Mule deer opportunity?

[Forkyfinder]

Curious - we sure talk a LOT about MT mule deer.

Im curious - what western states have had a reduction in opportunity for mule deer, and how did they deal with it? Have those states maintained, grew, or reduced r and nr opportunity?

 

[Oak]

Colorado went from mostly OTC to entirely limited draw in 1999. There were about 150,000 deer hunters in 1998 and 81,000 in 1999. This year, the statewide quota is 92,350.

 

[TOGIE]

i've shared this chart before. only updated through 2022 though.

i don't think the going fully limited in 1999 is all that much of a coincidence as it relates to this chart.

i should probably adjust it to only look at 190 and above though due to the lowering of the score for entry in like the mid 90's

 

[TOGIE]

actually, no. 180 was always the minimum for an award i think. so, having it look at 180 and above for the whole book i think works just fine. nothing is getting missed.

 

[belshawelk]

Oregon is way off on numbers and going down. limited hunts are not the answer. It’s predator control. With no lion hunting with hounds deer are doomed.

 

[Hobbes]

Lions may be a big factor in Western MT and Oregon but lions aren't aren't wiping out deer in Eastern MT.

 

[Oak]

Colorado went from mostly OTC to entirely limited draw in 1999. There were about 150,000 deer hunters in 1998 and 81,000 in 1999. This year, the statewide quota is 92,350.

I haven't provided the whole story. I've requested some data and I'll update here when I receive it. It's actually a story I've wanted to write for awhile, so I'll hijack your thread.

 

[Forkyfinder]

I haven't provided the whole story. I've requested some data and I'll update here when I receive it. It's actually a story I've wanted to write for awhile, so I'll hijack your thread.

Do it.

I think its important to see whats been done other places.

 

[Forkyfinder]

I haven't provided the whole story. I've requested some data and I'll update here when I receive it. It's actually a story I've wanted to write for awhile, so I'll hijack your thread.

Still waiting for this hi jack @Oak. Happy to see some recently bad ideas where i live wont be making it to the commission. Thank goodness - personally i dont trust ideas that have lobbyists, outfitters, and legislator as overseers and volunteers as shields. Perhaps there was a reason it wasnt open to the public.

As i eluded to - I dont think that mule deer are doing particularily well anywhere (antler size doesnt equal herd health) and the decline has more to do with habitat/ecology than it does management strategy or hunting opportunity. Like:

Cheatgrass threatens Wyoming mule deer // GOHUNT. The Hunting Company

New study shows deer avoid areas where invasive plant grows

www.gohunt.com

"Deer stopped frequenting the area – and areas with over 20% of the invasive plant deer avoided altogether."

In north central MT - theres a copious amount of rangeland with that much cheat grass. According to that article - they wont be living there (areas with 20%+ cheatgrass) regardless if the hunting season was 1 day with 1 permit.

 

[antlerradar]

Idaho moved the season earlier I believe. Maybe someone from Idaho could elaborate.

 

[Big Sky Guy]

Interesting thread.

My takeaway after years of reading on here is the HT forum (myself included ) wants more mature (bigger) antlered mule deer but we are just a subset of hunters and pretty certain in the minority. While I would be more than willing to try and accept any changes and limitations to season structure as @Gerald Martin has pointed out over the years, many Montanans are perfectly content with what we have.

I don’t believe we are anywhere near the sky-falling population collapse it sometimes gets painted on these forums. Sky-falling 180” buck collapse? Probably sank that ship a decade or more ago?

Is there a biological advantage to having more 4+ year old bucks on the landscape? How do we even know the age structure of deer in Montana? The drive thru check stations which only catch a sample of total harvested and where a seasonal employee ages the deer based on the number of points or wear is extremely subjective and is likely not very accurate for deer older than 2 (which from a population management perspective may be fine, I believe Louisiana uses 0, 1 and 2+ age classes). Very few regions are sending teeth in for aging. In 2020 FWP had over 10k teeth to be aged after just one or two seasons that had been collected from CWD sampled deer and I’ve never heard if/what came of those age results but know they have not come through our lab. What about CWD? Perhaps at some point if the age structure changes enough does won’t get bred but I haven’t seen any more does without fawns than I have over the past 10 years. Even that is subjective when a farmer can kill 20-50 fawns in the first cutting of hay.

@TOGIE can you get that same chart for Montana, Idaho and Wyoming?? While score is not always indicative of age as some bucks will just never be over 150 etc. I also don’t think there are many 180” bucks under 4, so I do think it’s somewhat indicative of “older” bucks present on the landscape but also how many guys don’t put their bucks in the book? I’ve not shot one but not sure I would take the time.

Thanks again to all the folks who are working with this in Montana to try and instill meaningful (at least to us/me) change. Even if you all only accomplish ONE of the many ideas discussed on here I will consider it a success. Mandatory check in, season structure change etc.

 

[Gerald Martin]

@Big Sky Guy, per the age class question for eastern MT public land areas… I think it’s a safe assertion to say that the percentage of bucks 4+ years or older is low single digits of bucks.

They just don’t survive past 3 hunting seasons on the Custer.

There was a CWD sampling study that Brian Wakeling (spelling?) quoted on a Rokcast podcast that claimed a majority of the samples bucks were older than 4 1/2. The unstated implication that I took from that is that he considered that an indicator of the age class of bucks across the landscape and available to hunters.

I got back last night from seven days of chasing elk in that country with my son. We saw what I would consider to be a good amount of bucks while glassing and hiking. By my rough count we saw between 35-40 bucks while hunting.

Only 3-4 of those were what I would estimate to be 3 1/2 or older. The rest were split fairly evenly between 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 year olds. The best scoring buck we saw would have probably been @ 150-155” and was a deer that if he can survive two or three more seasons would become a big buck.

Lots of bucks like this…

The largest bucks we saw other than that the one I referenced above ( no pic of him)



In those areas, acute lead poisoning is the main contributing factor of why most bucks don’t live past 2 1/2 years of age.


Maybe that’s what Montanan’s want?
I think looking at habitat, disease, and four legged predators as major factors of buck numbers and age class is essentially an unrelated tangent that is advanced by a lot of folks because they don’t want to accept that if we want different than status quo for quality of age class then hunters will need to change their harvest practices. In many folks eyes that means less opportunity. In my eyes what we have currently means less opportunity.

I guess MT has it good compared to other states? It could be so much better. It was better in the past, it can be better in the future.

 

[It’s Bucky]

Still waiting for this hi jack @Oak. Happy to see some recently bad ideas where i live wont be making it to the commission. Thank goodness - personally i dont trust ideas that have lobbyists, outfitters, and legislator as overseers and volunteers as shields. Perhaps there was a reason it wasnt open to the public.

As i eluded to - I dont think that mule deer are doing particularily well anywhere (antler size doesnt equal herd health) and the decline has more to do with habitat/ecology than it does management strategy or hunting opportunity. Like:

Cheatgrass threatens Wyoming mule deer // GOHUNT. The Hunting Company

New study shows deer avoid areas where invasive plant grows

www.gohunt.com

"Deer stopped frequenting the area – and areas with over 20% of the invasive plant deer avoided altogether."

In north central MT - theres a copious amount of rangeland with that much cheat grass. According to that article - they wont be living there (areas with 20%+ cheatgrass) regardless if the hunting season was 1 day with 1 permit.

The article doesn’t discuss the length of the study or times of the year they avoided the plant. Not going to read the actual study itself right now, but I’d imagine it was probably funded, at least in part, by the herbicide company mentioned in the article.

I’m not saying it’s good by any means, and it has definitely become more prevalent. In places I frequent, it’s some of the first plants to green up in the spring and an important source of carbohydrates for deer at that time. Right now, I’m seeing a fall green-up of it as well, and the deer are really preferring it. When it’s dried out and stemmy, they move on to other forage.

 

[TOGIE]

@TOGIE can you get that same chart for Montana, Idaho and Wyoming?? While score is not always indicative of age as some bucks will just never be over 150 etc. I also don’t think there are many 180” bucks under 4, so I do think it’s somewhat indicative of “older” bucks present on the landscape but also how many guys don’t put their bucks in the book? I’ve not shot one but not sure I would take the time.

Actually yes, I have a Montana chart made up, maybe even posted in another thread somewhere. Wyoming and Idaho would just take a few minutes.

Sitting at a gas station in Wyoming though and about to head into the sticks for a while. Someone remind me again in two weeks

 

[Forkyfinder]

The article doesn’t discuss the length of the study or times of the year they avoided the plant. Not going to read the actual study itself right now, but I’d imagine it was probably funded, at least in part, by the herbicide company mentioned in the article.

I’m not saying it’s good by any means, and it has definitely become more prevalent. In places I frequent, it’s some of the first plants to green up in the spring and an important source of carbohydrates for deer at that time. Right now, I’m seeing a fall green-up of it as well, and the deer are really preferring it. When it’s dried out and stemmy, they move on to other forage.

From the study:

Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
Data collection was funded by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. This work was supported by USDA-NRCS, the Knobloch Family Foundation, and University of Wyoming. We express sincere gratitude to H. Sawyer who shared mule deer location data for this research.

See link to study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550742425000995

 

[kwyeewyk]

Right now, I’m seeing a fall green-up of it as well, and the deer are really preferring it. When it’s dried out and stemmy, they move on to other forage.

The proper terminology is that they are likely "selecting" it, "preference" requires a choice, typically cheatgrass replaces native species, so they may prefer something else but will select cheatgrass if it's all that's available/palatable at the time. If most of the landscape is dominated or codominated by cheatgrass, the opportunity for preference goes away and they are forced to select from what's available. If there's very few areas without cheat, they will continue to use those areas because they have no other choice. I suspect in the Wyoming study area there where enough landscape scale areas with low cheat cover that the deer are still able to shift use to areas they prefer.

According to that article - they wont be living there (areas with 20%+ cheatgrass

I don't think you can necessarily say that for a completely different study area.

Link to full study

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550742425000995

Not exactly the topic of this thread, but
as far as the idea of mature bucks breeding, I haven't researched this deeply, had always been taught that mature deer were better breeders due to experience and capability, just like good blood lines and stock are important to domestic livestock breeding.

A more recent article supporting that concept, focused on whitetail, wish it had references to journal articles, would be nice to see some real research on this in the west with mule deer.

4 Reasons Mature Bucks Are Critical to Deer Herd Health and Hunting

Mature bucks play important roles in a deer herd that extend far beyond simply being the most sought-after targets during hunting season.

deerassociation.com

Link to MM thread with some more links contained within.

Studies that show buck harvest does not limit herd recovery | Mule Deer

for years I have wanted to compile a library of studies on wildlife related issues. But have failed to do so… I have looked at a ton of different studies, papers etc. Right now I am trying to support the argument that regulated buck harvest is not a limiting factor on herds so long as there is...

www.monstermuleys.info

 

[Forkyfinder]

Maybe that’s what Montanan’s want?

I believe there was a survey of what they want.

Doesnt align with what i want - but im willing to accept managing for me isnt managing for the trust.

 

[rogerthat]

Interesting thread.

My takeaway after years of reading on here is the HT forum (myself included ) wants more mature (bigger) antlered mule deer but we are just a subset of hunters and pretty certain in the minority. While I would be more than willing to try and accept any changes and limitations to season structure as @Gerald Martin has pointed out over the years, many Montanans are perfectly content with what we have.

I don’t believe we are anywhere near the sky-falling population collapse it sometimes gets painted on these forums. Sky-falling 180” buck collapse? Probably sank that ship a decade or more ago?

Is there a biological advantage to having more 4+ year old bucks on the landscape? How do we even know the age structure of deer in Montana? The drive thru check stations which only catch a sample of total harvested and where a seasonal employee ages the deer based on the number of points or wear is extremely subjective and is likely not very accurate for deer older than 2 (which from a population management perspective may be fine, I believe Louisiana uses 0, 1 and 2+ age classes). Very few regions are sending teeth in for aging. In 2020 FWP had over 10k teeth to be aged after just one or two seasons that had been collected from CWD sampled deer and I’ve never heard if/what came of those age results but know they have not come through our lab. What about CWD? Perhaps at some point if the age structure changes enough does won’t get bred but I haven’t seen any more does without fawns than I have over the past 10 years. Even that is subjective when a farmer can kill 20-50 fawns in the first cutting of hay.

@TOGIE can you get that same chart for Montana, Idaho and Wyoming?? While score is not always indicative of age as some bucks will just never be over 150 etc. I also don’t think there are many 180” bucks under 4, so I do think it’s somewhat indicative of “older” bucks present on the landscape but also how many guys don’t put their bucks in the book? I’ve not shot one but not sure I would take the time.

Thanks again to all the folks who are working with this in Montana to try and instill meaningful (at least to us/me) change. Even if you all only accomplish ONE of the many ideas discussed on here I will consider it a success. Mandatory check in, season structure change etc.

I posted the Cwd age data for region 7 to another thread. I will try to find it and link it. It is being touted as proof that the current season structure is knocking it out of the park as roughly 40% of bucks taken off public land in region 7 were 4.5 plus. That’s super interesting if these samples are not going through your lab? I might need to dig into that as I just assumed they were going to you guys.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Mandatory check in

Incredibly low and easy standard. Sampling 1 in 5 deer randomly for age would be more telling for data in terms of age class than the flawed cwd data

 

[rogerthat]

Incredibly low and easy standard. Sampling 1 in 5 deer randomly for age would be more telling for data in terms of age class than the flawed cwd data

You thinking doing this at game check stations?