Montana season change proposal

[willfrye027]

Guys.... I would deeply caution you all to not make major changes to the season structures when you have incomplete information.

Mandatory harvest reporting and reduction of B tags would go a long ways and would get you more information to make a more educated change. Those are easy to communicate to FWP and implement in short time. Detailed harvest reporting data will then allow you to make a possibly much better proposition in the future.

Don't mess it up when you don't hold all the cards and will never be able to undo it....

Couldn’t agree more. Aside from doe tags, any other hunting season change is just managing hunters and does not affect the herds trajectory. You might be able to manage for some larger deer on the landscape, but the herd will not grow.

If you are a trophy hunter you should WANT everyone else to shoot yearling bucks. Half of them die of “natural causes” anyways. When that greedy NR punches his tag, he goes home and is not competing with you. Forkies are an expendable resource and if a guy wants to have fun and come home with a buck, it should not bother you.

I wish we could have better hunting and bigger bucks for everyone by changing some rules and seasons..but it’s not going to happen. It’s failed everywhere in the west despite plenty of variations.

Calm down, let this mule deer slump pass, and reevaluate after a few years of favorable conditions.

 

[Grundy53]

Couldn’t agree more. Aside from doe tags, any other hunting season change is just managing hunters and does not affect the herds trajectory. You might be able to manage for some larger deer on the landscape, but the herd will not grow.

If you are a trophy hunter you should WANT everyone else to shoot yearling bucks. Half of them die of “natural causes” anyways. When that greedy NR punches his tag, he goes home and is not competing with you. Forkies are an expendable resource and if a guy wants to have fun and come home with a buck, it should not bother you.

I wish we could have better hunting and bigger bucks for everyone by changing some rules and seasons..but it’s not going to happen. It’s failed everywhere in the west despite plenty of variations.

Calm down, let this mule deer slump pass, and reevaluate after a few years of favorable conditions.

Exactly.

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[cgasner1]

Couldn’t agree more. Aside from doe tags, any other hunting season change is just managing hunters and does not affect the herds trajectory. You might be able to manage for some larger deer on the landscape, but the herd will not grow.

If you are a trophy hunter you should WANT everyone else to shoot yearling bucks. Half of them die of “natural causes” anyways. When that greedy NR punches his tag, he goes home and is not competing with you. Forkies are an expendable resource and if a guy wants to have fun and come home with a buck, it should not bother you.

I wish we could have better hunting and bigger bucks for everyone by changing some rules and seasons..but it’s not going to happen. It’s failed everywhere in the west despite plenty of variations.

Calm down, let this mule deer slump pass, and reevaluate after a few years of favorable conditions.

One problem with our management is by killing them in November when they are full rut and don’t care is that your killing the bucks off that would not have died from natural causes. There is more to a mature deer than a set of antlers. Keeping killing them all and you don’t have the best genes breeding it makes your entire herd more venerable to things such a as cwd hard winters and predators. But ya we are all assholes for wanting the mature animals breeding


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[Jason Snyder]

let this mule deer slump pass,

Is a decades long downward trend really a slump?

 

[willfrye027]

Is a decades long downward trend really a slump?

Yes. They are down for a lot of reasons, terrible weather for mule deer IMO the biggest. Plus some of the good years may have been artificially high with conditions that we can’t reproduce again (logging/grazing practices, predator control)

It’s just foolish to think with swapping around season dates, buck tag allocations, NR quotas that you will get any meaningful change in the health or size of the deer herds. It’s been tried and failed. Over and over.

Removing doe tags might help a little, not hunting in November and you might have some bigger bucks on the landscape.

Give up opportunities to hunt and you won’t get them back. It’s not my state to decide, but look at all the states around you and ask yourself if it’s working there.

 

[willfrye027]

One problem with our management is by killing them in November when they are full rut and don’t care is that your killing the bucks off that would not have died from natural causes. There is more to a mature deer than a set of antlers. Keeping killing them all and you don’t have the best genes breeding it makes your entire herd more venerable to things such a as cwd hard winters and predators. But ya we are all assholes for wanting the mature animals breeding


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How is a mature bucks sperm any better than when he was a forky? There is no biological or scientific basis for this.

 

[Jason Snyder]

Yes. They are down for a lot of reasons, terrible weather for mule deer IMO the biggest. Plus some of the good years may have been artificially high with conditions that we can’t reproduce again (logging/grazing practices, predator control)

It’s just foolish to think with swapping around season dates, buck tag allocations, NR quotas that you will get any meaningful change in the health or size of the deer herds. It’s been tried and failed. Over and over.

Removing doe tags might help a little, not hunting in November and you might have some bigger bucks on the landscape.

Give up opportunities to hunt and you won’t get them back. It’s not my state to decide, but look at all the states around you and ask yourself if it’s working there.

Yes, there are a multitude of factors that play into this equation. But to suggest hunting bucks into and through the peak of the rut every year with modern firearms does not impact the escapement of bucks is simply disingenuous. Greater escapement leads to greater recruitment. This leads to a more diverse age class and better distribution of bucks.

It’s not my state right now either, but I would certainly hope folks don’t just throw up their hands because “it’ll never get better and by gawd I won’t give anything up because I won’t get it back”.

 

[willfrye027]

Yes, there are a multitude of factors that play into this equation. But to suggest hunting bucks into and through the peak of the rut every year with modern firearms does not impact the escapement of bucks is simply disingenuous. Greater escapement leads to greater recruitment. This leads to a more diverse age class and better distribution of bucks.

It’s not my state right now either, but I would certainly hope folks don’t just throw up their hands because “it’ll never get better and by gawd I won’t give anything up because I won’t get it back”.

Sure, some bigger bucks will make it through. The herd won’t grow any faster/slower though. If the goal is bigger bucks, that should be stated. It’s not about bigger or healthier herds, it’s about bigger bucks and less hunters on the landscape..which is a slippery slope and a social issue, not a biological issue.

 

[Jason Snyder]

So if more bucks survive each year, how is that not herd growth?

This proposal also addresses doe harvest, which is an integral piece. But if you still have single digit buck to doe ratios, is that really a good thing biologically?

Does not more bucks = more opportunity?

How is it about less hunters if it’s still OTC?

Isn’t better diversity of age class and better distribution a biological issue?

 

[willfrye027]

So if more bucks survive each year, how is that not herd growth?

This proposal also addresses doe harvest, which is an integral piece. But if you still have single digit buck to doe ratios, is that really a good thing biologically?

Does not more bucks = more opportunity?

How is it about less hunters if it’s still OTC?

Isn’t better diversity of age class and better distribution a biological issue?

Let’s say there is a population of 10,000 deer. 7,000 does and 3,000 bucks. On a great year, those 7000 does will successfully introduce another 6,300 deer into the herd (assuming 90% fawn survival which would be a good year). Now your herd is 16000 minus some losses here and there. With more does on the landscape to do it all again next year. String a couple good years together…and all of the sudden you’ve got 20,000+ deer on the landscape.

This is happening regardless of what we do on the buck hunting side of things. Doe pregnancy rates are extremely high; single digit buck to doe ratios will still get them all bred. I am not aware of any herd health reason to have a huge variety in the buck age class. There has been correlation between very low buck:doe ratios and a highly productive (fawn survival) herd. Correlation not necessarily causation…

When you have a big population of deer you have plenty of yearlings, yearlings that make it through, big bucks slipping through the cracks..

Sure you can play around with super low tag numbers, season dates etc. it’s not moving the needle during times of poor production.

I would suggest that eastern montanas fairly recent decline in quality hunting has everything to do with dwindling herds and nothing to do with hunting pressure.

 

[Gettin’by]

Stop shooting muley does, close the two tracks to all motorized vehicles.

Once we lose opportunity, probably won’t be getting it back.

 

[Jason Snyder]

I would suggest that eastern montanas fairly recent decline in quality hunting has everything to do with dwindling herds and nothing to do with hunting pressure.

What is your experience hunting Montana over the last 30 years?

 

[finner]

Interesting read that correlates with what you see on this forum and others re: MT mule deer management.

Results From a Montana 2023 Non-Resident Mule Deer Hunter Survey

 

[willfrye027]

What is your experience hunting Montana over the last 30 years?

Not sure how that’s relevant. I prefer western Montana, but my Montanan buddy has not had a problem finding nice (for Montana) eastern MT bucks with relatively little effort and zero issues running into other guys. It’s been better in the past, for sure. But the sky is not falling. The level of complaining correlates well with lower populations of deer overall. And it’s not exclusive to Montana. Hunting pressure will ebb and flow, populations will ebb and flow. I’d love to be convinced that any kind of limitation on buck hunting will make a measurable difference in the overall population of deer or “herd health”, whatever that means. I’ve yet to be convinced.

If Montana residents want to turn their state into Nevada, or colorado, or whatever, that’s up to them but it seems that the majority of hunters just want to hunt.

 

[Jason Snyder]

Not sure how that’s relevant. I prefer western Montana, but my Montanan buddy has not had a problem finding nice (for Montana) eastern MT bucks with relatively little effort and zero issues running into other guys. It’s been better in the past, for sure. But the sky is not falling.

Because it’s the danger of shifting baselines. One of the members of the committee has lived and ranched near the Custer forest in Southeast Montana for over five decades. He has a pretty good pulse on what deer hunting was, what it is, and what it could be.

I guess if “good enough” is just good enough for folks, then carry on.

 

[S.Clancy]

Couldn’t agree more. Aside from doe tags, any other hunting season change is just managing hunters and does not affect the herds trajectory. You might be able to manage for some larger deer on the landscape, but the herd will not grow.

If you are a trophy hunter you should WANT everyone else to shoot yearling bucks. Half of them die of “natural causes” anyways. When that greedy NR punches his tag, he goes home and is not competing with you. Forkies are an expendable resource and if a guy wants to have fun and come home with a buck, it should not bother you.

I wish we could have better hunting and bigger bucks for everyone by changing some rules and seasons..but it’s not going to happen. It’s failed everywhere in the west despite plenty of variations.

Calm down, let this mule deer slump pass, and reevaluate after a few years of favorable conditions.

I did a search for the data on this, I'm not finding any. I'm not saying this doesn't exist, but I'd like to see the reference.

I did find the numbers for MT for adult male deer (>1). Total annual mortality of 41-61%. When they looked at hunting related mortality, the spread was 37.5-58% annual mortality from hunting, depending on the biome. So, the majority of annual mortality comes from hunting. Now, they didn't dial this down to mortality of age 1.5 vs 2.5 vs. 3.5 etc etc.

 

[willfrye027]

Because it’s the danger of shifting baselines. One of the members of the committee has lived and ranched near the Custer forest in Southeast Montana for over five decades. He has a pretty good pulse on what deer hunting was, what it is, and what it could be.

I guess if “good enough” is just good enough for folks, then carry on.

Of course the hunting has been better. That is not in question. But to think a committee focused on changing seasons, tag allocations, nonresident participation will somehow bring back thriving populations is a fairy tale that has NOT played out in any of the other western states that have tried this. What’s the downside? Reduced opportunity and engagement. Which is an underrated and massive downside in our political landscape.

And yes, I am quite happy with my Montana hunting experiences. I don’t expect to kill a 180” although I did see a 170” 2 years ago.

 

[willfrye027]

I did a search for the data on this, I'm not finding any. I'm not saying this doesn't exist, but I'd like to see the reference.

I did find the numbers for MT for adult male deer (>1). Total annual mortality of 41-61%. When they looked at hunting related mortality, the spread was 37.5-58% annual mortality from hunting, depending on the biome. So, the majority of annual mortality comes from hunting. Now, they didn't dial this down to mortality of age 1.5 vs 2.5 vs. 3.5 etc etc.

I haven’t found the primary literature for that to post, but came across this article which gets at the same conclusion, I think. It was looking at whether an APR type regulation could increase population of mature bucks.

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2193/2005-713

“Low and variable fawn survival and relatively high non-hunting related losses of yearling and mature males might be typical of many populations in the northern Rocky Mountains”

Can’t see the full text or detailed data.

If I can find the literature out of Utah I’ll post it back up. I’d never claim to be an expert but I do love learning about mule deer biology and management

 

[S.Clancy]

I haven’t found the primary literature for that to post, but came across this article which gets at the same conclusion, I think. It was looking at whether an APR type regulation could increase population of mature bucks.

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2193/2005-713

“Low and variable fawn survival and relatively high non-hunting related losses of yearling and mature males might be typical of many populations in the northern Rocky Mountains”

Can’t see the full text or detailed data.

If I can find the literature out of Utah I’ll post it back up. I’d never claim to be an expert but I do love learning about mule deer biology and management

It was pretty easy to access the full text. They address yearling (1.5 yrs) directly and compare it to mature buck mortality. There are a few percentage points different, but nothing crazy.



They then show survival as a function of 100 individuals through time.



As you can see, they largest drop, by far, is from Age-0 to Age-1, which is very typical of most animal populations.

 

[willfrye027]

It was pretty easy to access the full text. They address yearling (1.5 yrs) directly and compare it to mature buck mortality. There are a few percentage points different, but nothing crazy.

View attachment 707149

They then show survival as a function of 100 individuals through time.

View attachment 707150

As you can see, they largest drop, by far, is from Age-0 to Age-1, which is very typical of most animal populations.

Yeah, I need to find that data I came across or heard. Of course any of these studies are going to be a snapshot in time, in a specific area, with a pretty small sample size compared to the whole population.

Pretty rough fawn recruitment across that data set..with my takeaway being even if you don’t hunt the forkies, a lot will die, and trying to save them from hunting does not make a large enough difference in my mind.