Montana Trophy Mule Deer Areas Are In Jeopardy

hvfd21walker · Jan 6, 2016

Montana said:
I'll first say I had mixed emotions about raising any attention to this matter. But ultimately I trust the Sportsman to make the right decision. FWP has proposed an increase to the tag allocation in unit 261 and 270 (top 2 units in the state). An initial reaction might have some excited about this increase, but I am here to tell you these units cannot sustain trophy quality with this amount of permits. There is no doubt the deer numbers are extremely high in these units, but the number of trophy class bucks are not. With this amount of tag allocation trophy class deer will be far and few between within just a few years.

I encourage you and others to consider the full spectrum effect this will have long term. There are better options to reduce buck numbers in these units with various types of management options. 3 pt only, 3 pts. or less on one side, youth management hunts with direction from the state, etc.

Public comment was last night. And our new biologist from Texas openly said "I support opportunity over quality". Please consider voting against this. YOU can fill out public comment online.

Below is the link to the proposal AND PUBLIC COMMENT: Deer Master List - Region 2

http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/publicComments/2015/2016-17huntingSeasonChangesProposed.html

Thank you for your time.

Montana could have not said this better.
I am fortunate enough that I have grown up in these units. They are starting to be overrun by management deer. These units are some of the very few units in MT that are considered trophy class. The new biologist does not understand this. She is for all hunter opportunity. These units aren't designed for that. Most of MT is a hunter opportunity state. I strongly disagree raising the permits in these units. If the state wants to raise permits they need to do so with management permits. Not trophy permits. Please take your time and go comment on this.
Best Regards Travis

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joens · Jan 6, 2016

Thanks for bringing this up . I was not aware of the situation in those units. most of my experience is on the east side of the state where I see most of the proposed changes as positive. There is no shortage of opportunity in Montana . There is definitely room to leave a few areas for quality.

bigsky2 · Jan 6, 2016

Just sent my comments in, I have been applying for one of these permits for 16 years and I don't want to disappointed if I ever draw. It looks like they are going to have elk shoulder seasons all over the state next year too. I am not really in favor of putting unnecessary stress on elk in January and February. What do the WY residents think about some of the August cow hunts you have down there?

7 Mag · Jan 6, 2016

Wow not sure how many additional permits their talking about but I agree too many is not a good thing!

hvfd21walker · Jan 6, 2016

7 Mag said:
Wow not sure how many additional permits their talking about but I agree too many is not a good thing!

15 more permits per unit

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mallardsx2 · Jan 6, 2016

How many permits are allocated originally?

hvfd21walker · Jan 6, 2016

45 in 270 and 25 in 261

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mallardsx2 · Jan 6, 2016

15 more is a significant increase for that many original tags is an intense increase. Did they give a reason for such a significant increase? Or was it solely to provide more hunter opportunity?

hvfd21walker · Jan 6, 2016

mallardsx2 said:
15 more is a significant increase for that many original tags is an intense increase. Did they give a reason for such a significant increase? Or was it solely to provide more hunter opportunity?

The new biologist is from Texas. She solely is for hunter opportunity is all. These units have been premier units for awhile. My feeling is if they want to kill more deer give the extra tags to the youth for management deer.

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TimberJunkie · Jan 6, 2016

Booooooo!!!! Bad plan. I have family in the Bitterroot, and even though they would love to draw that tag. More tags is not the solution. I used to hunt elk in 270 for years, anyone remember the French Basin Elk slaughter in 2005 i think, Open up general tag for cows the last week of the season, 250 elk killed in about 30 minutes.... i hunted all over 270 and have seen hundreds of bucks, but very few big mature bucks.

I digressed there.... If anything I think that Montana should add some trophy Units. Perhaps a few in the Breaks area, or the Miles city area. areas with some good public land access and decent populations. Many areas just get hunted way too hard, and after 5 weeks of rifle season and the rut, its hard to maintain good quality bucks anywhere out east.

7 Mag · Jan 6, 2016

That's a big increase! It goes to show that sometimes the so called experts don't know what the heck their doing. Kind of like the wolf introduction or not controlling the grizzly population. Amazing

6mm Remington · Jan 6, 2016

TimberJunkie said:
Booooooo!!!! Bad plan. I have family in the Bitterroot, and even though they would love to draw that tag. More tags is not the solution. I used to hunt elk in 270 for years, anyone remember the French Basin Elk slaughter in 2005 i think, Open up general tag for cows the last week of the season, 250 elk killed in about 30 minutes.... i hunted all over 270 and have seen hundreds of bucks, but very few big mature bucks.

I digressed there.... If anything I think that Montana should add some trophy Units. Perhaps a few in the Breaks area, or the Miles city area. areas with some good public land access and decent populations. Many areas just get hunted way too hard, and after 5 weeks of rifle season and the rut, its hard to maintain good quality bucks anywhere out east.

I agree completely with everyone that they should stick with it and keep it a quality unit. It also would be great areas as others have said for kids to get some more tags for management deer. All for keeping our kids in the outdoors and enjoying it! I would like to add one more thing. I know several FWP guys who work in this area and part of the problem of not having some real quality bucks is that some Native Americans have begun targeting the deer in these districts. It happened quite a few years ago in Rock Creek. With hard work from FWP and sportsman, the moose population in Rock Creek was really good. I believe it resulted in 5 bull tags and about the same number of cow moose permits. Native American folks started coming from various areas of the state and shooting all of the moose. It only took a couple years and the permits tanked as did the moose populations. We have made some real mistakes in the past and I am for Native Americans to have aboriginal hunting rights, but I think that truly should mean that they hunt like they did 150 years ago. On horseback or foot and the weapon should be longbow or recurve. That would be hunting just like it used to be when these agreements were reached. Otherwise I feel that too much pressure is put on the resource.

I also would like to see Montana put some of the Missouri Breaks into a good quality trophy area. There is fabulous habitat and some awesome genetics. The populations have also not been very good in most breaks areas for a few years yet they keep letting hunters shoot deer in these districts. I particularly hunt in 417 and deer numbers really suck there. Antelope are down as well in unit 480. I would have no issues with deer seasons and antelope seasons in specific areas like this completely shut down for a couple years with NO HARVESTS to give the poor critters a chance to come back, and then manage the numbers for a few more years to get the herds back to where they should be. The problem with that is that FWP is solely funded with hunter tag dollars and they need to sell tags to make money. It's time that we hard fund FWP with some type of legislation to supplement their tag and license money's. I can understand their need to sell tags, but the resource needs to be taken care of first and foremost.

I am all for them keeping the numbers of permits down in the Bitterroot and helping preserve this great area to be able to find and hunt a once in a lifetime buck.

David

HeartElk1 · Jan 8, 2016

Thanks for bringing this to our attention guys. I certainly agree with you and I just put my vote in too. Hopefully the same eedback coming from some "out-of-state" hunters like me will help add some oomph.

ThreeTikkas · Jan 9, 2016

I just threw my two cents in. I agree an increase in tags would be a mistake in those units. Don't know if it will help,but we gotta try.

Matthoek21 · Jan 9, 2016

Sent in my public comment. Hope it helps. Keep us posted.

Montana Trophy Mule Deer Areas Are In Jeopardy

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