The other option is to make it more difficult to select the bucks with the best potential and force people to shoot bucks with less potential by season at a less than optimal time or weapon restrictions. Limited tag will also work, but even if cut tags by 75% and that remaining 25% target the bucks with the top potential we will not grow lots of truly big deer. With a season like Montana's, bucks like the one in my avatar will still get shot at an age before they reach potential and lesser bucks will die of natural causes. This is one of the reasons 270 is not producing as many top end bucks as it did at the start. There is just no short cuts to growing big deer and ultimately it will likely take a combination of both LE , Change in season and maybe weapon restrictions. We in MT will have to decide if it is worth it. Right now we have more pressing issues with mule deer to fix.
In 2024 there were changes to some hard hit Region 4 units, including making some LE and others LE for the second half of the season. The problem with this is it redistributes those hunters to other general units increasing the pressure there. Until FWP controls the hunting pressure in every region all it is going to do is hurt the general units more.
Season dates is easy, but so is pick your weapon, pick your region (or unit), and separating out whitetail from mule deer on the deer A tag. Ultimately, it's going to have to be some combination of measures if we want to avoid going to LE for residents.
Shorten the season and you just force more hunters into those regions at the same time. Until they can control the number of deer taken by controlling the number of hunters in a unit things will continue downhill.
Limiting tags is NEVER the only answer. Hunters taking it upon themselves to only harvest mature mule deer bucks, and taking whitetails would also be an answer. It wouldn't limit any hunting opportunities, or money received; but would certainly reduce Mule Deer mortality. Increased predator take is also a valid option that we can all engage in. Why is the knee jerk reaction always to have FWP limit tag numbers? We hunters need to look in the mirror and think about what we can do personally.
Has it ever been proposed to make Region tags and a quota?
Hard to say, FWP is stubborn when it comes to change. What I can say is that the support for season change has grown exponentially. When I was young and first started hunting in the late 70s and early 80's, I was of the opinion we in MT had the best season ever. Then I went to CO for collage. Opening day of first deer season found me several miles back in on a mountain at daylight. I figured I would have the mountain to myself like I would have back home in SE MT. Wrong. Hunters were everywhere. I realized then why CO had an early season. The deer in SE MT would never hold up if we ever got close to CO pressure levels.
With the recent EHD outbreaks in eastern MT, not even close. Part of the issue for mule deer is that hunters can not fill there tag on a whitetail as easy as in the past. Small part but part non the less.
