

Limited antelope tags- plenty of antelope.

Limited elk tags- shoulder season

Can’t shoot ranchers cows or sheep- cows and sheep everywhere.

No one eats prairie dogs- everywhere.

Best thing we recognized this trip was the word is out the deer hunting is shit. Opening weekend of general season and broadus was a ghost town. Got a hotel room at 6:30 on Saturday when we decided to stay the night. Bar was dead. We had a great time hunting antelope. No truckloads of orange, no deer either, but…..

Come out when the rut starts. Opening weekend isn’t as busy as the rut around here anymore. Easier hunting

 

[antlerradar]

Come out when the rut starts. Opening weekend isn’t as busy as the rut around here anymore. Easier hunting

100%, If it wasn't for elk hunters, you would hardly know hunting season started. Two weeks from now, hunters will be everywhere. The rut hunt is crowding every one into the the three weeks around Nov. 15th.

 

[DFS]

Mismanagement Mondays. Apparently shrubs have left the chat.

 

[Lota lota]

Rather than pollute the MT B&c mule deer thread, I thought I would start a new one.

So at a recent meet and greet held in Miles City mule deer management was brought up. The fwp career staff and biologists made statements that just shut my ability to have an open mind down such as “We are knocking it out of the park in regards to mule deer management”, “we had record counts with great age structure and many mature bucks in the counts in prairie county”, “the big bucks are out there for people that want to put the work in to get them”, “our counts are better than any limited entry unit in the west including utah, better than the Henry Mountains”.

Now from the way the dept is being run under worsech with the fwp local staff input being completely ignored especially regarding elk, I want and have tried to support the local career employees but when they come and make statements like that, that are complete 180 degrees from my 40 years of anecdotal experience as well as many others I know and greatly respect that spend as much or more time than I do watching mule deer, I have to ask:

1) what am I missing or what are they missing, that we can be so polar opposite in regards to the current management and state of the mule deer herd?(elk we are on the same page)
2) if a career employee is so far off(I would strongly suggest they are) why should we the public support them on other issues?

I have got to say this one has always baffled me. It’s like a bio works for fwp and all of a sudden they have drank the koolaid and unwilling to consider the impacts our season structure has on the herd. It would be refreshing if they were just honest about it. Say for example “with our season structure very few bucks make it past age 3. Our counts and buck to die ratio however are still healthy”. Those arguably might be more defenseable statements. Fire away. Someone explain to me where I am erring. Thanks

Crucify me if you want...we need limited mule deer tags state-wide, and need to stop the season prior to the rut (like other states). This is getting ridiculous. Eastern Montana has gone to s**t...Southwest Montana is even worse. Every mouth-breathing tongue-chewer from out east shoots the first two point they see. It's common knowledge that mule deer are not as prolific as white-tailed deer (which are as sustainable as coyotes). I know a certain drainage here in south-central Montana where you could find a couple of 140" mule deer on any giving day...now you don't see a one. Shame on those a**holes. Shoot a whitetail doe instead.

 

[Lota lota]

Most of the areas I grew up hunting have no data. As in, they do not do aerial surveys for mule deer, the districts are not associated with any game check stations, and so all they can count on is the phone calls they make to folks in March to discern a rough correlation between success and the herd. I know that’s not the case everywhere.

But even so, the district south of where I hunt had an aerial survey performed on mile deer in 2021 and these are the results. Just think, these results were good enough for them to proceed with mule deer buck hunting on one’s general tag.

WPT = waypoint. It’s not the hunting districts. These are the counts for the entire district.

View attachment 239060

Jesus....

 

[Lota lota]

Imagine the data fwp and the public would have if there was mandatory harvest reporting. Maybe they don’t actually want that data

I don't think they do....I worked for them for 5 years. Total s**t show agency. They're all about opportunity...population/quality be damned.

 

[rogerthat]

Sunday I hit one of the few public land basins that had a few ninja warrior trolls in it during archery. I climbed a big lookout overlooking the area well before first light.

As the daylight brightened the day, I made out two mule deer does both with twins in the basin. Unfortunately the basin has a two track road running right down the center of it. Shortly an old yellow single cab Chevy came rattle rolling down the two track. Unfortunately one of the does and her fawns were feeding near the two track. I was hopeful no rifle shots would ring out in this basin putting the old bucks fwp insists are there on notice that rifle season had arrived. With the cut to 1000 doe tags in region 7 I thought “what are the odds”. Kaboom. Pretty quickly 2 hunters emerged from the pickup. A short chase followed by another kaboom. One of the fawns being drug back to the truck. Ok. So I guess they had a doe tag. Or maybe they didn’t even read the regs?

Now here is where it gets crappy. After the pickup drove off with the fawn, I noticed mom and the other fawn had not went far and bedded down. Mom got up and started to walk. Right away I could tell. She looked sick. Oh no. Those schmucks gut shot the doe and then shot the fawn without even knowing it. So what’s the point of this crappy hunting story?

Here it is. There were 6 does in that basin(maybe less as the fawns could be bucks.). By Sunday morning the doe population in that public land basin was knocked back by at least 33%. That basin used to hold 20-30 does consistently. How many more years will it take for recovery now? Que the Wyoming rose petal hypothesis mule deer study. That’s what Fwp gets wrong with their antlerless management. We are shooting the wrong does. They say 1000 tags in all of region 7 is meaningless but I guarantee you it damn sure isn’t meaningless in that public land basin. 2 more redneck encounters like that and that basin will have no deer left. It’s just a damn shame.