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

[El Jason]

Enforcing it will be difficult in some cases for sure. But I still think LO tags should be private land only. If that landowner wants to break the law/rule than that's his choice and he can live with any of the consequences should he get caught. Considering that he's probably cutting off access to the checker board public, I don't feel sorry for him and I don't think we throw our hands up in the air and say oh well either.

Big assumptions, and not overly productive for reaching some compromise.

 

[Point Creep]

A real solution would be completely shut down bull hunting unit wide, and allow cow only hunting on private land in every over objective unit until 1) objectives are met or 2) objectives are re-evaluated.

Oh boy - the folks pushing for all these ideas (and their friends) wouldn't like that one. I bet there'd be some aggressive cow shooting would be taking place, or some real work on establishing meaningful "objectives".

 

[Big Sky Guy]

When I had my rifle elk tag in those parts in 2018, many of the landowners that I stopped and spoke with expressed frustration that their odds weren't much better than mine in getting the same tag, even though the elk were in their haystacks for a portion of the season.

Not sure which unit you are referring to, but the one I am familiar with this is simply not true. Landowners are drawing the tag once every 4-5 years like clockwork. There is a separate allocation for the landowner preference drawing. So I know guys that have put in for 20+ years and never drawn and landowners that have drawn 2 or 3 times. Not sure how a landowner can complain about that? ~20% odds is WAY better than OIL ~1% odds.

 

[El Jason]

A real solution would be completely shut down bull hunting unit wide, and allow cow only hunting on private land in every over objective unit until 1) objectives are met or 2) objectives are re-evaluated.

Oh boy - the folks pushing for all these ideas (and their friends) wouldn't like that one. I bet there'd be some aggressive cow shooting would be taking place, or some real work on establishing meaningful "objectives".

That is actually one of the options within the current EMP. A good question to ask is why isn’t it being utilized?

 

[Big Sky Guy]

A real solution would be completely shut down bull hunting unit wide, and allow cow only hunting on private land in every over objective unit until 1) objectives are met or 2) objectives are re-evaluated.

Oh boy - the folks pushing for all these ideas (and their friends) wouldn't like that one. I bet there'd be some aggressive cow shooting would be taking place, or some real work on establishing meaningful "objectives".

 

[rogerthat]

I started a separate thread for this idea but what’s the big pushback for separating the quota into separate private and public draws for these hunts? Anyone could apply for these draws. I don’t see any other way the public land hunt ever gets managed correctly instead of just being where everyone goes that doesn’t have private access - most people.

 

[MTelkHuntress]

That is actually one of the options within the current EMP. A good question to ask is why isn’t it being utilized?

Because according to a certain head of the department, we would get sued and it wouldn't be worth it. I had a friend who asked the very same idea and that was the answer.

 

[brocksw]

Big assumptions, and not overly productive for reaching some compromise.

You might be right and it might be insignificant today. But, they're talking about increasing overall tags for some of these units that are akready under pressure. There's a push to increase landowner tags, there's a desire to sell landowner tags at a premium, there's an increase in non res landowners and people wanting a piece of the elk pie. Simply owning land should not buy you a tag every year in all cases no matter what. If Montanans just let these issues slide then MT becomes New Mexico.

Also, we have plenty of examples of LOs cutting off access to checkboard public, I don't think that's a baseless assumption.

 

[El Jason]

Because according to a certain head of the department, we would get sued and it wouldn't be worth it. I had a friend who asked the very same idea and that was the answer.

They probably would get sued. If they have good data to justify doing so (tracking collars, field observation, etc.), lawsuits are a moot point.

 

[El Jason]

Also, we have plenty of examples of LOs cutting off access to checkboard public, I don't think that's a baseless assumption.

Big and baseless are not directly interchangeable.

As I said, I personally find it a punitive issue that really isn’t significant in the big picture. YMMV.

 

[MTelkHuntress]

They probably would get sued. If they have good data to justify doing so (tracking collars, field observation, etc.), lawsuits are a moot point.

Agreed. The whole answer of not wanting to get sued just kind of seemed like an excuse to not go that direction.

 

[El Jason]

Agreed. The whole answer of not wanting to get sued just kind of seemed like an excuse to not go that direction.

It’s lazy for sure, and indicative of how political elk management has been and will be.

 

[tjones]

That is actually one of the options within the current EMP. A good question to ask is why isn’t it being utilized?

I would bet today you could not find a copy of the EMP in Helena.

 

[rogerthat]

Not sure which unit you are referring to, but the one I am familiar with this is simply not true. Landowners are drawing the tag once every 4-5 years like clockwork. There is a separate allocation for the landowner preference drawing. So I know guys that have put in for 20+ years and never drawn and landowners that have drawn 2 or 3 times. Not sure how a landowner can complain about that? ~20% odds is WAY better than OIL ~1% odds.

Unit 700-100% guaranteed unit 702,704,705 - 1 in 3ish odds
Way better than the peasants applying in the draw

 

[YoungGun]

Not sure which unit you are referring to, but the one I am familiar with this is simply not true. Landowners are drawing the tag once every 4-5 years like clockwork. There is a separate allocation for the landowner preference drawing. So I know guys that have put in for 20+ years and never drawn and landowners that have drawn 2 or 3 times. Not sure how a landowner can complain about that? ~20% odds is WAY better than OIL ~1% odds.

To clarify, at the time that I drew, I had roughly 20% odds. It has probably decreased based on observations in hunter traffic in that area this year.

 

[Big Fin]

Because according to a certain head of the department, we would get sued and it wouldn't be worth it. I had a friend who asked the very same idea and that was the answer.

Which, not surprisingly, is complete BS being stated by FWP folks for some time, before the current Director. Anyone who threatens to sue over such knows it's BS and would fold their tent before spending too much money on attorneys beyond the saber rattling.

I'm not saying the Legislature would sit silently and let it happen, but that option was one of the negotiated points in the current EMP. That entire plan was a negotiation that hunters and public land elk mostly got toasted with. But, it is maddening to think about all that went into that plan, the representations made, the compromises (if you can call it that when you have a weak bargaining position) made, yet it is all disregarded when the pressure mounts. Even more maddening when the defenses provided for not implementing some of these points are the smokescreens of litigation, takings, and other BS.

As a side note, the entire EMP steam rolling was one of my biggest frustrations of being invovled in this stuff for 30 years. The Ravalli and Anaconda sportsmens groups showed up in strong force, along with a few others across the state, but collectively we got our asses handed to us when that "negotiation" happened. I know we all had "legislative fatigue" from the surge of issues going on at the time, but I wish we could have mounted a better resistance. Hell, if we had a fourth of the resistance we saw this week against the current proposals we would have carried the day on that EMP.

 

[rogerthat]

Because according to a certain head of the department, we would get sued and it wouldn't be worth it. I had a friend who asked the very same idea and that was the answer.

Prove it would be my thoughts on that. Lol

 

[rogerthat]

Which, not surprisingly, is complete BS being stated by FWP folks for some time, before the current Director. Anyone who threatens to sue over such knows it's BS and would fold their tent before spending too much money on attorneys beyond the saber rattling.

I'm not saying the Legislature would sit silently and let it happen, but that option was one of the negotiated points in the current EMP. That entire plan was a negotiation that hunters and public land elk mostly got toasted with. But, it is maddening to think about all that went into that plan, the representations made, the compromises (if you can call it that when you have a weak bargaining position) made, yet it is all disregarded when the pressure mounts. Even more maddening when the defenses provided for not implementing some of these points are the smokescreens of litigation, takings, and other BS.

As a side note, the entire EMP steam rolling was one of my biggest frustrations of being invovled in this stuff for 30 years. The Ravalli and Anaconda sportsmens groups showed up in strong force, along with a few others across the state, but collectively we got our asses handed to us when that "negotiation" happened. I know we all had "legislative fatigue" from the surge of issues going on at the time, but I wish we could have mounted a better resistance. Hell, if we had a fourth of the resistance we saw this week against the current proposals we would have carried the day on that EMP.

Did I miss something? We had all this resistance but the end result was almost the same. A ball of crap packaged a little different

 

[Gerald Martin]

A real solution would be completely shut down bull hunting unit wide, and allow cow only hunting on private land in every over objective unit until 1) objectives are met or 2) objectives are re-evaluated.

Oh boy - the folks pushing for all these ideas (and their friends) wouldn't like that one. I bet there'd be some aggressive cow shooting would be taking place, or some real work on establishing meaningful "objectives".

I had that exact same conversation almost verbatim with Hank in the hallway during break time.

His response was that the department would be hit with lots of outfitter and landowner lawsuits.

I told him that hunters are sick and tired of hearing the complaints about too many elk when the ones causing the problems aren’t being responsible in keeping elk numbers close to the objectives they set and then use “over objective” as a tool to get more access to bulls for monetary gain.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Which, not surprisingly, is complete BS being stated by FWP folks for some time, before the current Director. Anyone who threatens to sue over such knows it's BS and would fold their tent before spending too much money on attorneys beyond the saber rattling.

I'm not saying the Legislature would sit silently and let it happen, but that option was one of the negotiated points in the current EMP. That entire plan was a negotiation that hunters and public land elk mostly got toasted with. But, it is maddening to think about all that went into that plan, the representations made, the compromises (if you can call it that when you have a weak bargaining position) made, yet it is all disregarded when the pressure mounts. Even more maddening when the defenses provided for not implementing some of these points are the smokescreens of litigation, takings, and other BS.

As a side note, the entire EMP steam rolling was one of my biggest frustrations of being invovled in this stuff for 30 years. The Ravalli and Anaconda sportsmens groups showed up in strong force, along with a few others across the state, but collectively we got our asses handed to us when that "negotiation" happened. I know we all had "legislative fatigue" from the surge of issues going on at the time, but I wish we could have mounted a better resistance. Hell, if we had a fourth of the resistance we saw this week against the current proposals we would have carried the day on that EMP.

Typing as I am thinking but wouldn’t FWP refusing to use the simplest and most effective tool that is already been established to be in their power to implement, be grounds for a lawsuit that they aren’t following the legislative mandate imposed on them by the Barrett bill?

In our conversation Hank referenced the fact that FWP is not in compliance with the law as a rationale for advancing 505 and the withdrawn proposals.