Mule deer opportunity?
- Thread starter Forkyfinder
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huntin24/7
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I love the youth season and have had a great time taking my kids out for it, but I’ve never felt that there wouldn’t be plenty of opportunity for them if there wasn’t a designated youth season. I also don’t feel like it’s necessary to have deer season over thanksgiving either. Any college kid, high school kid, or adult will find time to get a deer if it’s important to them or their family whenever that season may be. Not sure why it’s so important to try to accommodate every one. You’d think shooting a deer is the only outdoor opportunity in the fall in the entire state with how adamant so many are that we need almost 3.5 months to kill one between all the seasons.
It needs to end altogether. I don’t understand the mindset of if you see something it needs to die. I also don’t understand the mindset of people that don’t put the resource above vacation days. There is a lot of ways to enjoy Mother Nature without shooting something. There is a lot of greed and selfishness blocking any positive changes for Montana’s wildlife. Besides elk on private we aren’t getting a lot of wins in this state.
Archer86
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The other great youth nr opportunity in Montana is the fact when I have a tag i can buy my kid a nr tag otc outside the draw it's great
Yeah I saw the speed hunting and brown it’s down road hunting at last light on the close of youth season. Was that you? Minnesota? Heck of a way to teach your kids to hunt the right way.
Irrelevant
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That's a really good video that everyone should watchI suddenly remembered this video put out by the Idaho Fish and Game earlier this year as a part of a larger series on Mule Deer Management. They pull information from studies done all over the west. There are many interesting and sometimes counterintuitive findings about how different managment strategies impact deer herds, Buckoe ratios, Fawn
Time Stamp 2:20
This chart shows a comparison of B : D ratios in Colorado and Montana between limited hunts and general hunts. It is no surprise that B : D ratios are higher in the limited hunts. That’s good right? Well, maybe.
Time Stamp 3:07
This chart shows B : D ratios in a handful of Idaho units and also compares limited units to general units. As expected, the limited hunts have higher B : D ratios, although in some cases it is not a dramatic difference. The biologist takes the time to mention that the average B : D ratio in the general units is 23:100. The average in the limited hunts is 29:100.
That seems like a small difference considering the amount of opportunity that is sacrificed. Of course, specific units are higher or lower than those averages and a case-by-case analysis would be necessary to determine if each individual limited entry hunt is worth keeping around.
Time Stamp 5:40 – 6:45
It is worth listening to this entire section. Here the IDFG biologist compares a general season structure to a limited season structure and how it affects hunter numbers, total buck harvest and trophy buck harvest. (The only measurable metric of trophy quality is %4 pt in the harvest. While not exact, and not all 4 pts are trophy size, it does provide a trend line).
It is no surprise that the limited scenario has higher success rates. However, look at how many 4-pt bucks are harvested in each scenario, it is nearly the same. The only thing that the limited scenario accomplished was to prevent 3,750 people from the opportunity to hunt and takes away the ability to harvest 625 bucks that will now die of non-hunting related causes. How can that be? Wouldn’t killing fewer bucks mean more big bucks in the future? The answer is yes but it is much less than you might think. The biologist explains this in subsequent slides.
Time stamp 7:19
This slide discusses mule deer buck survival rates and demonstrates why you can’t “bank” or save yearling bucks for the future. It is important to understand that the survival rates used in this slide are based on non-hunting related mortality. The biologist’s example uses a year class of 1.5 year old bucks numbering 5,500 individuals, only 2,750 will live to age 2.5. That is to say that half will die between age 1.5 and 2.5. Hunting harvest is compensatory to that mortality. Meaning that hunting does not increase that number. Those bucks are going to die anyway, so hunters might as well be the ones killing them.
In the example shown in the slide, a trophy management plan would prevent the harvest of 3,500 bucks from that age class that won’t live to reach trophy size anyway. It means that we force thousands of hunters to sit out for a minor improvement in numbers of older bucks.
Time Stamp 9:00
This slide shows the average B&C score of bucks from age 1.5 to age 10. The curve is basically flat after age 4.5. Managing for bucks older than 4.5 does not have any appreciable impact on trophy size. I would love for Idaho to start a program of aging as many harvested deer as possible.
Time Stamp 9:35 and 10:13
Now this one is interesting. It is based on a Colorado study linked below that also came up recently in another thread. This study found in multiple different units and trophy management scenarios that high B : D ratios had a negative impact on fawn:doe (F : D) ratios. Meaning that herd productivity goes down as B : D ratios go up. The reduction observed in Colorado was as high as a 7 fawns per 100 does. Environment is still the highest predictor of herd productivity but this indicates that managing for high B : D ratios will actually reduce fawn production. How much does 7 fawns per 100 does every year matter in the long run? Is it a lot? I’m not sure but it isn’t nothing.
https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2981/wlb.00012
Gerald Martin
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cgasner1
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I’d also add there is a lot of jealousy. That’s the other problem with any idea. Well if I was so and so I’d just do this. Na mf’er you had 6 months to kill a elk last year and didn’t punch a tag maybe worry about your own license and not what the other people are doing
The_Coloradoboy
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I grew up in the early 2000s era of Colorado…. Here’s my first buck at 12 years old back in 04
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The_Coloradoboy
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75 percent of Wyoming outside Region G and H is pretty much road hunting for muleys….
Archer86
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What does that have to do with the fact that I hunt from horses?
The_Coloradoboy
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Apologies, I didn’t read through the prior posts. I read it initially as “eveyone hunts muleys horseback in Wyoming”
