First time for Montana

[Derekc6713]

So here’s a question for the residents who are familiar with eastern Montana are the Whitetail populations doing as bad as Mule Deer ? If they aren’t do you have any thoughts as to why? Is it just everyone just wants to shoot Mule Deer so they aren’t receiving the same amount of attrition?

 

[Kurts86]

It’s pretty clear that Montana has had an opportunity focused tag allocation that no longer matches the game numbers on the ground. Huge changes are required to tag numbers for both residents and nonresidents if things are to get better.

Blaming nonresidents, whose tag allocation is around 10%, for all the problem is a lazy, played out scapegoat perpetuated in every state game meeting and hunting forum that usually has little quantitative correlation to the resource impact.

The reality is Montana has a growing resident population where there is no cap on OTC resident tag sales good across most of the state for 5 weeks of rifle hunting.

Montana needs to switch mule deer tags to all limited entry by region or unit for both residents and nonresidents. Make whitetail tags OTC for everyone and hammer them. Whitetail are taking over mule deer range across the west as they do better with human presence and they are more aggressive than mule deer.

If they keep certain mule deer units under a general tag and keep closing zones for mule deer hunting it will just move pressure to mule deer units that have better populations today and crater them over a few years. We saw the same thing in Colorado with OTC elk tags, they just keep dropping units off the OTC list for a decade and concentrated pressure while not capping total tag numbers.

OTC tags just can’t be a thing for western big game tags post 2020. The demand outstrips the supply so badly any half measures are counter productive. Find a sustainable number of tags for a unit then split them 90/10 to residents/nonresidents.

 

[Dos Perros]

I say this as a NR, but in circumstances like this, Montana should not be issuing "any deer" type tags to NR's. It should be buck only. Think they should also limit doe harvest to R's but that will be less palatable. NR's should give up all doe opportunity before R's give up any, but both should give up something here. Just my opinion.

 

[skeptic]

Those of us that have been hunting Eastern Montana for more than 10 years know that the degradation of Eastern Montana started long before Newberg or the internet. Did they contribute, sure but he biggest issue is too much lead poisoning.

I don't disagree, but the landscape is far different now than it was back in the late 90's and early 2000's. I know I am really dating myself here, but I can remember a magazine article that came out in Field and Stream I think that vaunted the vast amounts of wildlife in the Missouri River Breaks. That was back in the days when people knew there were elk in the Breaks, but it wasn't like it was now. I remember thinking "there goes the neighborhood". Low and behold, even 5 years after that article, you could tell a difference.

Resident or Non-Resident, more people isn't the answer, and I think it is universally known among those with room temperature IQs and above that more tags isn't the answer. I remember the whole "we are running out of hunters" logic that many of the TV personality type hunters were using to justify their broadcasting of hunting spots all over the world. I just never saw that. If the rest of the world was running out of hunters, they must have all come to Montana.

 

[AHayes111]

I don't disagree, but the landscape is far different now than it was back in the late 90's and early 2000's. I know I am really dating myself here, but I can remember a magazine article that came out in Field and Stream I think that vaunted the vast amounts of wildlife in the Missouri River Breaks. That was back in the days when people knew there were elk in the Breaks, but it wasn't like it was now. I remember thinking "there goes the neighborhood". Low and behold, even 5 years after that article, you could tell a difference.

Resident or Non-Resident, more people isn't the answer, and I think it is universally known among those with room temperature IQs and above that more tags isn't the answer. I remember the whole "we are running out of hunters" logic that many of the TV personality type hunters were using to justify their broadcasting of hunting spots all over the world. I just never saw that. If the rest of the world was running out of hunters, they must have all come to Montana.

The addition of elk to the landscape has been a big change since the 90's and they are not going way. One of the biggest problems with the elk is the hunters that they bring in. Not far from where I live is a state section the also provides access to other public land. It gets hunted hard. This year I talked to over a dozen hunters on that section of land in the first week and a half of the season and I didn't talk to every one that hunted there, but 100% of the ones I did talk to were primarily targeting elk or helping a friend find an elk. Chances are good that they all had OTC deer tags to. The deer will never get a break in pressure even when mule deer numbers are at rock bottom.

 

[AHayes111]

So here’s a question for the residents who are familiar with eastern Montana are the Whitetail populations doing as bad as Mule Deer ? If they aren’t do you have any thoughts as to why? Is it just everyone just wants to shoot Mule Deer so they aren’t receiving the same amount of attrition?

The biggest issue for whitetails in eastern MT is EHD and the last few years have been tough ones. When whitetail numbers crash dew to an EHD outbreak, hunters may shift to filling a tag on a mule deer.