Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement

[MTTW]

In my experience the 5 weeks of pressure gets reduced to mostly 1 week. The 3rd week when deer are rutting hard. Then every few years you get early harsh weather, and every buck gets killed by hunters and you start over from scratch.

The 3-week season also runs too late. With our current season structure, paired with available technology, we do not over hunt mule deer by a factor of 2, we over hunt them by a factor of 10 or more. If a good buck gets seen on public there is almost no question, it is going to die. If we continue to hunt them on winter range while rutting, there is no hope for change. One week while rutting with the right weather is more than enough time to kill every buck that anyone wants.

In my opinion avoiding the weather is actually more important than avoiding the rut in the areas that I am familiar with. If I was king, we would cease to hunt mule deer in November. I am talking everywhere, whether LE or OTC.

I would be a very unpopular king.

 

[Nameless Range]

This 4 years of banter has and always will be BS. Let the bios make the calls, suck it up and deal with what they say. Even you, MOGA. Even you, residents. Even you, SGA UPOM and all the rest.

Something that has enlightened me is getting to know bios. They really do have tough jobs, and they also really don't get to "make the calls". They have acceptable political thresholds to work within, and I have seen them push against those only to be denied by either their higher-ups or the commission, often as an honest proxy for public opinion. I think it would be interesting if all the MTFWP bios of Montana got together and proposed a new way forward for both the state at large and their districts, because the latter without the former just shifts pressure. As it stands, they know implicitly and are often told explicitly what the "product" that is a Hunting Season should look like, and it has Opportunity as a core value. Which doesn't actually mean status quo, though to many any unrequired dilution of that value is something close to a form of failure.

Recently, one of the bios I regard as the best I've seen at her job retired, and in her retirement email said, "I did my best to shield you from bureaucracy and be part of the solution." That ain't easy, comes at a cost, and requires a very mature and robust level of professionalism truly void of calling the shots. I think a fair bit of the spirit of threads like this, are folks trying to move the Overton Window of an agency and the citizens it serves to being open to something that looks a bit more like bios calling the shots, or at the very least having more options.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Something that has enlightened me is getting to know bios. They really do have tough jobs, and they also really don't get to "make the calls". They have acceptable political thresholds to work within, and I have seen them push against those only to be denied by either their higher-ups or the commission, often as an honest proxy for public opinion. I think it would be interesting if all the MTFWP bios of Montana got together and proposed a new way forward for both the state at large and their districts, because the latter without the former just shifts pressure. As it stands, they know implicitly and are often told explicitly what the "product" that is a Hunting Season should look like, and it has Opportunity as a core value. Which doesn't actually mean status quo, though to many any unrequired dilution of that value is something close to a form of failure.

Recently, one of the bios I regard as the best I've seen at her job retired, and in her retirement email said, "I did my best to shield you from bureaucracy and be part of the solution." That ain't easy, comes at a cost, and requires a very mature and robust level of professionalism truly void of calling the shots. I think a fair bit of the spirit of threads like this, are folks trying to move the Overton Window of an agency and the citizens it serves to being open to something that looks a bit more like bios calling the shots, or at the very least having more options.

IMO, for bios to be able to call the shots for a given district or region they will need to have a clear long term mandate from the commission and leadership as to what goals to manage for.


Currently, I would understand management goals to be something like this.
1. Maintaining a 5 week rut centered rifle hunt.
2. Monitor status of mule deer populations to ensure there’s enough bucks to impregnate the does next year.
3. Frame messaging about the status of the states deer herds in the most optimistic way possible to make resident hunters think the status quo is sustainable and they’re going to find a great buck to shoot this year.

 

[SAJ-99]

IMO, for bios to be able to call the shots for a given district or region they will need to have a clear long term mandate from the commission and leadership as to what goals to manage for.


Currently, I would understand management goals to be something like this.
1. Maintaining a 5 week rut centered rifle hunt.
2. Monitor status of mule deer populations to ensure there’s enough bucks to impregnate the does next year.
3. Frame messaging about the status of the states deer herds in the most optimistic way possible to make resident hunters think the status quo is sustainable and they’re going to find a great buck to shoot this year.

You think the goals are that clear?

 

[bigsky2]

In my experience the 5 weeks of pressure gets reduced to mostly 1 week. The 3rd week when deer are rutting hard. Then every few years you get early harsh weather, and every buck gets killed by hunters and you start over from scratch.

The 3-week season also runs too late. With our current season structure, paired with available technology, we do not over hunt mule deer by a factor of 2, we over hunt them by a factor of 10 or more. If a good buck gets seen on public there is almost no question, it is going to die. If we continue to hunt them on winter range while rutting, there is no hope for change. One week while rutting with the right weather is more than enough time to kill every buck that anyone wants.

In my opinion avoiding the weather is actually more important than avoiding the rut in the areas that I am familiar with. If I was king, we would cease to hunt mule deer in November. I am talking everywhere, whether LE or OTC.

I would be a very unpopular king.

There is a lot of truth to this. Colorado moved their season dates back around 5 years ago and it sounds like it has had a huge effect on the number of mature bucks, even with their short seasons.