I don't want to start a huge argument regarding the 5 October opening date. But I can provide some information/rationale. All may not apply everywhere.
In general, it's important to think a little outside the box and look at real data. The harvest data tends to show we will actually see slightly lower harvest with the early opener. I'll get back to that.
In 2005 the deer opener was moved from Oct 5 to Oct 10. In some areas (Salmon Region, and I believe Upper Snake and other areas), that change included extending the season to the end of October. Relatively high harvest that year prompted shortening the season from the end, for example to Oct 24. So in Salmon Region we ended up with a 15-day season (10-24 Oct), instead of the previous 18-day season (5-22 Oct). Returning to the Oct 5 opener would allow hunting of some higher elevation areas where deer tend to migrate out early and provide a few more days for people to be in the field.
Back to the data. As part of a larger analysis, we asked a university professor to look at effects of several aspects of season length and timing on harvest. There is a fair amount of variability, but the general trend was that past buck harvest was lower when seasons opened earlier. Harvest also tends to increase with length of season, but the effect is quite a bit smaller than that of opening date. I could provide some specific examples where harvest increased in 2005 even though the season was shortened from 5-31 Oct to 10-31 Oct, but what's probably more important is the large-scale, long-term data set that shows these relationships. Will it mean every Oct 5 opener will have less harvest than every Oct 10 opener? Absolutely not. Will the strength of the relationship vary based on different areas, weather conditions, and all the other variations that occur? Certainly. Is it likely that the trend of somewhat lower harvest with an Oct 5 opener will fall in line with average, long-term, patterns of past harvest? Yes.
Here are a couple conclusions from the report "If a management goal is to increase harvest levels of deer, managers might
recommend starting deer seasons later,... In
general, starting hunting seasons later in the fall appeared to have a greater effect on [increased] harvest and
hunter success than did longer season lengths."
So, the reasoning is if we can provide a little more time for hunters to be afield and typically expect similar or even reduced harvest, perhaps reduce hunter congestion, is that something hunters would like to see. If hunters clearly don't think it's an appropriate thing to do, then it likely won't make it through the season setting process.
Tom Keegan
IDFG Salmon Region Wildlife Manager
