Big jump in MT harvest numbers, 2016 to 2017. What's up?

I know a guy who did the survey for FWP and he had another note pad of his own writing down information on where hunters saw and/or shot elk. After he told me that, I am very vague on what I tell FWP callers. I don't lie just tell them what district I hunted and what I saw but no specific locations.
FYI
John
 
A lot has to do with the snow levels, if we get quite a bit of early snow like 2017, the elk are pushed down lower and more of them get shot. Now for this last season, we didn't get enough snow to push them down and even though we had way more hunters in this area than normal, the kill was down, and I was told that from the game warden.
 
Thought I would check back a couple more years, and turns out the 2016 stats seem to be abnormally low. As someone else mentioned, 2015 and 2017 are closer.

Thanks for the feedback, lesson seems to be that one should assume a large margin of error in the stats.

Sandman
 
I have been called every year that I hunted MT. Once for deer first and then march/april for elk. they don't just ask kill numbers but ask about location, sightings of elk/deer and other wildlife. have been asked about predators too. perhaps i just had good conversationalists call me...
 
Randy11 said:
November 2015 was a big snow month. You'll notice the harvest numbers were almost as high then as they were in 2017. Many bulls were killed in 2015, meaning less bulls were available in 2016. 2016 was also an incredibly warm, dry fall. There were no large snow events that caused the normal migrations during rifle season.

There's a strong correlation between November snowfall and harvest numbers in Region 3.

I agree with the above that FWP harvest numbers are garbage, but in this instance there is an explanation.
Click to expand...

This. It was big weather events pushing animals into places where they were accessible to hunters. 2016 had dismal snow.
 
Northwoods Labs said:
I never understood why Montana and other western states don't go to mandatory reporting. More data means a more confident estimate
Click to expand...

If Montana did mandatory reporting...they couldn't inflate harvest stats to sell $1100 NR combo tags. Montana harvest stats and populations estimates are a joke...anyone know how they estimate whitetail deer numbers? Its funny...and sad.
 
I would definitely attribute that the increased harvest was due to heavy snow and cold in 2017 as well as the shoulder seasons.
 
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