Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement

[El Jason]

I think the part that you missed is - if NR tag allocations are cut or at the very least a lot of those tags goto "private land only" - more R than you think would support it.

Let’s see the rubber meet the road.

 

[mtmuley]

The management of Montana mule deer is a joke. If all Nr's were eliminated I'm not confident it would get better anyway. mtmuley

 

[Gerald Martin]

Let’s see the rubber meet the road.

I got you bro…. Just need to team up with that evil sorcerer Lamb and work those nefarious connections…. . It’s as easy as waving a magic wand.

 

[DFS]

I think this thread need a two week memorandum of understanding. We should use it to hunt and think of how mule deer have impacted our lives.

 

[El Jason]

I think this thread need a two week memorandum of understanding. We should use it to hunt and think of how mule deer have impacted our lives.

Everyone probably should go out and touch grass. Go hunting. Go fishing. Climb a peak. Whatever.

I’m doing the last of the pre launch honey dos and then we’re hitting the woods to look for bears and grouse.

 

[mtmuley]

Everyone probably should go out and touch grass. Go hunting. Go fishing. Climb a peak. Whatever.

I’m doing the last of the pre launch honey dos and then we’re hitting the woods to look for bears and grouse.

I'm already checking and re checking things for a trip to the BrEaks. Taking two guys that haven't been out there. Really looking forward to it. mtmuley

 

[SAJ-99]

You think?

NRs bring roughly $200 per resident. Is it fair to ask all of them to give some of that up to minimally improve the hobby of a small minority of residents?

I assume he wants to charge the same amount for the tag and have the same number of tags. He just wants to force the NR to hunt private land only.

Montanans are perfectly fine making rules that help a minority of residents, and even non residents. See the example of Come Home to Hunt tags. It just has to be the right minority.

 

[Irrelevant]

Any state with an appreciable demand for NR tags is going to inherently hate NRs. I think it's a reasonable outcome of the inability to rationalize the financial need for NRs with the desire to have better and easier R hunting outcomes. In an ideal world, you minimize the amount of financial need to therefore minimize the amount of NRs, and their subsequent impact on your experience. But because things are constantly changing, whatever balance there is to be found in short lived. We've been in an economic deluge of good times for far too long. I anticipate that when the next recession comes, the scale will tip, and NR money will be weighted higher than it currently is.

I selfishly hope for a recession.

 

[antlerradar]

I assume he wants to charge the same amount for the tag and have the same number of tags. He just wants to force the NR to hunt private land only.

For a guy that is against anything that might help MOGA, to then come out for private land only tags. Trying to follow that logic is enough to give you whiplash. Private land only tags are just a small step from full on Treeshark landowner tags.

 

[8andcounting]

I assume he wants to charge the same amount for the tag and have the same number of tags. He just wants to force the NR to hunt private land only.

Montanans are perfectly fine making rules that help a minority of residents, and even non residents. See the example of Come Home to Hunt tags. It just has to be the right minority.

Yup but mention taking away the turkey day shoot and you’ll get shot

 

[Treeshark]

Private land only tags are just a small step from full on Treeshark landowner tags.

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Eric Albus]

Every NR that an outfitter takes on private is one less NR hunter competing with R hunters on available/accessible public/BM lands.

 

[WanderWoman]

Every NR that an outfitter takes on private is one less NR hunter competing with R hunters on available/accessible public/BM lands.

Every piece of private that goes from having public hunting to being leased is that many more hunters squeezed onto public lands.. probably a lot more than a small handful of NR hunters who pay for guided hunts.

Not anti-outfitter (they provide a service) and private landowners are free to do as they choose. But thats not the best way to represent that picture imo..

 

[Treeshark]

Every NR that an outfitter takes on private is one less NR hunter competing with R hunters on available/accessible public/BM lands.

That logic tracks, I agree. I do wonder what that would do to overall Block Management enrollment, as well as private land access overall- I assume both would be significantly reduced.

Perhaps if would be a favorable offset for residents if the public had a high enough reduction of NR’s- I concede that is a possible scenario as well.

 

[DFS]

The part that keeps getting skimmed over is that nonresident harvest for mule deer exceeds resident in region 6 and 7. Eastern Montana seems to be expendable but as of right now we are the deer factory that the rest of the state enjoys. If the harvest stats are correct and that was corrected to be more in line with other western states and regions it will start to steer things in the right direction. Hopefully fwp is on top of it with their new plan.

 

[Eric Albus]

The part that keeps getting skimmed over is that nonresident harvest for mule deer exceeds resident in region 6 and 7. Eastern Montana seems to be expendable but as of right now we are the deer factory that the rest of the state enjoys. If the harvest stats are correct and that was corrected to be more in line with other western states and regions it will start to steer things in the right direction. Hopefully fwp is on top of it with their new plan.

I’ve been studying on that. I question it. I need to call some meat
Processors in R7. See what they say. The info FWP uses comes from phone survey, which IMO is a joke.

 

[DFS]

I’ve been studying on that. I question it. I need to call some meat
Processors in R7. See what they say. The info FWP uses comes from phone survey, which IMO is a joke.

I wonder how many of those deer are seeing a processor. I would suspect on public land it could be much higher than what the statistics are saying.

 

[mtmiller]

Every NR that an outfitter takes on private is one less NR hunter competing with R hunters on available/accessible public/BM lands.

And the opposite is true for available/accessible public lands.

 

[DFS]

I really don’t think it will be the silver bullet but if you take nonresident harvest down to a reasonable level and potentially completely axe nonresident landowner tags things will improve for hunters and the cattle ranchers that we are trying to save.

 

[Gerald Martin]

The part that keeps getting skimmed over is that nonresident harvest for mule deer exceeds resident in region 6 and 7. Eastern Montana seems to be expendable but as of right now we are the deer factory that the rest of the state enjoys. If the harvest stats are correct and that was corrected to be more in line with other western states and regions it will start to steer things in the right direction. Hopefully fwp is on top of it with their new plan.

I’m not sure what solution you have in mind in relation to the problem you outline above but if the conclusion is regional caps we considered that in our discussions as we formulated our general season proposal. We identified at least three areas of concern that we couldn’t find satisfactory answers to in our discussions and ultimately decided to move away from regional caps that we had called for in version one of our proposal. As I recall (others from our group can correct if necessary) those three concerns were as follows:

1. Regional caps that distribute the amount of tags available per region based on deer populations per region could actually increase pressure in R6 and R7. Even though 6 and 7 do experience more NR mule deer buck harvest than R mule deer buck harvest, mule deer populations across other regions in the state are so depressed that a division of hunters in the state with regional caps set at a ratio of the percentage of the states mule deer populations that reside in that unit could funnel even more hunters into 6 and 7.

Regions 1-5 have an even higher percentage of hunters per mule deer than 6 and 7 even though the NR to R ratio of harvest ofmule deer is at a lower percentage in R 1-5.

2. We didn’t trust FWP to set regional caps at a level that would actually limit harvest of mule deer. (Admittedly unscientific but not unreasonable based on historic setting of tag quotas for areas of high demand)

3. The potential for hunters limited to a single region to fill a tag in that region because it’s their only option and they have limited days in the area. (Again, not necessarily scientific but not unreasonable for a scenario of where a significant number of traveling hunters would choose to fill a tag on their one trip to a different region since that’s the only place they could kill a buck. Tie this potential scenario with concern #1 listed above and it seemed to us like regional caps might not be the best solution.)

I’m not saying that our concerns and conclusions are the best way or only way to look at regional caps. That’s just some of what we discussed and the direction we decided to move away from out of those discussions.