A lot of this is just political theatre.......mule deer doe tags have already been drastically cut in Montana, and in region 6&7, you cannot shoot a doe on public ground anymore. Most of these antlerless tags they are cutting are whitetail tags, and the amount of people in Montana shooting 3 or more deer is incredibly small. Makes for a good sound bite, but won't make any meaningful difference. While Montana had been guilty for too many antlerless tags for way too long, that has essentially gone away now.
The 2500 deer combo tags they are cutting for NR is also just more theatre......those tags still exist.....they just exist up at the big game combination level now. So, this will just force more NR into applying for the big game combo who used to apply for just the deer combination. This will reduce the odds in that category for everybody, including the applicants who are willing to return their deer tags. My guess is once it is all said and done, the actual cut will be far less then 2500 tags. This "cut" in tags is just a 50% cut in the number of successful big game combo applicants who elect to return their deer tag to the NR deer combination pool. Last year that was 5000 people. That number will be smaller in 2026 because now the big game combo odds will drop because of the deer combo applicants "moving up" to the big game combo. It won't take long for the hunting blogs who charge everybody to explain and show everybody how to do it..........So.......more theatre and sound bites.......
Doe tags and NR hunters in Montana........two hot button issues........the politicians on the Commission just passed a nice resolution that sounds really good, but, won't make any meaningful change.
As NR, we all have to understand that we are on the chopping block. I will get run out of here for this comment........but, personally an idea that I put in my comments to the FWP was that the NR tags are very oversubscribed. The FWP needs to dramatically raise the price of the NR tags to get closer to a 1:1 draw odds each year. Why would they leave that much money on the table every year?? Then, take this money, and dedicate it to enhancing and enlarging the Block Management Program. This would almost triple its funding. Hundreds of thousands of acres could easily be added to the program. More open acreage to hunt, less pressure on current public ground and BMA, less pressure on the animals, and less crowding. We need to find ways as NR to align ourselves with the R. Use NR $ to fund increased R access. Pitting R against NR.......we will lose.......and once those NR tags are "lost" you won't ever get them back........
