MT Licensing System - Burn it down? How to Improve it?

[Hunting Wife]

The Native get-around is pure politically correct feel-good unadulterated bullshit. That crap should never have been allowed in the door. Getting it back out again will be impossible and whoever opened that window should have had the brains to figure that out. Hopefully there's a puny cap on those but I have a feeling the opposite is true. Unlike the Come Home, college, and military get-arounds, I see absolutely no sensible justification for the Native get-around. No benefit to the state or the resource. Just a feel-good giveaway ... or rather throwaway.

You do realize the Montana Native license is directed towards NR who were born here, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Native Americans, right?

 

[Trap]

As was pointed out by another poster, throwing out a bulk number of get-around-the-cap NR licenses is misleading. If the bulk of the excess is indeed B tags, then I see nothing to get alarmed about. Those are year to year management culls. If there's an excess of animals, like last year in the district I hunt, then the state should have the flexibility to deal with it. Often those tags don't become available till later in the year when residents have their freezer full with A tag bucks or are not interested in taking the animals that need to be harvested (does or whitetails). I would like to know how many landowner get-around tags are floating. That who-you-know (or wanna-pay) BS needs to stop or it will only get worse. That's a fixed number that means something.

Again, I don't see a problem with college get-around under certain circumstances. Same with former residents in the military. Assume that their absence is only temporary and beneficial to the state (and, in the case of military, to the country). Keeping a link to them is justified. Montana wants them back. As to Come Home to Hunt, that group are hardly putting a dent in the resource at a couple hundred tags a year. If you look at the number of them who hunt publicly accessible land, I'm betting you'd find their competition for truly public animals is miniscule. The Native get-around is pure politically correct feel-good unadulterated bullshit. That crap should never have been allowed in the door. Getting it back out again will be impossible and whoever opened that window should have had the brains to figure that out. Hopefully there's a puny cap on those but I have a feeling the opposite is true. Unlike the Come Home, college, and military get-arounds, I see absolutely no sensible justification for the Native get-around. No benefit to the state or the resource. Just a feel-good giveaway ... or rather throwaway.

I agree, 200-300 come home to hunt tags out of 59000(from the article) nr tags seems totally irrelevant.
Not sure why big fin chose to do away with come home to hunt tags as a major way to fix Montana draw systems. I think you are misunderstand the native license. It has nothing to do with Native American indians, it’s for people born in Montana that moved away and are similar to come home to hunt. Those tags have nothing to do with Montana Indians.

 

[OntarioHunter]

You do realize the Montana Native license is directed towards NR who were born here, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Native Americans, right?

Nope. Thanks for enlightening me! I should have known that because I almost qualified (I should have been born in Montana but my dad got shingles and delayed him taking the job at Hungry Horse till a couple days after I was born in Idaho). Same as the Come-Home-to-Hunt but no restrictive strings (i.e. hunter does not have to be accompanied by resident relative). I'm guessing those sell out due to no strings. I vote for getting rid of that and/or lumping the two programs together ... with immediate relative accompaniment strings attached.

 

[Hunting Wife]

I agree, 200-300 come home to hunt tags out of 59000(from the article) nr tags seems totally irrelevant.
Not sure why big fin chose to do away with come home to hunt tags as a major way to fix Montana draw systems. I think you are misunderstand the native license. It has nothing to do with Native American indians, it’s for people born in Montana that moved away and are similar to come home to hunt. Those tags have nothing to do with Montana Indians.

I think the point is that there are so many of these programs targeting college students, native Montanans, former residents, nonresident youth, etc etc that in aggregate it adds up to more than just a drop in the bucket and erodes the supposed NR cap. I’m not aware of any other state that makes so many exceptions to limits on NR licenses.

 

[8andcounting]

I've sit around and thought for a day on some of these ideas and they do sound good. I love the idea of doing the draws in a sequential order similar to what I think it's NV or UT does. The idea of splitting the deer from the elk tag is a great idea also. I want one or the other. Having said that the deer tag is extremely over priced in MT. The deer/elk combo on the other hand is a good deal. Elk is about were it should be price wise. The preference point mess needs to go away and never return.

As for landowner sponsored tags going away that will be a tough fight. Those tags are only going toward deer hunting on that ranches property. I don't see a problem with those and think we also have to explore ways to satisfy landowners and outfitters ( I know this is very unpopular but let's be realistic here).

I've always thought all the specialty tags were a bad idea and are being sold stupid low because someone chose to move out of the state. Your either a R or a NR period and pay the price.

I absolutely hate the heavy price you pay in MT just to apply hoping to draw a permit and hurdles your forced to jump thru to get there as a NR. Total BS and a money grab.
I would like to see the State get rid of these crazy fees and money grabs and go to a system of requiring a general hunting license purchase by residents and non residents to make up for this similar to what other States do. Example NM less than $100 bucks for each NR and much cheaper for residents. Make that a requirement purchase before you can apply for anything.

Long story short there are tons of ways to make things better there. There are many States out West getting it right but none are the shining leader as well. My favorite States are non point States NM. & ID. even though I rarely apply for ID. since the price increase.
I honestly feel after over 20 years I'm slowly working my way out of hunting out West. It's become a rat race with the highest bidders and those willing to throw down the dollar leading the race. I have lines in the sand and will not spend stupid amounts of money on things even though I love it.

I couldn’t have said it better … agreed totally

 

[Gerald Martin]

17,500 NR tags is 17,500. Take all of the special considerations, preferences, etc. out of that total and don’t exceed the cap.

@OntarioHunter, you mentioned the unit you hunt had a surplus of deer. Is that according to FWP counts conducted by a biologist across the whole unit or because you saw a bunch of deer in the area you hunt and figured it’s that way everywhere?

I know the biologist’s counts were showing up to a 40% decrease of deer in some of those units.

Unlimited caps on some NR B licenses absolutely translates to more boots on the ground each hunting season and contributes to perceptions of overcrowding of hunters.

 

[coleslaw]

As a NR, I'd be totally fine with LE only draws for each unit or possibly region. Of course every unit/ region should be capped accordingly. Even a guided vs unguided draw would be fine, even though the lobbying power of outfitters kind of scares me.

 

[Trap]

Long story short there are tons of ways to make things better there. There are many States out West getting it right but none are the shining leader as well. My favorite States are non point States NM. & ID. even though I rarely apply for ID. since the price increase.

I hear this all the time that people love that NM and ID didn’t implement a point system.
This is why I am definitely against getting rid of the zero points pool. Montana is giving nr a choice to not be in the point systems for a general tag. It was suggested it’s not working as intended because a 0 point holder had better odds than a 1 point holder. I would say it’s working perfectly. If you want to be assured a tag in x number of years buy a preference point, if you don’t want to play the points game you can be in the zero points pool and still have odds of drawing.

I actually think the pp system is working. It’s capped at 3 and folks have a chance to opt out and still draw. Scrap that and go pure Bonus points and odds will go from 100 percent at 3 to Something much less at a higher and higher level of points.

 

[Trap]

As a NR, I'd be totally fine with LE only draws for each unit or possibly region. Of course every unit/ region should be capped accordingly. Even a guided vs unguided draw would be fine, even though the lobbying power of outfitters kind of scares me.

draw by region or unit makes sense. Going to a guide draw really makes sense but it scares the crap out of me ha ha. I feel like they would somehow reserve 90 percent of the tags for the guided draw. They do have a lot of lobbying power right now

 

[Derek44]

You do realize the Montana Native license is directed towards NR who were born here, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Native Americans, right?

Thank you @Hunting Wife that was starting to get under my skin and seemed to actually expose his feelings on Native Americans. I wanted to respond the first time he spewed that garbage but my response wasn’t going to be put as politely as yours.

 

[Treeshark]

I know this is oversimplifying the issue to a large degree, but it would be nice to see Montana’s license structure changed to more closely resemble Wyoming’s structure (while they are at it, copy WY’s game management… but that’s for another discussion).

While not perfect, it is far easier to understand, plan ahead, and seems more fair from my point of view. Perhaps elements similar to Colorado’s landowner programs could be added to address the private land issues.

 

[TheTone]

Get rid of all the special license types; you’re either a resident or non resident. Remove the split draw for non residents; let them choose to apply for just deer, just elk, both separately and choose either general tags or limited entry but don’t make them draw general just for a chance at the limited entry/permit.

 

[brian flatlander]

why dont you ask california how to fix it because thats were your heading

 

[Hunting Wife]

Just a couple of thoughts….I am not nearly so knowledgeable about the intricacies of drawings, especially for NR, as some others here but I have pondered on some of these issues.

I agree that the special set asides for various categories of NR should go away- all of them. It’s confusing and I think it creates a lot of unnecessary smoke and mirrors surrounding numbers of NR licenses.

I am down for choose your unit/region and even choose your weapon. Distribution of hunters is atrocious in this state, and I think that would help alleviate crowding and distribute pressure better compared to current conditions.

I like the idea of separating deer and elk from the big game combo for NR. Make them independent. I also think having NR either apply for a general or apply for an LE unit would streamline the dumb process of having to draw a combo, then turning it back if they don’t draw their permit.

The NR points system has been tweaked and bent so many times I think it is completely beyond repair at this point. If we must continue with points, scrap it and start from scratch.

I do not have a firm enough grasp of all the different landowner/sponsored/outfitter license programs to have an much opinion, other than that entire system also seems to have been tweaked and bent beyond repair at this point too. Scrap them all, and start over to build one cohesive landowner/outfitter sponsor program instead of trying to patch the Titanic here. Doubt there’s enough goodwill on any side to come together and actually hammer something like that out, but it would sure be nice.

 

[SwaggyD]

17,500 NR tags is 17,500. Take all of the special considerations, preferences, etc. out of that total and don’t exceed the cap.

@OntarioHunter, you mentioned the unit you hunt had a surplus of deer. Is that according to FWP counts conducted by a biologist across the whole unit or because you saw a bunch of deer in the area you hunt and figured it’s that way everywhere?

I know the biologist’s counts were showing up to a 40% decrease of deer in some of those units.

Unlimited caps on some NR B licenses absolutely translates to more boots on the ground each hunting season and contributes to perceptions of overcrowding of hunters.

Calculated based how many he mowed down driving 70 mph in a 65 mph at night on the highway!

 

[Doublecluck]

Just get a big bucket, everyone puts their name on a lil piece of paper and drops it in the bucket. List all the tags available by district and a lump sum number of general tags available. Have someone’s kid pull names from the bucket and person can choose from whatever is available.

I know it’s pretty advanced.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Joke aside, one trouble with reforming the MT draw is the myriad of entrenched forces perpetuating special interest groups such as the outfitter industry, remote NR landowners, and others who have MT’s elected officials in their pocket. It’s not that the draw is beyond reform, but rather that the levers of power to actually make common-sense reforms are currently out of reach from MT resident hunters. MT resident hunters, MFWP, and the resource itself are wielded as tools to enrich and prosper a select sliver of MT deer and elk stakeholders. One of many examples of this are ever-expanding seasons and ever-increasing public land hunter numbers used to push elk onto private land to benefit private land outfitters.

Fix the NR draw by itself seems like a hopeless whack-a-mole exercise. MT resident hunters should be a major stakeholder in deer and elk management decisions as they are a significant % of the total population of the state. Perhaps the focus should be on establishing and maintaining a strong collective voice. Perhaps the new Elk Management Coalition will eventually fill this void.

Apples to pistachios comparison, but IA faced a barrage of legislative attacks on public lands and natural resources this year, to benefit remote NR landowners, outfitters, the insurance industry, and weapons manufacturers. The conduit for these attacks are legislators paid by the special interest groups. Nearly all those attempts failed as our legislative session is now wrapping up. Landless resident hunters generally do not have an advocate in the current political party in control. However, we do have the Iowa Bowhunters Association which lobbies and represents IA hunters well. IA resident hunters generally have a proportional voice among stakeholders of IA deer, and the contrast to the situation in MT could not be more stark. Especially considering IA is 49th among states with % of our land open to public hunting.

In shopping among all western states as a self-guided NR for mule deer and elk, MT ranks near the bottom of my list, due in large part by the complicated, ever-changing, and dysfunctional draw system.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Seems like Montana’s licensing situation is analogous to repairing a woven wire fence with baling twine every time it gets damaged. Over the course of years what is fence and what is fixes becomes unclear.

When that happens it’s time to replace it with something new.

Think through this whole convoluted process of complicated “ simplification” that we went through last year. All of the simplification was to fix “problems” associated with management of hunters, not management of wildlife.

“Science” was a buzzword that was communicated to justify changes but very few of the changes were biologically required or justified. Most were social in nature or intended to be helpful to FWP in the administration of their operation.


The biological needs of deer, elk and other wildlife were pretty much ignored in the process.


My assessment is that the Director has a pretty good handle on the numbers on paper and is clueless about on the ground reality of wildlife distribution and hunter’s experiences. Shuffling the papers and showing a bureaucratic strategy to solve problems looks good in the office but doesn’t translate well in the field.

 

[Labman]

I agree, 200-300 come home to hunt tags out of 59000(from the article) nr tags seems totally irrelevant.
Not sure why big fin chose to do away with come home to hunt tags as a major way to fix Montana draw systems. I think you are misunderstand the native license. It has nothing to do with Native American indians, it’s for people born in Montana that moved away and are similar to come home to hunt. Those tags have nothing to do with Montana Indians.

Why should any adult qualify for a license based on the geographic location their mother was when they exited her body? What a ridiculous “program.” Personally, I wouldn’t care if it was 2-3 or 2-300, it is a crazy way to distribute a single license. Obviously there are bigger issues out there.

 

[OntarioHunter]

A question: Are the landowner preference tickets good for ONLY hunting on the landowner's property?