A different take on trophy mule deer management - Our solutions have been the problem

[CorbLand]

Absolutely it has. It's much like my 20 year old daughter thinks that every day should look like a IG reel. Lots of hunters desensitized by watching hours of guys killing monsters think that every fork horn is going to turn into a 200" class buck if they let it walk.

How many of those “monsters” are really not “monsters” without the help of a good camera lens and proper angling? See this a fair amount when you go to some of the shows.

Reasonable points all around.
1) I agree that IDFG should make decision based on data. I would like hunters to be willing to pay more for tags and licenses to fund more survey flights, more age studies, more habitat restoration. I think IDFG generally does well with the funding they have. I would like them to be able to do more and be in a better position to be proactive.

2) I mostly agree. Idaho does use some of those methods. Idaho long ago decided to schedule the general deer season in mid October because it is the time period that favors buck escapement from hunter pressure. They have manipulated season length in the past. Allowing or closing doe harvest is another tool that gets used.

3) I agree that once opportunity is lost it is hard to get back again but it isn't always because IDFG doesn't want to give it back. I was in a season setting public comment meeting back in 2016. IDFG was proposing to give us back some hunting opportunity in the form of extending the deer season to the end of October. An extra week. The deer population was at a 20 year high. Every model they had suggested that the herd could sustain additional harvest without negative impacts. It was the hunters that refused to accept the additional opportunity. The hunter sentiment was that hunting was just getting good again and now IDFG wants to kill all the deer to sell more tags. IDFG only warned that with deer herds so high the next bad winter would kill a lot of deer. Well the winter of 16-17 did it.

Your number 3 is probably one of the biggest detriments to wildlife management. It really pits the “trophy” hunters versus the opportunity guys against each other.

Animals are not a savings account that can just continue to grow. When it’s time to kill them, it’s time to kill them.

 

[cwitt]

I carved up the quote of your post to focus on specific things. see the bolded text to correlate my responses.

"We are painfully slow to change or adapt in this state"
I agree that Idaho's ability to institute change is a slow process. Sometimes I am frustrated by it and other times I am grateful for it so I'm not sure I would change the process. I could be convinced either way I think.

"Capped tags in areas that need it,"
I would push back against zone deer management or capping units. Capping effectively creates the same problem as limited entry. Second, how do you define "need". Antler size? Buck : Doe ratios? Fawn : Doe ratios. Which metrics should be used to establish a need for change?

"The drop off in deer numbers, trophy quality, etc. over the last 15-20 years is heart breaking. And there has been next to nothing done by F&G to slow it"
What would you suggest? I would suggest an age study before and after any change to see if it made any difference in age class. I'm not aware of any limited entry unit regardless of management type that is producing the quality that it was 20 years ago. I doubt that cutting tags will fix anything in the long term.

"All of that considered, does that sound like a situation that would benefit from being opened to general hunting, even if it is with a restricted weapon?"
I think there will be units that a general season structure might not work if escapement is too low due to roads, terrain, etc. That may be one of those places. But we need to define what level of escapement is too low. I think we need to do more age studies to firmly establish what is actually happening in terms of buck survival. We can't rely on trophy quality as a metric, it is too unreliable.

Choose your weapon.
Although it would be my preferred change in place of limited entry, I am also hesitant of a piecemeal approach to choose your weapon general seasons. If unit X is placed in an archery only general season it won't make every hunter pick up a bow. It will displace rifle hunters to surrounding units and exacerbate crowding and hunting pressure there. Same with muzzleloader and even open sight rifle. Those willing to use less effective weapons might love it but the scoped rifle guys will get more and more pinched. Eventually they will want more changes. I would still pick this route over limited entry for everything but I don't think we are at that point yet.

Not that I believe that solution is the perfect one or the end all be all, but why would you push back against zone management for deer? Is it not working for elk? It feels like it is considering our elk populations.. What would you be giving up by going to a zone system? I can’t personally think of much. As far as what would constitute capped tags, I would imagine similar criteria to what we are using for elk already.

As far as what I would suggest, I’ll share the cliff notes of what I’ve said at F&G meetings, in letters, and in conversations with biologists. The issue in this particular area is the compounding effect of large harvest of young bucks in an unlimited fashion clearing out the bottom end of the age class, a long season of too many tags hunting the top end of the age class at the time they’re most vulnerable, technology, and what’s known as a predator pit. To fix it you have to address as many of those components as possible. Limit 2 point harvest to either a youth only season, an unlimited 2nd choice quota in the draw system, or best of all eliminate the hunt option entirely as it was never intended to be a permanent solution. If the tag number and weapon is to the stay the same, change the season dates on the limited tag to match those of other premium limited entry tags in the state, which is to say not have an open season the entirety of the rut. Or shorten the season. Weapons restrictions and tag cuts could also be used. Any combination of these would very likely have a positive affect.

To be clear, what I am referring to is one very specific area with its own unique challenges. The reason I bring them up is that it illustrates that while holistically mule deer are struggling, the problems facing them are too unique and nuanced to be solved with blanket approaches.