Success Rates and Shoulder Seasons in Montana

I have attached a tab-delimited .txt file with this post. Fire it up in Excel and you should be able to see the data I am referencing in a coherent way.

I downloaded the FWP's Hunter Success data for 2012,2013, and 2014. I have reduced this spreadsheet to only show the HD's in which Shoulder Seasons will occur next year according to the Elk Master List Cover Sheet.

I added two fields: Hunters/Total Harvest Percentage for which the formula was: ((Harvest/Hunters)*100)
DaysHunted/Harvest Percentage for which the formula was: ((Harvest/Hunter Days)*100)

I don't know how hunter success is typically figured, so I did both. Additional fields displaying data about cows,bulls,6 pt bulls, etc are also in the spreadsheet if you want to dig deeper.

Some things to consider:

-I just scanned and referenced the Elk Master List, I could've missed something.
-Not all shoulder seasons are created equal
-Some districts may have other changes in addition to the shoulder season proposal
-Nearly all of Region 5 seems to be recommended for shoulder season, I left that data out
-There was no data on hunter days or hunter numbers for 2013, so it was not possible to figure success rates out for that year.
-Not all Hunters are created equal

My quick and dirty takeaway:

In the many of the HDs in which shoulder seasons are proposed, on any given day the average hunter can expect a less than 3% chance of getting an elk. Meaning to attain a better than average chance(>50%) at filling their elk tag over the entire season, the average hunter would need to hunt at least 17 days (to bring their chances above 50%). Basically, it is already hard to get an elk in many of these HDs, and it is about to get much harder.

P.S. I am not so good at math.

this will get interesting

Nameless Range said:

I added two fields: Hunters/Total Harvest Percentage for which the formula was: ((Harvest/Hunters)*100)

Click to expand...

It's usually this.

I believe the FWP's logic behind these seasons is exactly as you state: hunters are not killing many elk.

Interesting. Along the same line as the OP, I wanted to see what the elk observations looked like since '08 in HDs that had shoulder seasons proposed for next year. I couldn't believe that a government agency would publish such inconsistent formatting, but I suppose whining about that isn't relevant to the discussion.

I could only decipher numbers for 24 (of 44) districts due to combined surveys, unclear descriptions, or inconsistent (incomparable) methods.

Anyway, here are some graphs of the numbers.

One poignant observation comes from looking at region 5 numbers. I realize that region 5 is largely private land, but in two districts (502 and 510) that have shoulder season proposals in for next year, there has only been one year (2012) that had more than 100 elk observed in both districts combined. How does a shoulder season make sense in those districts?

Not sure what, if any, help these are, but thought others might be interested.

I will also say that this post is not intended to bash the biologists or those conducting the surveys. It is a tall task to try and get an accurate count of elk in each HD and I sincerely think that the biologists do their best to accomplish that.

Region 2



Region 3



Region 4



Region 5

The only data the FWP is concerned with is the 60K elk that are over objective, that need to be killed. Not hard to justify a 6 month season when that is your goal.

The rest if fluff...

belly-deep said:

I believe the FWP's logic behind these seasons is exactly as you state: hunters are not killing many elk.

Click to expand...

And that's cause elk don't live by roads.

TimeOnTarget said:

And that's cause elk don't live by roads.

Click to expand...

Your point is?

That's interesting info.

I ordered the data by Hunters/Total Harvest for 2012 and 2014 and cleaned it up so it is more readable. Not sure what is going on in region 1 and 292, those areas are at/below objective. Guess that is the success rate they are shooting for.

What I hate to see is those high success rates plummet. If you could convince me that wouldn't happen I'd be all over the shoulder seasons.

The fact that they have region 1 on the list for a shoulder season absolutely blows my mind. Frankly, we would be better if they didn't manage the elk at all.

belly-deep, that point speaks volumes about the real rationale behind shoulder seasons. It's all about elk tolerance. It's not about habitat, over-population, disease potential, migration corridors, or any real wildlife management factors or concerns ... it's all about political pressure to remove elk from some areas of Montana's landscape. It is a sad era and perhaps a precursor to Back to the Brink!

One thing to consider in your estimate, from data I have seen in the past, success rates decline with the length of the season. For example, most of the harvest takes place during the opening days of the season, tapering off steeply as the season continues.

Something else to keep in mind... the "estimates" they have are garbage.