I hunt a friend's ranch in eastern Montana. It is a fantastic place with a river, irrigated crops and alfalfa fields. Hunting is tightly controlled and there are only 3 bucks a year taken. And we only shoot the top end bucks.
My nephew and I took great muley bucks the first 2 days of the season. We saw the most young whitetail bucks we had seen in many years. We went home empty in 2019 and didn't draw deer tags in 2021.
I know this is an artificial situation compared to public areas but it shows the effects over harvest can have. The problem is too many tags, both resident and non resident and people shooting smaller or immature bucks. I also don't understand any doe tags being given out at all.
I'll not argue some habitat and climate issues exist, but FWP has to adjust tags to match what's good for the herd, not their bottom line.
This is exactly what the MLD program in TX does, matches the tag allocations to the landowner with the census' taken every year. Ours is 65,000 acres of private ground, max # of bucks killed in one year is 5, zero doe tags ever. There is no agriculture here, just a working cattle ranch with lots of water (windmills). Ours is a drought problem, not overhunting.
