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MT 900-20

Lots of good private land to hunt in those units if you had access. I think some of the biggest bulls come from that tag.

Sharing coordinates is unethical and illegal.

“Sharing coordinates is unethical and illegal.”

Huh?

Elk unit A1 go up Jackwagon Canyon until you come to a rusted piece of scrap mining equipment tAke a hard right walk 50 meters, cross the creek immediately favor going to your left up Slippery Dude slope, will come to old 1948 avalanche chute see the two extermly large pines half way up, known as Twin Pines, damn best 30 in mulie spot ever.

So directions would be unethical and illegal too?

What is the difference? Nothing! Absulutly NOTHING unethical or illegal about giving directions. Geez happens a million times a day. Couldn’t write citations fast enough, what a potential revenue stream maker, dream on. . . . $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ^$$$$$$ ~•

It is criminal how elk and hunters are managed in MT. I would categorize the pressure as significant. More every year too. The number of tags should be broken down by unit instead of the nonsensical 900 group of units. You for sure will run into people, unless you have access to private.

Just ask the guy who shot the world record for his spot! :)

That permit is to allow archery hunting of bulls in many of those units. You can still run into cow and deer hunters. But it is a couple thousand square miles. Find some block management areas and try to get reservations. I used that permit to hunt bulls in a 400 series unit, for many years, and I never saw much pressure, but it may be a different story a couple hundred miles east, and in better areas. If you draw that permit you can still hunt general units. Of course that is where I noticed a high number of hunters. Only about 350 to 370 of those permits go to non residents so it is possible the residents are mostly hunting weekends or a single week of the season and they only put in for the permit to have options or hunt a specific property.

Pretty sure Mule Power was making a joke himself....

How big of an area does the 900-20 tag cover?

Begins near Great Falls and encompasses areas all the way to the WY/SD border. They are giving out 4000 permits this year now. The G&F commission couldn’t do a worse job at managing elk in most of MT.

Dogman, if you can figure out how to manage elk in this area when most shelter up on private and access is limited or very expensive, let us know. I've got access to land that sometimes has elk and they drive the landowner crazy. (Both elk and people)

its not one area,, its 22 hunting districts and they are scattered out hundreds of miles

LKH, I would start with limited permits. Elk hate pressure, when they are hunted nonstop for 13 weeks they move. If they didn’t get relentless pressure they would hang out on public more. Trying to manage the archery elk harvest of 4000 hunters on 22 districts that span almost 400 miles is a joke. Most states that have quality elk hunting try to limit their management of a unit to one, or a handful of units lumped together, not 22.

The lumping of 22 units together was for the benefit of a few. It was for the benefit of non residents who were willing to pay big fees to landowners/outfitters in a few units in the SE part of the state. Since NR hunters can only get 10% of the tags in any draw, only a few could draw in these units every year. By getting the state to lump all of the units together, now 370 non residents can hunt those same few units.

Yep, and they get to hunt alongside 3,630 of their closest friends...the Nat Forest in SE Montana is some gorgeous country. It should hold far more elk. But when 4000 people can hunt the same area it simply can’t be managed effectively.

Dogman has this EXACTLY right...

I'm not sure how many residents hunt SE Montana, I get the 900 tag and don't. I can imagine that a lot of people do, especially after the huge bulls killed in recent years got publicity. I would hunt it, but I'm pretty sure it is crowded, plus it now is in one of the CWD areas. I can't think of any other logical reason for lumping all 22 units together, other than what I heard - it was to facilitate "pay to hunt" hunting on private land, which was mostly for non-residents. It was to get around the 10% rule for non-residents in these couple of units. I'm not anti non-residents, but lumping all of the units together has led to too many people hunting the same area - like the Custer National Forest. I wish that they would just go back to having separate permit quotas for all the individual units.

Perhaps what the state of Montana should consider is to have 2 900 tags, one tag for public land elk one tag for private land only, much like the shoulder season. Perhaps this would help push elk off of the private unto public ground, the FWP has stated this is there intention after all with the shoulder season for cow elk they have told us.

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