That's why it's so important to keep the limited elk archery permits in all of eastern Montana. It's the only way to limit non-residents to no more than 10%. Otherwise, they will continue to take more and more of our trophy bull opportunities.
If keeping non-residents from taking "more of our trophy bull opportunities" is the objective to be accomplished by cutting resident tags in these units, count me as against it. May not have been meant to sound this way, but it sounds like a dislike of non-residents who might be hunting near you, or a serious "possessiveness" issue.
Had hoped the objective might be something related to biology, resource, opportunity, etc.
I never felt non-residents were taking anything from me in these units or in the Breaks. They paid their share, which is a hell of a lot more than me. I didn't mind them having a crack at the same critters. Maybe I am in the minority.
Seems the places where biology would dictate the use limited tags is the wolf and winter decimated areas. Not the booming elk areas of eastern and central Montana. I am not promoting that in these hard hit areas, but pointing out that those are the places where I can see justification for it, as the guys in the Bitteroot did to protect their elk hunting resource.
Or, are non-residents not taking any of the trophy bull opportunities in those hard hit areas? From your logic, it seems they could be.
Seems like it is possible that any non-resident, whether limited or unlimited tags, has the potential to take one of those guarded "trophy bull opportunities." Why just limit those archery tags, if that is the concern? Could it be because those are the areas you hunt?
Just pointing out the conflicts in that your statement and the difficulty in trying to reconcile such a statement with anything related to biology, opportunity, and reasonable sharing of the resource with non-residents.