How bad is the hunting in Montana?

[Geewhiz]

I have a hard time hearing year to year reports from non res hunters who base their entire view on their 6 day experience.

 

[wind gypsy]

I have a hard time hearing year to year reports from non res hunters who base their entire view on their 6 day experience.

Fair. For what it’s worth I used to spend 2 or 3 trips during hunting season and did some summer backpacking scouting trips as well.

 

[Greenhorn]

What is this legislation you speak of?

I was wondering the same thing. A lot to unpack in that first post and his reply. I think he must be talking about the MCS groups’ deer proposal - not really legislation. The proposal suggested taking general season deer hunting out of November. If I remember right, he was one of those guys that had some real heartburn over that.

@Jon Boy - sounds like you lace your boots up tighter the majority of us complaining softies and experience some awesome hunting. I’m glad that you have it all figured out and have a different opinion than some of us oldies who expect the instant gratification of the old days, and much easier hunting than you choose to tackle.

There’s no arguing with somebody else’s opinion, assumptions, or other wild fantasies, but I’ll share my opinion, again . Montana has some great hunting. It’s not improving, and it could be so much better.

 

[willfrye027]

I was wondering the same thing. A lot to unpack in that first post and his reply. I think he must be talking about the MCS groups’ deer proposal - not really legislation. The proposal suggested taking general season deer hunting out of November. If I remember right, he was one of those guys that had some real heartburn over that.

@Jon Boy - sounds like you lace your boots up tighter the majority of us complaining softies and experience some awesome hunting. I’m glad that you have it all figured out and have a different opinion than some of us oldies who expect the instant gratification of the old days, and much easier hunting than you choose to tackle.

There’s no arguing with somebody else’s opinion, assumptions, or other wild fantasies, but I’ll share my opinion, again . Montana has some great hunting. It’s not improving, and it could be so much better.

I think your last two sentences are spot on. You can easily replace Montana with any western state at this point..

However the easy button for bigger bucks would be to get rid of late November mule deer hunting, and MD doe hunting. Very few states have an “easy fix” like that, but getting your residents to give up an easy thanksgiving week road forky seems to be a challenge. Selfishly I’d love to see that proposal go through..I’d love to see some bigger deer on the landscape. For now I’m pretty happy with either sex elk every few years, it’s keeping my freezer full

 

[Fowl Play]

My general experience, not just in MT but in many states. Is that areas where hunting has “gone downhill”, “is terrible”, “ruined by NR” etc. many times just means you can’t shoot a monster from the road anymore…

It must have been great to experience that, you still can, just requires a little more work.

 

[freezerfull]

I have a hard time hearing year to year reports from non res hunters who base their entire view on their 6 day experience.

I can understand this and fully agree with residents who have witnessed the long term slide of MD particularly in eastern Montana, something needs to change.

I would like to know though. What is it that most eastern Montana residents want to see? A 180” buck in every draw? Easy road hunting that allows them to look over multiple mature bucks? I ask these things from genuine curiosity. In my limited amount of days in Montana forky units, I have not found it hard to turn up mature age class bucks on public land. And by mature I mean 4.5+ age, not 160”+ typicals though I’ve encountered a few of those.

 

[AHayes111]

This is wisdom. Thank you for this.

In your opinion, what has caused the trend?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Could be a very long answer,
The short answer is everything.
I can only really speak for SE MT, so I will direct my answer for there. I first started hunting in 1978, back then you could hunt just about any place by just asking to hunt, but it was also the start of the end of the hand shake access. The winter of 78/79 hit and that is what started the leasing by outfitters. People talk about the recent tough winter as being the reason for the current drop in numbers and it is certainly part of it. 78/79 was much worse and the reason is because winter started early that year. On Nov tenth we had over a foot of snow and that snow and a lot more was still on the ground well into April. Deer numbers were devastated and because of this outfitters started leasing private land. Doug Gardner told me he signed the first lease in Powder River County. The reason, After the winter of 78/79, he could no longer find the quality hunting his clients demanded unless he found a way to restrict access. Leasing snowballed after that and this displaced plenty of hunters from private and squeezed them onto Public.
The deer however recovered quickly from the winter and 87 was the best year I have ever seen as far as the number of truly big deer on the Custer and surrounding public. Just about every drainage had a 180 inch buck or two. I can think of several days where I would see more then one. Eight eight was a horrible drought and bucks were stunted and by 89 and into the 90's word of big deer on the Custer was spreading fast. Hunters flocked to the Custer in droves. People talk about how social media and hunting shows has ruined the Custer, The wave of new hunters brought by this is not nearly as large as the number brought by just word of mouth back in the early 90's. The difference is the Custer had more deer to go around back then and fewer tags to fill. Fill your A tag and you were hunting birds the rest of the season.
That changed in the 90's, Some time in the mid 90's FWP started issuing doe tags that were good region wide. You could buy doe tags in the 80's but those tags had restrictions limiting you to places that had an abundance of does. The up to 11,000 region wide doe tags had no such restrictions and on where the tag was filled and big blocks of public took the brunt of the doe hunting pressure for various reasons. Then came the winter of 96/97, Just like 78/79, deep snow arrived early and stayed well into April. Deer died by the thousands, but again the recovery was soon behind and by 2004 deer numbers on private land were sky high, but unlike the recovery from 78/79, the recovery on the big blocks of Public like the Custer was not nearly as robust as that of the private land. I lay the blame for this on the region wide doe tags. Private land river bottoms and hay fields are just more productive than the rough hills and timber on much of the public land. Deer naturally recover faster on private then they do on public and when FWP counts started showing a recovery, doe tags were quickly issued in large numbers, problem was the public herd was still lagging on the recovery, but took the brunt of the harvest when tags were issued.
The next big historical event started in the late 90's, This is where the elk started to repopulate SE MT and the elk attracted plenty of people. Archery season went from very few hunters to almost as crowded as rifle season. There are 280 bull tag holders and almost none of them are hunting with out a few friends that are helping find a big bull. Also there are people with cow tags or looking to fill there A tag on a cow or spike. It all adds up to a lot more hunters, hunter days and nearly all of them have a deer A tag that they are willing to fill if the opportunity happens.
The winter of 2012 was another bad one, and again the deer recovered on the more productive private, but this time the recovery was week at best on the Public, Again I put the blame on the region wide doe tags, but also much of the blame falls on the elk. FWP has long relied on the Law of Diminishing Returns to distribute hunters. The way this works is when game numbers are weak hunters will move to where the numbers are better and give the game a chance to recover. The problem is that the elk were little effected by the winter, so they still attracted hunters and those hunters all had deer tags to fill. The deer never got the break in hunters they needed to make a recovery. Then we had a couple of years of bad drought and a tough winter piled on to a struggling deer herd and that is where we are today.
That is kind of a history of the Custer, It is late, so when I get more time I will dig into what else has changed.

 

[Jon Boy]

In

I was wondering the same thing. A lot to unpack in that first post and his reply. I think he must be talking about the MCS groups’ deer proposal - not really legislation. The proposal suggested taking general season deer hunting out of November. If I remember right, he was one of those guys that had some real heartburn over that.

@Jon Boy - sounds like you lace your boots up tighter the majority of us complaining softies and experience some awesome hunting. I’m glad that you have it all figured out and have a different opinion than some of us oldies who expect the instant gratification of the old days, and much easier hunting than you choose to tackle.

There’s no arguing with somebody else’s opinion, assumptions, or other wild fantasies, but I’ll share my opinion, again . Montana has some great hunting. It’s not improving, and it could be so much better.

You’re correct and legislation was not the correct term, my apologies. I haven’t kept of with any of the updated proposals but seem to remember changing the whole states general seasons around to accommodate R 6&7 mule deer hunting.

I’ve be been proponent of eliminating all mule deer doe tags and requiring a mandatory reporting system for a long, long time.

I was hoping this wouldn’t turn into a SE MT mule deer thread. I completely understand and agree that the deer hunting out there is absolutely a sad affair, and I recognized that in the first few sentences of this thread. The thread was more to shine light on some of the fantastic hunting we still have and some examples on how much better it has gotten in some areas for some species. It seems this time of year every other thread is about changing this or that in Montana and how terrible everything is.

Also, it’s been very interesting to see how a lot of animals have adapted very quickly to long range optics and rifles and how fast they have changed their habits. It’s always interesting to see that success rates may fluctuate at the front end of a new technology but then often regulate to historic norms. Archery elk hunting and the advent of range finders comes to mind.

Seemingly, at the end of the day, it appears my experiences aren’t the norm of most. I’m not sure what everyone else wants in their hunting season as I seem to find good opportunities where ever I look. Maybe I am just another market hunter looking for the last best pockets of game.

 

[TheGrayRider]

I can say the same thing about Alaska. I moved to AK in the 80’s. I didn’t know how good I had it. Caribou were easy and plentiful, moose were easier (mostly because of any bull regs I think), and sheep hunting was pretty much a gimme and a 2-3 day effort. None of this is true anymore. At least that’s my perception. More pressure, better tools to access areas than before…..fishing is the same way….king salmon fishing in SC Alaska is almost non existent now.

Amen, brother. I have hunted and fished Alaska six different times over the years…great place, great hunts, and great people but from everything I continue to read and hear the hunting and fishing is on a stready downward trend.

My disposable income is going to the African continent - still the best value in hunting. I wonder if Africa will hit a downward trend in the coming years and decades like much of North America??

Good luck on your future hunt choices and happy hunting to all, TheGrayRider a.k.a Tom.

 

[Greenhorn]

Seemingly, at the end of the day, it appears my experiences aren’t the norm of most. I’m not sure what everyone else wants in their hunting season as I seem to find good opportunities where ever I look. Maybe I am just another market hunter looking for the last best pockets of game.

Or, it could be that some people are not as easily satisfied as others.

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

Montana has some great hunting. It’s not improving, and it could be so much better.

I love hunting Montana and always have good hunts. The sentence above is also true though.

 

[Greenhorn]

Could be a very long answer,
The short answer is everything.
I can only really speak for SE MT, so I will direct my answer for there. I first started hunting in 1978, back then you could hunt just about any place by just asking to hunt, but it was also the start of the end of the hand shake access. The winter of 78/79 hit and that is what started the leasing by outfitters. People talk about the recent tough winter as being the reason for the current drop in numbers and it is certainly part of it. 78/79 was much worse and the reason is because winter started early that year. On Nov tenth we had over a foot of snow and that snow and a lot more was still on the ground well into April. Deer numbers were devastated and because of this outfitters started leasing private land. Doug Gardner told me he signed the first lease in Powder River County. The reason, After the winter of 78/79, he could no longer find the quality hunting his clients demanded unless he found a way to restrict access. Leasing snowballed after that and this displaced plenty of hunters from private and squeezed them onto Public.
The deer however recovered quickly from the winter and 87 was the best year I have ever seen as far as the number of truly big deer on the Custer and surrounding public. Just about every drainage had a 180 inch buck or two. I can think of several days where I would see more then one. Eight eight was a horrible drought and bucks were stunted and by 89 and into the 90's word of big deer on the Custer was spreading fast. Hunters flocked to the Custer in droves. People talk about how social media and hunting shows has ruined the Custer, The wave of new hunters brought by this is not nearly as large as the number brought by just word of mouth back in the early 90's. The difference is the Custer had more deer to go around back then and fewer tags to fill. Fill your A tag and you were hunting birds the rest of the season.
That changed in the 90's, Some time in the mid 90's FWP started issuing doe tags that were good region wide. You could buy doe tags in the 80's but those tags had restrictions limiting you to places that had an abundance of does. The up to 11,000 region wide doe tags had no such restrictions and on where the tag was filled and big blocks of public took the brunt of the doe hunting pressure for various reasons. Then came the winter of 96/97, Just like 78/79, deep snow arrived early and stayed well into April. Deer died by the thousands, but again the recovery was soon behind and by 2004 deer numbers on private land were sky high, but unlike the recovery from 78/79, the recovery on the big blocks of Public like the Custer was not nearly as robust as that of the private land. I lay the blame for this on the region wide doe tags. Private land river bottoms and hay fields are just more productive than the rough hills and timber on much of the public land. Deer naturally recover faster on private then they do on public and when FWP counts started showing a recovery, doe tags were quickly issued in large numbers, problem was the public herd was still lagging on the recovery, but took the brunt of the harvest when tags were issued.
The next big historical event started in the late 90's, This is where the elk started to repopulate SE MT and the elk attracted plenty of people. Archery season went from very few hunters to almost as crowded as rifle season. There are 280 bull tag holders and almost none of them are hunting with out a few friends that are helping find a big bull. Also there are people with cow tags or looking to fill there A tag on a cow or spike. It all adds up to a lot more hunters, hunter days and nearly all of them have a deer A tag that they are willing to fill if the opportunity happens.
The winter of 2012 was another bad one, and again the deer recovered on the more productive private, but this time the recovery was week at best on the Public, Again I put the blame on the region wide doe tags, but also much of the blame falls on the elk. FWP has long relied on the Law of Diminishing Returns to distribute hunters. The way this works is when game numbers are weak hunters will move to where the numbers are better and give the game a chance to recover. The problem is that the elk were little effected by the winter, so they still attracted hunters and those hunters all had deer tags to fill. The deer never got the break in hunters they needed to make a recovery. Then we had a couple of years of bad drought and a tough winter piled on to a struggling deer herd and that is where we are today.
That is kind of a history of the Custer, It is late, so when I get more time I will dig into what else has changed.

All the fires in the last dozen years didn’t do the deer any favors over there either.