MT - Changes in Hunting Regs/Units/Seasons coming this month

[Sytes]

Quality comments = 10 miles
Pissed off rants = ...

Guilty of P.O. rants.

Thanks guys and gals for sharing info that the avg joe/Jane can absorb and take those steps forward towards more understanding. Difference between a .177 pellet and a .50.

I'll review areas I'm familiar. I really like some of the upcoming adjustments and not so much the extremely over simplified re-zoning, etc.

 

[Nameless Range]

Here is an example of something I have voiced my opinion on.

The merging of HDs 350 and 370. The local bio is following the directive to merge those districts, but 350 and 370 have very different ownership, and very different elk and hunter distribution. So, those districts are to be merged, and will be managed as one for deer and mountain lion, but due to the facts in the previous sentence, the proposal is to manage elk within the new 370 super unit as two portions. Keep in mind, the directive handed down to the bios directly stated managing as portions is undesirable unless a very good reason exists to do so, but the bio is standing up for what they see as the right thing to do. To me, this is something to endorse.

Using the elk-per-hunter-days data, I wrote them a letter of support for managing the new 370 as separate portions, and provided some reasoning:


In 2020 in HD 350, a district that is chiefly public land and/or is private land enrolled in Block Management, when all hunter and harvest data is considered, it averaged 93 hunter-days to harvest an elk. This is a district that under the 2020 data was over objective.

In 2020 in HD 370, a district with far more difficulty in terms of the majority of hunter's access opportunities to get to elk, considering all the data the same, it took 36 hunter days to harvest an elk, in a district that as you know, was also considered over objective in 2020.

In terms of literal time spent in pursuit of elk, Hunters required 38% less time in the field to kill an elk in HD 370 than they did HD 350.

Now, if when HDs 350 and 370 were merged, they were not managed as portions of a larger HD, but as one unit, the stats would look like this.

Hunter Days	Harvest	Hunter Days Per Elk Killed
10592​	188​	56.34042553​

This would skew the data to telling a story about the new HD 370 Super-District that woefully sells-short the state of disrepair that 350 is in. The Bull Mountain Ramge, which is an entirely separate mountain range with different ownership and hunter-distribution from the southern Boulder Mountains, should be managed differently, even though elk sometimes cross from one to the other.

I write all this hoping it is helpful in your proposal to keep 350 and 370 managed as separate portions.......


I guess one thing I think is true is that the biologists are the front lines here. These sweeping changes are not their ideas, and they are the best chance folks have in understanding, and maybe influencing, how this goes.

 

[mtmuley]

Bitterroot mule deer are going to take a pounding. mtmuley

 

[Schaaf]

Don’t ever let someone tell you bullying isn’t effective.

 

[RobG]

324... combined with 322 which will go from limited entry to either sex mule deer.

 

[bigsky2]

I may be missing it but do they have proposed quotas for these new units?

 

[RobG]

I may be missing it but do they have proposed quotas for these new units?

Some HD draft changes documents have quotas, others don't.

 

[RobG]

500 posts has been too much for me to follow. Were the biologists told which districts had to be combined?

 

[huntin24/7]

Not to be a cynical asshole, but do you even need to read new MT regulation changes to know it’s something negative?

 

[Carnage2011]

Here is an example of something I have voiced my opinion on.

The merging of HDs 350 and 370. The local bio is following the directive to merge those districts, but 350 and 370 have very different ownership, and very different elk and hunter distribution. So, those districts are to be merged, and will be managed as one for deer and mountain lion, but due to the facts in the previous sentence, the proposal is to manage elk within the new 370 super unit as two portions. Keep in mind, the directive handed down to the bios directly stated managing as portions is undesirable unless a very good reason exists to do so, but the bio is standing up for what they see as the right thing to do. To me, this is something to endorse.

Using the elk-per-hunter-days data, I wrote them a letter of support for managing the new 370 as separate units, and provided some reasoning:


In 2020 in HD 350, a district that is chiefly public land and/or is private land enrolled in Block Management, when all hunter and harvest data is considered, it averaged 93 hunter-days to harvest an elk. This is a district that under the 2020 data was over objective.

In 2020 in HD 370, a district with far more difficulty in terms of the majority of hunter's access opportunities to get to elk, considering all the data the same, it took 36 hunter days to harvest an elk, in a district that as you know, was also considered over objective in 2020.

In terms of literal time spent in pursuit of elk, Hunters required 38% less time in the field to kill an elk in HD 370 than they did HD 350.

Now, if when HDs 350 and 370 were merged, they were not managed as portions of a larger HD, but as one unit, the stats would look like this.

Hunter Days	Harvest	Hunter Days Per Elk Killed
10592​	188​	56.34042553​

This would skew the data to telling a story about the new HD 370 Super-District that woefully sells-short the state of disrepair that 350 is in. The Bull Mountain Ramge, which is an entirely separate mountain range with different ownership and hunter-distribution from the southern Boulder Mountains, should be managed differently, even though elk sometimes cross from one to the other.

I write all this hoping it is helpful in your proposal to keep 350 and 370 managed as separate portions.......


I guess one thing I think is true is that the biologists are the front lines here. These sweeping changes are not their ideas, and they are the best chance folks have in understanding, and maybe influencing, how this goes.

So what is your actual concern? Both units are currently general tags units. Nothing is really changing other than the boundary of the unit. We don’t currently “manage” them anyway. I understand the “hunter days” but i don’t see how combining units is in 350-370 is going to change anything.
It’s not putting more people in the unit as they can already hunt either one.

 

[Carnage2011]

Not to be a cynical asshole, but do you even need to read new MT regulation changes to know it’s something negative?

To be honest….it’s better than I expected. I was at the point of expecting zero LE elk units to remains. I like that we are getting rid of the 900 and manage elk by unit instead. The only real heartburn I have is with some of the deer unit changes.

 

[brocksw]

To be honest….it’s better than I expected. I was at the point of expecting zero LE elk units to remains. I like that we are getting rid of the 900 and manage elk by unit instead. The only real heartburn I have is with some of the deer unit changes.

I agree, not as bad as I was thinking it was going to be. At least not in the first few minutes I've spent skimming through it.

 

[Nameless Range]

So what is your actual concern? Both units are currently general tags units. Nothing is really changing other than the boundary of the unit. We don’t currently “manage” them anyway. I understand the “hunter days” but i don’t see how combining units is in 350-370 is going to change anything.
It’s not putting more people in the unit as they can already hunt either one.

For me it is not about management as it is now, it is about potential management changes.


It's true that they are currently managed near identically, but that has not been the case over the last 20 years. I want future biologists, or this bio in the future, to be able to be dynamic with her decisions. Take for example, the stupidity factory known as the legislature: Bills based on landownership keep popping up. If one came along that allocated x amount of whatever to landowners owning more than x amount of acres, it would at least be better if those tags worked in only the Bulls as opposed to the Boulders and Bulls. I'm not saying it would. Or take some of the asinine management ideas based on objective status. I would hope that if they did come along, they could be applied to the west or east portions of the superunit that will be 370 selectively.

350 has been managed very differently over the years than what it currently is. From either sex on a general tag only a few years ago, to what it is now, from 2013 when 400 B licenses were allocated, to what it was last year with 25 of them being issued and only 2 of the tagholders being successful. In 2017, over 100 more elk were harvested in 350 than were counted there this spring. That was only 4 years ago. It's been a tumultuous decade for 350.

TL DR I hold out hope for better management, and hope that someday in the future these two portions are managed differently than they currently are, and differently from one another as appropriate. If the future is instead darker, I hope those bad ideas will be applied selectively as well. At least the potential for them to only be applied on a portion of the landscape would be possible.

Once all these districts are merged, we lose a lot of options - whether or not those options are currently being exercised. It's the potential changes I think we should position our hunting districts for - whether that is naive or not. I guess I am aware it is naive, but I hold out hope for better future management in Montana.

 

[Ben Lamb]

For me it is not about management as it is now, it is about potential management changes.

This. Seasons are temporary and change.

The new EMP that's moving forward, the agency's dedication to transferable landowner tags, the effort to bring back outfitter welfare tags and a whole host of bad ideas that are coming forward to change how MT does business and lord knows what that will come out of PLPW and the minds of the legislature - all of that will have more impact than season setting, but this really gives folks an idea on how the agency is thinking, especially in terms of trophy elk units and going back to the pre-08 mess that allowed for some districts to primarily have outfitted hunters take bull elk rather than residents.

Season setting is a front in the War on Elk. The main battles are yet to be fought.

 

[Hunt West]

Bitterroot mule deer are going to take a pounding. mtmuley

I noticed that as well. I wonder if anyone at FWP has even thought of that or if it’s just an outcome of unintended consequences.

 

[mtmuley]

I noticed that as well. I wonder if anyone at FWP has even thought of that or if it’s just an outcome of unintended consequences.

I'm writing down my thoughts as they come to me. Gonna call the biologist and submit comments. mtmuley

 

[Carnage2011]

I'm writing down my thoughts as they come to me. Gonna call the biologist and submit comments. mtmuley

I’m not overly familiar with the bitterroot other than the obvious units like 261,262, and 270. Can you share your concerns? I dont know enough about the area to speak about it.

 

[tjones]

Bitterroot mule deer are going to take a pounding. mtmuley

It’s the beginning of the end.

 

[timmy]

It’s the beginning of the end.

Why?

 

[mtmuley]

It’s the beginning of the end.

My thoughts exactly. And a slap in the face to all of you guys that brought Bitterroot mule deer back. mtmuley