MT Elk Shoulder Season

[Bar]

You have no clue how I do it, but that's not the point i'm trying to make.

 

[Jaguigui]

Here's the story for anyone that cares.
For anyone trying to get ahold of the FWP coordinators, I think you have a better chance of contacting Santa Claus.
I headed out to this piece of state land my friend told me about, I can't thank him enough. He's been instrumental in my introduction to hunting Montana. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Great Falls. Left at 4:30 am and was hiking around 7am by myself. I had never been to this spot before so I decided to try and get up high to a huge open meadow. I set up the spotting scope and started glassing without seeing anything until I looked on the hill to my right about 1000 yards away. I saw a huge herd, guesstimating 80-90 head of elk just bedded down sunbathing.

I stalked to within 500 yards of them trying to be stealthy, that didn't work out with crunchy ice and stiff kenetrek boots. The herd stood up alarmed and trotted off. I was at a cross roads. Did I blow them out? Should I keep going? A hot bath and a cold beer sounds really good right now. I decided to follow their tracks into the timber. I slowly crept on the powdery snow with the wind in my face. I peered out behind a tree and saw a cow within 50 yards of me. I could've taken her with a bow (sold it to buy a kifaru pack system, sacrifices right?). I took a shot on her shoulder and the herd boomed out of there. The snow made blood trailing straightforward. I found the cow just standing looking confused and dazed. I put another round in here at 40 yards and she walked off. Did I miss? She lazily walked to a fallen log and bedded down. She tried to get up so I put another one in the vitals. Man elk are tough! She finally expired.

I texted my friend from my delorme inreach to help me pack this thing out. While he was driving from Great Falls, I started peeling back the hide and removing the quarters. It was a funny sight to see me trying to get that hind quarter in my game bag by myself. I packed the hind quarter down the mountain. She died on a steep incline with snow on the ground making my journey akin to a slip and slide. I met my friend at the truck at 4:30pm. The sun was setting so we knew we had to hustle. It took all our strength to flip that elk over in the snow against a log. As we were processing it we heard wolves howling across the way. That spooked us. As we were loading my pack and his sled, we heard the wolves howling but this time a little closer than we would liked. We hauld ass (read slipped) down the mountain as fast as we could to the creek bottom and boogied out of there.

I called up the processor and told him I have to drop off the meat tonight because I have alert tomorrow (I'm in missiles in the air force) and there was no way I can keep this meat cold for 32 hours. I was speeding home forgetting that the 80mph speed limit changes to 65 at night. A cop pulled me over for speeding. I couldn't care less, I had my elk. He reduced the citation for 70 in a 65 and gave me a $20 citation, whatever, I'm tired, you're doing your job, I have my elk.

thanks for everyone's encouragement and comments. I didn't know how many strong opinions people had on this shoulder season. I have no regrets legally harvesting (fair chase) this elk for my young family. thanks rokslide!

 

[weaver]

Congrats! Sounds like you earned that elk.
I enjoy a story like this any day over a guy that shoots a 350" bull on a private ranch.

 

[ahlgringo]

"I enjoy a story like this any day over a guy that shoots a 350" bull on a private ranch."

This

Congrats on the Cow!!!

 

[Shrek]

Congratulations again ! Thanks for the story and please don't think my opposition to the shoulder season makes any difference in how great it is to see you get out and have success. Since they're going to have this season and are determined to wipe out the elk you should take advantage of the opportunity to put meat in the freezer.

 

[Clarktar]

Wipe out the elk? C'mon, that's a little exaggerated ☺

 

[MontanaMarine]

Here is all the facts and details:

http://fwp.mt.gov/fishAndWildlife/management/elk/managementPlan.html


If you open up and read the "FWP Mission, Statewide Objectives....." section, there is a map of the EMUs, and data regarding populations, and target populations.

Doesn't look to me like the goal is to reduce the elk population in 392 by half, or even close.

The only shoulder seasons shown by FWP are all in Region 4.

 

[Shrek]

They want to kill half of the elk in 391 and 392. I don't know what the goal is for the other units are but half is pretty drastic. The targets for elk population are pretty low imo.

 

[MontanaMarine]

Here's the details on the shoulder season. HD's 410, 445, 446, 449, and 452.

http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/seasons/elkShoulder.html

 

[MontanaMarine]

It wouldn't make much sense to thin the cows in the earlier summer, you'd end up with a bunch of orphaned and starving calves.

Landowners who truly wish to reduce elk on their land can pretty easily take part in the Block Management Program. Many do already.

I believe there are a lot of politics and hidden agenda's that go on behind the scenes.

 

[Shrek]

Looking at what is printed sounds right but what the biologist for the area who was working the check station said is totally different. Biologist clamed there were 2000 plus elk in the unit and the objective was the listed 1100. I don't know where the disconnect is. Officially the units are close to objective but to my face the biologist says different. Good to see they're not including 392.

 

[MontanaMarine]

392 might be pretty close to target after this falls regular season and the management hunt prior. I believe Jeff counted 60+ between the regular season, and the management hunt he was involved in.

There will be some normal winter kill and predation, then calves bring the number up in the spring.

Funny how things go sometimes. A couple years back there was anticipation of the wolves putting a hurtin' on the local elk numbers, but so far it doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[RamDreamer]

How about offering more of those overpriced tags? Seems pretty obvious, except to you.

So what is your definition of a normal hunting season then, because many states have early and late seasons with breaks during certain portions and some states have long uninterrupted seasons. You mention a challenge during a normal season. Well if things should be overly difficult and not allow the hunter to be successful(like your reference to bison) than we should't be allowed to hunt during the rut, during the winter, during spring calving times, or during the summer when they are highly pattern-able going to food sources. I just guess if it was your perfect world we would track them down and take photos and never harvest an animal, but continue to buy a license so that FWP could go out and shoot them for us. I mean because that is their job right?
Your opinion and statements are completely ignorant. Is this a perfect way to do things? Probably not and are all the animals on the winter range?....nope. Is it going to be shooting fish in a barrel? Nope. It is one step in dealing with a multitude of problems currently going on.
Also, your idea of FWP going in and doing it themselves would not only be much more expensive on the tax payer, but it would also be viewed with a more negative connotation by many of us sportsmen. You have the right to voice your opinion just like everyone else, and that's the great thing about this country, but your negativity and ignorance is on a too high of a level for me.

 

[Bar]

So what is your definition of a normal hunting season then, because many states have early and late seasons with breaks during certain portions and some states have long uninterrupted seasons. You mention a challenge during a normal season. Well if things should be overly difficult and not allow the hunter to be successful(like your reference to bison) than we should't be allowed to hunt during the rut, during the winter, during spring calving times, or during the summer when they are highly pattern-able going to food sources. I just guess if it was your perfect world we would track them down and take photos and never harvest an animal, but continue to buy a license so that FWP could go out and shoot them for us. I mean because that is their job right?
Your opinion and statements are completely ignorant. Is this a perfect way to do things? Probably not and are all the animals on the winter range?....nope. Is it going to be shooting fish in a barrel? Nope. It is one step in dealing with a multitude of problems currently going on.
Also, your idea of FWP going in and doing it themselves would not only be much more expensive on the tax payer, but it would also be viewed with a more negative connotation by many of us sportsmen. You have the right to voice your opinion just like everyone else, and that's the great thing about this country, but your negativity and ignorance is on a too high of a level for me.

Wrong in so many ways i'm not going to bother debating it. One of us is ignorant, but it's not me.

BTW...If we all have a right to give our opinion. Do you have to agree with it for me to not get your nonsense?

 

[striker3]

Would you shoot one? What happened to fair chase in hunters?

It's not the job of hunters to cull the herd. Hunters should be hunting.

Only modern urbanites view hunting like that. And yes, you can be an urbanite in thinking but live in a rural area. Traditionally, hunters hunt to put meat on the table. Even with Montana's long hunting season, many of us cannot afford to take days off of work or school to go deep into the back country for "fair chase". So instead we put in weekends towards filling our tags, but with the lack of access to public lands, I am finding it hard to gain access to areas with terrain that I can get into and backout in 2 days.

Also, lowering the cost of out of state tags will not solve anything. It will only make more landowners lease their lands for outfitting as the demand surges. Cutting off even more public access land. It sounds like you have never been frustrated by seeing a herd of 200 elk less than a mile away on public lands, but having to walk 7 miles to get there. Starting the walk only to find out that you would need skis to acces the saddle to their canyon. Now imagine the frustration of asking the landowners to cross their field and being told no because they "outfit".

On topic of the shoulder season, We spent 3 days roaming the area around White Sulphur Springs. I despise truck hunting, but that is all that we could do. The rule not allowing hunting on National forest meant that we had to camp on BLM and then go to the various walk in BMAs during the day. Put about 20 miles on foot in the 2 BMAs and close to 100 in the truck bouncing from accessible 1 mile X 1 mile state trust plots. Saw a total of 0 elk and crowds of hunters.

Talked to the fish and game ranger and he advised to come back in a few weeks. Told us that they would have a better level of organization and more opened land.

 

[RamDreamer]

Wrong in so many ways i'm not going to bother debating it. One of us is ignorant, but it's not me.

BTW...If we all have a right to give our opinion. Do you have to agree with it for me to not get your nonsense?

Well I wish you would stay and debate since I feel that a civil conversation helps everyone out and it might help me understand where you are coming from.

First to bring back your statement regarding the history of the bison and how they were almost wiped out is completely different than anything currently happening. Based on the behavioral differences between how elk and bison deal with perceived predation risks and our tag structures and the fact that we no longer have the mentality of an unlimited amount of animals.

Secondly, lets look at how management occurs and and if it is even possible to wipe out a given population of animals. Populations of species are estimated and analyzed annually. Understanding how species interact, both plant and animal, and what takes place in the ecosystem are taken into account. With these estimations, wildlife managers estimate the sustainable yield curve based of the estimate of the population size changing through time and the estimated population growth rate and how that changes as the population size changes. Most systems are managed to be kept at equilibrium as long as there are not any other processes in the ecosystem that are being negatively impacted. Hunting and the population of wildlife have a curved linear relationship. Meaning that using recreational hunters as a management tool makes it extremely difficult to over harvest to extinction because of the law of diminishing returns (the Sandhill Wildlife Research Area in WI is a prime example, heck even look at the unit where they wanted to eradicate all the bighorns in MT and they couldn't even do that there).

Now I will agree with you that the tags prices for NR made a large leap a few years back and that it is a major issue that limits NR coming to MT to hunt. Increasing tags could go both way and there are actually a lot of calculations that go into that as well. Not only do you have to look at the percent of successful hunters based of tags and seasons, but then as you increase the amount of hunters in an area you also adjust the mentality of many hunters who do not like to compete or feel like that area is over-hunted. This could potentially lower animal harvest in certain areas. Nothing is cut and dry when dealing with wildlife and I agree that politics and such play into it way more than science currently. Which is a shame because that is not how the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is set up.

Did you know that biologists can't even talk to the commission in Helena? Regardless of what they have gathered as far as data in the field or what they see out there it needs to be passed through a middle man (usually the regional game managers) and then maybe it will move forward. Many proposed changes never make their way to Helena, leaving a lot of field staff wondering what is going on and what the next move will be.

Are there better options than the shoulder seasons? I am sure there are. Can you hold it against someone who wants to fill the freezer at the end of the year and has a tag available..? I do not think so.

Once again I think using FWP to cull elk numbers where responsible hunters can do the current task is not the way to get it done. Maybe in certain situations specialists can come in, for example wolf issues where trapping and hunting just are not bringing the numbers down to objective levels. Only time will tell if this works and if it will be a staple in the elk management strategy.

 

[airlocksniffer]

On topic of the shoulder season, We spent 3 days roaming the area around White Sulphur Springs. I despise truck hunting, but that is all that we could do. The rule not allowing hunting on National forest meant that we had to camp on BLM and then go to the various walk in BMAs during the day. Put about 20 miles on foot in the 2 BMAs and close to 100 in the truck bouncing from accessible 1 mile X 1 mile state trust plots. Saw a total of 0 elk and crowds of hunters.

Talked to the fish and game ranger and he advised to come back in a few weeks. Told us that they would have a better level of organization and more opened land.

Thanks for the info. There are not a lot of state parcels bigger than a section in those HD's. Galt's BMA is pretty big (17000 acres I believe). It was sign in during the general season but not sure if it is still accessible during the shoulder. Too bad NF isn't allowed. I'll probably wait until after the new year to give it a go. Hopefully by then the novelty will have worn off.

 

[RamDreamer]

Only modern urbanites view hunting like that. And yes, you can be an urbanite in thinking but live in a rural area. Traditionally, hunters hunt to put meat on the table. Even with Montana's long hunting season, many of us cannot afford to take days off of work or school to go deep into the back country for "fair chase". So instead we put in weekends towards filling our tags, but with the lack of access to public lands, I am finding it hard to gain access to areas with terrain that I can get into and backout in 2 days.

Also, lowering the cost of out of state tags will not solve anything. It will only make more landowners lease their lands for outfitting as the demand surges. Cutting off even more public access land. It sounds like you have never been frustrated by seeing a herd of 200 elk less than a mile away on public lands, but having to walk 7 miles to get there. Starting the walk only to find out that you would need skis to acces the saddle to their canyon. Now imagine the frustration of asking the landowners to cross their field and being told no because they "outfit".

On topic of the shoulder season, We spent 3 days roaming the area around White Sulphur Springs. I despise truck hunting, but that is all that we could do. The rule not allowing hunting on National forest meant that we had to camp on BLM and then go to the various walk in BMAs during the day. Put about 20 miles on foot in the 2 BMAs and close to 100 in the truck bouncing from accessible 1 mile X 1 mile state trust plots. Saw a total of 0 elk and crowds of hunters.

Talked to the fish and game ranger and he advised to come back in a few weeks. Told us that they would have a better level of organization and more opened land.

Great info here and it certainly sounds like a hunt to me and not shooting fish in a barrel! Good luck striker3 and hopefully you will find some elk next time you are out.

 

[striker3]

Thanks for the info. There are not a lot of state parcels bigger than a section in those HD's. Galt's BMA is pretty big (17000 acres I believe). It was sign in during the general season but not sure if it is still accessible during the shoulder. Too bad NF isn't allowed. I'll probably wait until after the new year to give it a go. Hopefully by then the novelty will have worn off.

Yeah, Galts is where we put in the most mileage. There were quite a few tracks in the drainages though. Might be where they come back to once the pressure lets up.

 

[velvetfvr]

Wrong in so many ways i'm not going to bother debating it. One of us is ignorant, but it's not me.

BTW...If we all have a right to give our opinion. Do you have to agree with it for me to not get your nonsense?

Hunting is the art of killing and eating animals for the value they give us. The end goal is to KILL. People get to kill these animals and utilize they're resource. All the while it helps lower the population to the objective.

I don't mind people making it or wanting hunting to be challenging. But you still have to kill enough of the population to maintain the habitat and ecosystems. The fact you don't think it should happen because it's too easy is STUPID. Our ancestors hunted everyday.

Your the hunter that does this as a hobby or a sport. Animals still have to be killed!