Montana hunters

[Gentry]

Just got back from a morning sit There is a front moving in and its just now starting to snow. Not a deer seen. and nothing came in to the horns this morning. on the way out I thought I would take a walk though to see if any scrapes have been hit. nothing fresh they all had frost in them. but look what poped up in the last day.
 

I think that the reason why the EHD was so bad this last year is from all the standing water. think it might be a breeding ground for the midge. What do you think or know?

[Montanawidower]

Well I'm changing my tune... I saw 25 plus deer this morning along the river and shot 2 of them.  I took a smallish buck and a young doe.  I passed on two others, because two is plenty of meat to bone and pack across the river.     I spaced my camera and had to snap cell phone pictures?  Does anyone know how to transfer those to a computer?  

Jeff

[tim roberts]

Jeff,
If you have email on your phone you can just email them to yourself, if not some phones have chips in them that the pictures are saved on, your cell phone store can tell you how to get them off the phone.

[sbschindler]

Up here on the Milk the EHD was nothing short of devastating,, 90 to 95% die off, the winter was bad enough and the flooding no doubt had a serious effect but the EHD was over the top.. about 10 years ago or so we broke the record for annual snow fall with 59 1/2 inches,, well last winter we broke the record again. but we didn't just break it by a few inchees or a foot we broke the record by 50 inches,, thats right we almost doubled the previous record. The EHD outbreak was perfect storm in the making,, we had about twice as many deer as we needed so they were severaly overpopulated and we had tons of water,, and the bugs had thousands of acres of breeding grounds, water water everywhere.. The winter took care of our antelope and the mule deer did take a hit also.. on some of my stands where I would see 20 deer I am now seeing 4 or 5,, and thats in the good spots some are void.. I have seen a few (2) nice bucks 120-130 type deer, I hope these deer breeed every doe in the area as they must have a very good immune  system that I hope gets passed on.. Anyway we hunt what we can and I enjoy it no matter what.

[sbschindler]

I would like to add that we aint out of the woods yet. if we have a normal winter we are going to loose more whitetails,, the acres and acres of flood water killed most of the alphalfa and winter forage for the deer, the brouse line for the deer is at least 7-10 feet high no leaves no nothing for them eat. so we are holding our breath up here and hoping for the best.. here is a pic of the line the flood waters left on the Milk.. this pic was taken a few days ago..

 

[Milk River Stickman]

I can vouch for Howler...I estimated up to 97% less deer than last november. Howler--you chasing mulies or what?  I am thinking about putting a couple of those yearling whitetail in my freezer and save them the heartache of this winter.

Gentry...that is one cool find...sad story, but at least you found him.  I look more forward to shed hunting than I do bow hunting anymore, and last spring was nearly a total bust with the flood waters coming up into several feet of snow.

[sbschindler]

stickman yeah I don't think you will hurt the population at all by taking a few youngens for the freezer,, I'm still sitting in a tree watching the milk freeze over,, I do like to hunt Mule deer but not this time of the year.. I like sept better..

[Montanawidower]

I feel your pain NE guys.  I took my annual pheasant hunt up in your neck of the state and heard similar stories from everybody I met.  

Also, my sister inlaw's family has a large ranch in North Central Montana.  Her dad outfits and says the whitetails are non existent around him.  He also said the Muleys are still in velvet in many parts of the breaks.  Have you heard of this.  Supposedly the biologist are reporting frost bite to their testicles?  I'm not making this up!  Also the game processors are saying they have had about 20% of their normal deer and antelope business in the area.  

After hearing all of this, I will not complain about my slower than usual hunting.  At least I'm seeing some deer and the future prospects look relatively stable.  
Jeff

[Montanawidower]

Oh and thanks Tim.  I have an older phone, but I do see a slot for a mini SD card.  I'm going to the verizon store for some help.

[Randy Morin]

I think you are right about the Frozen Bells Jeff.  Ben shot a brute Muley 2 weeks ago and it still had velvet.  This was up around Malta.

[sbschindler]

Now that you mention it I have heard of several velvet deer shot in rifle season well into Nov.. frost bite hummm sounds reasonalble

[Gentry]

one other thing that is a different this year on the Yellowstone is the number of elk in the area there is always some but this year there seems to be more around then the normal I have seen 4 bulls on the river and a few cows and calves never seen them on the river before this year in the hills around here but never on the river and there seems to be more in the hills too. thinking they moved in becuase of the winter last year.

[Phil Tuccillo]

This was definately a good year for elk in this area, it would not have hurt my feelings if FWP would have shut down the deer season early and would have closed the season all together for antelope. North Dakota shut there goat season for the last 2 seasons I believe. I drew a either sex either species tag this year in ND and I'm not really seeing much in the area I've been hunting N of Sentinal Butte. Sad story we have some lean seasons in our future.

[Gentry]

Phil I Know where there are two real nice mulie bucks in ND. One will go around the 180 mark and the other is a 190 buck. can show you on a map where they live and feed if you want. I always say that I am going to put in for that tag and never do.

[Phil Tuccillo]

How can I pass up an offer like that! That would be greatly appreciated. Headed back to work for some OT I will pm you tommorrow.
                                 Thanks, Phil