Montana deer management

[sschultz]

Could they regulate whitetails differently than mulies. The area I was hunting was marginal for mulies and I saw 18 or so does and one small buck. I saw a conservative 150 or so whitetails. In my conversations with ranchers and other hunters mule deer numbers were way down.

[sschultz]

And the whitetails were going into rut while I was out there.

[tjones]

. The second half of November is a special draw to hunt from November 10 till the closure similar to the Gardiner late season bull tag. .

This would do nothing. I have seen it tried in a few units in Montana and the only thing it did was concentrate hunters in the first two weeks of Nov. hammering the same number of bucks.

[MTGomer]

You usually have to put in at least a little effort to get a deer when it’s not rutting. Anybody can kill a deer off the road in eastern Montana in November.

[LCH]

If the perceived overpopulation issue is primarily on private land, why can't the landowners implement their own "earn a buck" rule? Shoot a doe with your buck, or you don't get to come back. Or, if the problem is too many whitetails, allow hunters to only take a whitetail with their any-deer tag. I don't see a need for FWP to wade in this specific issue.

[Randy11]

And the whitetails were going into rut while I was out there.

Bummer, looks like I'm taking my vacation 7 weeks too late.

[2ski]

If the perceived overpopulation issue is primarily on private land, why can't the landowners implement their own "earn a buck" rule? Shoot a doe with your buck, or you don't get to come back. Or, if the problem is too many whitetails, allow hunters to only take a whitetail with their any-deer tag. I don't see a need for FWP to wade in this specific issue.

I know of one that does this. Pissed me off when I found out he charged hunters $25 to hunt. Then I found out, he gives it back if you come back and bring him a doe. He keeps it if you kill a buck. He wants the herd thinned out. This helps achieve that. We got to shoot bucks there as it was a good friend of mine's long time friend who owned the place. It was my buddy's dad's first deer thus the allowance for us. We were not able to shoot all the sage grouse we saw however.....

I hunt a place where the landowner asks that we shoot does. Very few get to hunt the place. Sure his buddies get to shoot bucks, but I like having a place to hunt so I keep shooting does.

[scubohuntr]

I think that there could be something collectively brought together with those ideas. CWD is already here, killing everything isn't gonna make it go away. It's be proven time and time again. Eastern Alberta is a prime example.

CWD is here in a couple of places. The way to stop it would have been to prohibit deer and elk farms thirty years ago. No, killing everything won't make it go away, but it's a contagious disease. Less contact=less transmission. Just like avoiding malls and airports during flu season. Nothing will stop it entirely, but maybe it would spread slower with lower deer density. Any change that restricts hunting opportunity will increase deer density. There are places around the state with way too many deer, particularly on winter range. More does taken out of those areas would improve the health of the herd, and reduce the risk of diseases, like CWD or bovine tuberculosis, crashing the system entirely.

Some areas are below objective. Further restricting the number of tags in those areas might allow more bucks to get older, depending upon why the populations are lower in the first place.

I'd like to see more mature bucks too, but the way to do that is to change the hunters, not the regulations. The old-school position of "Bucks only" is great for building deer populations. Not so much for improving trophy potential. Changing that pattern is going to require changing society, which these days means media. How many outdoors programs do you see where the first thing out of the host's mouth on seeing a deer (or an elk, or a pronghorn) is inches? The obsession with score is why hunting is not doing a good job controlling populations. A generation or so back it was important to build the herds. The best way to do that was taking out only mature bucks. Now we need to control the populations. You can't control the populations in the long term by shooting bucks, unless you shoot enough of them so many does are not being bred. Nobody wants that. The B tags are out there, people just need to use them.

I think starting the rifle season in late October is a good thing; it gets a lot of the hunters out of the field before the rut starts. Yeah, there will be a lot of younger bucks killed, but most of the old ones are still there. Of course, they get thoroughly educated in the month or so before the rut begins, so they are even harder to find. I wouldn't be opposed to a muzzleloader season during the rut, provided it's a real muzzleloader season- no scopes, no inlines, just traditional style rifles. Go ahead and use your inline in the weapons restriction areas, just not during the late season.

[easternmt]

Until MT fwp decides to manage mule deer for quality and I mean quality as a hunt and in population age class instead of hunter opportunity nothing will change. Just my two cents.

[8andcounting]

I could be any hunter...... ready to go rounds again?

ha, yes anytime . why would u limit the rest but leave archery otc...... archery is becoming more popular than ever .

[Crumb]

We could just as well be talking about Minnesota, with the exception of the se corner of the state it’s a free for all as well. So I guess we all have to just take it for what it is. Oh and by the way Minnesota doesn’t even limit the number of tags, resident or non-resident.

[sschultz]

That being said Minnesota sucks when it comes to deer management.

[Crumb]

You got that right!

[EYJONAS!]

ha, yes anytime . why would u limit the rest but leave archery otc...... archery is becoming more popular than ever .

I guess in my mind when I threw the comment out. It keeps the "opportunity" alive. Sure it's popular but it's a serious limitation to compared to the rifle game. I'm not saying my ideas are perfect, just thoughts.

[sschultz]

Some of you guys from Montana might know this but can a landowner that puts some of land in Block Management limit hunter to Whitetails only or does only.

[8andcounting]

I guess in my mind when I threw the comment out. It keeps the "opportunity" alive. Sure it's popular but it's a serious limitation to compared to the rifle game. I'm not saying my ideas are perfect, just thoughts.

Ok . It's actually not a horrible idea but we know it's not gonna happen . Every blog or arcticlr I read where Fwp issues a statement regarding deer the big word they use every single time is Opportunity, they say it 1,000 times . Opportunities....

[8andcounting]

Some of you guys from Montana might know this but can a landowner that puts some of land in Block Management limit hunter to Whitetails only or does only.

Yea I believe he could . He can pretty much make the rules .

[Greenhorn]

In MT each district should be managed specifically for that district. Like that'll ever happen

If I were boss, general season areas would be September for archery season. Rifle would be Oct 1-20. Zero buck hunting after that, antlerless hunting on private land only all through Nov-Dec.

[ShootsManyBullets]

Make the rut hunt a special draw

[Greenhorn]

No rut hunt- zero

[JLS]

Some of you guys from Montana might know this but can a landowner that puts some of land in Block Management limit hunter to Whitetails only or does only.

He can make it for three legged deer only if he wants to.

[Straight Arrow]

No rut hunt- zero

Amen!

[JLS]

In MT each district should be managed specifically for that district. Like that'll ever happen

If I were boss, general season areas would be September for archery season. Rifle would be Oct 1-20. Zero buck hunting after that, antlerless hunting on private land only all through Nov-Dec.

You didn't just kick over the apple cart, you're launching a Minuteman missile here.

[Greenhorn]

yeah, radical. Still 7 weeks of hunting deer. Imagine all the tears if something like that would happen, until 5 years down the road people realized, hey, Montana deer hunting is pretty great.

[Straight Arrow]

"Make Montana mature buck deer hunting great again!"