Montana

[HunterGatherer]

How about no grazing permits on the winter range ? I bet a lot of Montana ranchers would give up their grazing permits to recover the mule deer herds right ? Right ?

 

[freezerfull]

I am curious here. Let’s talk region 7 for example. I have spent a total of 12 days in the field in this region hunting. This took place over 2 seasons. I don’t really chit chat with many folks since usually I am not at camp during any sort of daylight and don’t frequent the roads and rig most days, however I do keep my awareness up as to what’s going on around me at adjacent camps and/or glassing distant hunters in the field.

These are my takeaways on Region 7
- pressure on public land is high at two tracks and easy walking country
- pressure on public land is low in difficult (I use this loosely here) terrain, long distances from roads and areas with more cover
- area I was camped I’d say was 60/40 split on camps with majority residents.
- other then deer I’ve killed, I’ve seen 10-12 other dead mule deer bucks hanging in camps or getting worked on while there. IIRC the majority of these deer were hanging in camps with MT plates. Could be that NR’s don’t want to show off their kills due to problems with others so that may play into it. I don’t advertise either cause locals would be upset with the bucks I’ve turned up
- I’ve have never seen a dead mule deer in these camps that I would even consider shooting on my way out the last day.

Now questions and comments.
- How is cutting the already capped full price non resident deer tags that are only good for mule deer bucks (or any whitetail) going to improve things?
- Would it not be better to spread NR pressure out by unit specific hunts?
- Why is FWP not looking at the discount tag NR (come home to hunt, b tag pressure, etc.) pressure which is just about equal to the full price deer license pressure?
- though the number of resident hunters hasn’t increased by much, their hunter hours have trended up substantially. Non resident hunter numbers have increased and also their hunter hours spent in the field. Looking at elk data it’s a very similar pressure increase over the last 10 years when looking at both the res and NR hunter hours. So looking at this data, which is typical for Montana (heavily lacking) pressure delta between res and NR is not much different than 10 years ago, however there is more pressure from both sides.
- before limiting NR opportunity and impacting local economic benefits, why is FWP not actually gathering good data (mandatory harvest reporting, etc.)?

 

[AHayes111]

How about no grazing permits on the winter range ? I bet a lot of Montana ranchers would give up their grazing permits to recover the mule deer herds right ? Right ?

Terrible idea. When you remove cattle grazing you give the grass the cows eat a competitive advantage over the forbes and woody brush that mule deer eat.

 

[MThuntrrr]

Until MT gets mandatory reporting any “data” they get from the annual extremely limited phone calls is worthless. The biologists cannot do their jobs effectively without adequate harvest data.

 

[handwerk]

Until MT gets mandatory reporting any “data” they get from the annual extremely limited phone calls is worthless. The biologists cannot do their jobs effectively without adequate harvest data.

I totally agree, I just don't understand how they feel this is complete enough intel to base their decisions on.
It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to set up an online system like many other states do.

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

Until FWP at least limits NR to region if not specific GMU they have no control

Until they do mandatory reporting they don’t even know what they need to control. Amazing to me a wildlife agency would be so against easy collectible crucial data.

 

[S.Clancy]

Terrible idea. When you remove cattle grazing you give the grass the cows eat a competitive advantage over the forbes and woody brush that mule deer eat.

I was gonna say, it's always interesting how many people think mule deer eat grass. Forbs/browse make up the majority of what mule deer eat in a given year.

 

[S.Clancy]

How about no grazing permits on the winter range ? I bet a lot of Montana ranchers would give up their grazing permits to recover the mule deer herds right ? Right ?

You should do some research into cattle grazing on the Blacktail and Rob Leford WMAs around the Snowcrest. FWP used grazing during certain periods to increase production on those winter ranges. Today those 2 support a ridiculous number of elk on winter range.