Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game About Time.....(thank you MT FWP)

...just dont forget your checkbook.

keep in mind shrap they aint all good eggs.....a couple of them over here tried to shut down our kids fishing day cause we were "guiding" the kids and all our boat drivers should be required to join MOGA to hold it......

Shrapnel you going be at the MOGA deal in Jaunary? Just got my letter in the mail today.

I should clarify here:

I am not a spokesman for outfitters, I have worked with them with programs to develop more exposure to the youth hunters of today. This included putting together the hunts on a private ranch with meals that would satisfy the most discriminating palate.

The Canvas tent was donated for the hunt, the rifles and scopes were donated to each kid for them to keep, taxidermy was paid for the mounting of the antelope.

This was not taking a kid out in your pickup and showing him an antelope to shoot, these hunts were at the time, one of the most significant events in these kid's lives.

I have helped MOGA with their banquets, as the funds derived from them were put toward:

Big Hearts Program for disabled and other negatively affected youth hunters.

Womens Cancer survivor Flyfishing retreats.

Disabled American Veterans.

and other worthy causes.

I spent 25 years teaching Hunter Ed to young people because there is too much focus on other distractions that don't get our young people interested in hunting and the outdoors. In being involved with this program I encountered thousands of young people with the hope of providing them an alternative to the electronic gadgets of today.

The continuation of hunting relies entirely on youth recruitment. Making hunting seasons designed for drawing permits to shoot big deer, contributes more to the demise of hunting than apathy.

Hunters tend to be selfish, they want big deer, big elk, easy access, they want to be the only one out there and have it to themselves, all the while forgetting that hunters need to be united not divided.

I have hunted Montana my whole life. I live here because of the opportunities it gives me to do just that. I do share my hunts and spots with people with the idea of genuine brotherhood, companionship and an eye to the value of the resource and the perpetuation of that resource.

I don't trophy hunt, but I do shoot and appreciate good trophies. I am not afraid to shoot a small deer or a cow elk. If I'm not hunting, I just got back or I am planning the next outing.

Montana has so much to offer, I am compelled to contribute as much as I can to continue that tradition...

I was born in Bozeman and attended school in Belgrade. When I started hunting in 1966 you could buy an A and B tag. This allowed you to shoot two deer of any sort, and there were plenty of deer. There really were not many white tall in the around the valley at that time so most of my hunting was for mule deer. I mostly hunted the west side of the Bridger, the Gallatin, the Madison, the Tobacco Roots and Horse Shoe Hills. You could find mule deer in any of those places, what you could not find were the hobby farms, Mc-Mansions and the housing developments in the foot hills. Today a lot of the land that I hunted as a teenager and young man are covered with homes and 20 acre ranches. Take a drive south of Ennis at night and count lights. Drive between Livingstone and Billings. Look North of Bozeman on a clear night, you almost can't see the stars because of the city lights. Go west of Belgrade, solid homes! A lot of the problem in western Montana is due to development removing habitat. I doubt the deer numbers and quality will ever come back in this area. I see more quality mule deer every year within the city limits of Billings than I ever see on public land in the eastern portion of the state. Why? No predators and plenty of food every year regardless of weather.
I am quite sad the my grand children will probably never become interested in hunting, there just is not enough, an most likely will never be enough opportunity. As a previous poster said, if a youth has to wait until he or she is 16 to get a tag and then wait another few years to draw again, you have lost them. One or two generations and we have lost hunting. I would hope that there is some management scheme that will save hunting in Montana. My fear is that there is too much money involved and too many varied agendas to be satisfied.
I am afraid we may be seeing an end to the type of hunting we have enjoyed in the past. Someone else said once we go to draws they are here forever, my guess is that this is true. If the Breaks get shut down I really wonder if the Feds will ever let them open again? Just wondering and worrying.

Shrapnel - It sounds like we agree on a lot more than we disagree on. I get more enjoyment from a kid shooting their first deer or biggest deer, than I do shooting one myself. This is in large part because I look at it as banking one more hunter or supporter of hunting for life. I take them out and show them how to do it right, no F150 sneaks or shooting them off the road, as so many of them would be taught otherwise. I've taken several of them hunting bear or elk to the west - wall tent, woodstove, and all that goes with life in camp. As for MOGA, well, they do a lot of good things. They also were a driving force behind defeating the corner crossing bill. Can't get behind an organization that fights to keep us all off of public lands.

it appears that this whole issue comes down to resource management,,
obviously the resource Deer antelope,is no where near it was 3 years ago,,,
youth hunters are a resource , they seem to be disappearing, in the small town I live in I invite every kid at the school to take them on some kind of hunt every year with me and my kid, very few takers, many say mom and dad wont eat the meat so I cant go,,,i end up taking a few but now what I would like to,,,

I would gladly give up my deer or antelope tag every year to kids

some times drastic times call for drastic changes, this north east section of the state is in a sad state for big game animals,, I spent lots of time this summer fall making calls to biologist, wardens, unbelievable answers as to how great the big game populations are, down a little still above objectives, 70 fawns to 100 does, 25 bucks to 100 does,

early youth season, cut 2 weeks off mule deer season, start 2 weeks earlier if necessary, manage individual units proactively not reactively, cut the doe tags off for couple years in the areas that need it, pretty easy to knock the population down if it comes to that,

raise the price of tags and licenses except for youth and seniors, double the price,, but mandate some results from fish and game for this money,, no new fleet of pickups and new admin assistants,
fish and game gets more money but the sportsman still cant find a deer there is something wrong with that,,,
landowners with animal damage complaints should be mandated to show public use to reduce the problem or not one cent of public money or labor goes to them,,,pretty clear cut, use the resource that didn't harvest an animal to manage these complaints,

the days of driving every two track in the country and using the window as a rest are gone and youth need to be prepared a little differently as to how to be successful,,,,


I moved here to ne Montana for the way of life and the hunting opportunities to raise my son around, the way things are going these opportunities are disappearing at an alarming rate,

these kids today will be making decisions effecting our sporting opportunities in the future,,,,,if there successful and positive now it will reflect later on I believe,,

Anyone that says MOGA has done any good for sportsmen has not been paying attention or been a part of the past legislative sessions.

I just got a call from Montana FWP about my hunt this year. They asked several questions. I told them I didn't see any deer or elk, but saw 100's of wolves and a few grizzlies....in fact I had to kill a grizzly in self defense. I told them I did some "sound" shooting, but I didn't think I killed anything.

Seriously though, they did just call. The gentleman said they were doing a survey? I've never had a call like that before. I guess they're doing routine follow up.

they do it every year.....the wife and i get called more years than not....

I assumed it was a routine thing, but didn't know if had anything to do with the issue being discussed in this thread. They asked about animal numbers being up or down and I told them it was the first time I'd been out during any big game season so I had nothing to compare my experience with.

I did tell them I knew a few MT boys from the Internet....

Told them I knew of SamO, BGG, Travis and Rancho...he said, "Avaitors, drink!....and GFY."

Told them I knew of John Barsness...and they assured me I would never draw a moose tag.

Told them I knew of Shrapnel....and they told me I could come back and shoot any animal in the state as long as he was with me.

Too much money in it. I think lowering the amount/numbers and increasing the cost would be the target. What amount is anybody's guess. In conjunction, we will see, and should see, a resident license increase.

The best idea might be some sort of every other year requirement for residents. I hate to get into minutia ;but, maybe residents could buy a white tail tag one year, a mulie the next and an elk the next. Assign a third of the hunters to each group initially and separate them as such for two rotations. After 6 years of that, weather and disease notwithstanding, we would probably have a pretty healthy heard.

The fact is harvest limitation is the only answer. How to accomplish that can be done a multitude of ways, many of which have been discussed herein.

I agree with MuleDeer, a draw system is just like any proposed temporary tax. Neither one is or will be temporary.

Maybe whack a few more wolves and lions as part of the whole plan. Put them in that rotation too.

I didn't read all the posts, and I dont know jack squat about Montana. But I've been in a conversation with a bioligist who specializes in deer management for another state, on a semi-related topic. I read several of the first posts where some people were concerned that limiting doe harvest would negatively impact buck population.

His comments are that deer (at least whitetail) herds are managed by doe harvest rates. It will not statistically have an impact on the overall number of bucks if you limit their harvest as long as we're talking about a reasonable number of buck tags.

The conversation was in context of limiting Tennessee's 3 buck limit in an effort to increase the average age of harvested bucks. He said that limiting the quota to two, or even one buck per person would have little to no affect when looking at it on the stateside herd level, and he has the statistical facts to back up his argument.

I have no dog in the race, but according to at least that one bioligist, reducing the doe harvest should have a quick, and significant impact.

I would imagine that Montana will be a deer hotspot in 5 years.

Thanks for the great responses and personal views.


I'm not a deer biologist, just going on observations.

Take a kid out hunting the Breaks and see how bored they get when they see 1 deer in two days. That's not really gonna get them hooked....

I don't think it's a 'cycle' when there aren't any deer left. That's called a [bleep]' problem. How do they bounce back when there are hardly any left?

Maybe some of the old time Montana sages here can remember a Winter like 2010 but I can't.


Couple guys said limit adult tags and keep kids unlimited.

That would be fine with me. Actually a great idea.


And no doubt public land is worse than private. Simply too much pressure on the already low deer numbers. Lots of guys from the west side coming over because of the wolf, lots of outta staters, lots of locals.


Reduced access due to out of state buyers locking things up, leasing....



Not trying to cry wolf here but I honestly think reducing tags would be a good idea.

Simply observing what I see here in NORTHEAST Montana.

I've noticed a number of guys that usually make an Eastern MT exodus from over here now stay put and hunt mountain deer.

I wonder if you guys eventually go to permit only whether or not things will flip and we'll start seeing NE MT guys making trips over here. That's the good thing about the size and variation of the state I guess, there's always options.

For what it's worth, Fwp put up tentative changes for 2014, and it's status quo for buck tags, not sure if anyone's posted this here or not yet-

http://fwp.mt.gov/doingBusiness/insideFwp/commission/meetings/agenda.html?meetingId=31686014

The only things worse than the Mule deer numbers in Eastern Montana is our Antelope numbers.

Both are in a severe decline.

Having any tags issued for Antelope is beyond me.

Be nice to see any improvement in both animals numbers.

The money also pays 2 full time lobyists to carry out MOGA's mission. Which is to promote and develope the outfitting industry. Even if that means the resident sportsman, or the resource takes it in the shorts.

MOGA only gets involved in issues that line their wallets. There's many times they could weigh in on some sort of resource bill and they stay away.

With our resource on the decline MOGA opted to try and increase non resident tags by 3000 again this past session. Then when that failed they through out an increase of 1500. Even though we haven't sold out the last couple of years. Could we support more tags?

They tried (and failed because of the efforts of real sportsman's groups) to do away with the Missouri Breaks permits during archery season so NR hunters could come in mass, and more lands could be leased up.

They ran a bill to open baiting of bears in grizzly county, even if that left the bear on the endangered species list and gave the anti's all the weaponry they needed to keep it there.

I-161 was the will of the people. They spoke loud and clear, but MOGA isn't listening. We the people are tired of the abuses of those trying to just utilize the public's resource for the dollar, and not willing to ensure that the resource stays secure. BTW, most outfitters I've talked too, told me I-161 has helped them.

MOGA usually sides with UPOM (united property owners of Montana) to lock resident sportsman off public lands. That suits them just fine as that helps them use public lands that are landlocked because of exclusive ranch holdings.

So tell me again how there's so called sportsman's groups out there that are woffs in sheeps hides, but MOGA is a sportsman's savior.

Your not a spokesman for MOGA but you go to their banquets?