Best Hunting Town in America

Schmalts - it's called sarcasm. Is no sooner live in great falls than join NAMBLA. I might move to rock springs if I develop a meth habit.. And SLC-- well only if I were on the SFW exec staff. Are they hiring?
 
Greenhorn said:
Schmalts - it's called sarcasm. Is no sooner live in great falls than join NAMBLA. I might move to rock springs if I develop a meth habit.. And SLC-- well only if I were on the SFW exec staff. Are they hiring?
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IIRC you've changed your answer to this question from a long, long ago thread on the same subject. Then you were voting for Lame Deer, MT! :D
 
twodot said:
! Pointer, you need to just figure on coming out and seeing me.

Mthunr, ok maybe missing MT blurs my vision a bit, but I really hope to not have to go east of Jordan any more after this next trip.
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Careful what you wish for! I'm in for the combo tag this year just to start getting points for the LE hunts, but one of these years I'll keep the deer tag as I really like hunting the plains. That and I wouldn't mind helping your boys on their trap line.
 
With all of the Great Falls mentioning, I thought it was April 1st. Thanks for clearing things up Greenhorn :)

PS...I live in GF now and would not consider it a top choice for hunting towns, its ok though.
 
Rock Springs has the benefit of excellent entertainment via the most questionable Walmart clientel in the west. It even beats the Billings west end Walmart everyday but "paycheck Friday".
 
SnowyMountaineer said:
Rock Springs has the benefit of excellent entertainment via the most questionable Walmart clientel in the west. It even beats the Billings west end Walmart everyday but "paycheck Friday".
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Having done nothing more than drive through and buy gas in Rock Springs, I can believe this. If only the highways completely bypassed that place:eek:
 
jlmatthew said:
You shot Park Geese? :eek:

Now thats funny!:D
Click to expand...

It was funny. Turkey Day, 2003. Me, my son, and my uncle Elt, a guy who finds immense pleasure in any activity that might seem slightly out of the norm of acceptable behavior.

We were pheasant hunting and could hear some geese cackling down stream on an irrigation ditch. I crawled to a corner of the canal, scaled the berm and could see a big patch of white birds on the water. I trotted back to the truck and got some binos and some steel shot. When I glassed with binos, I could see they were big, but had some dark markings similar to snow geese.

I told my son that he and I would make a big loop. My uncle would come in from upstream, I would be down stream, and my son was to walk straight in on them, using the recently dredged mud row as cover to hide is approach. With me down stream and my uncle upstream, any birds that flushed our direction would be in equally big trouble.

My son snuck up to the fringe, then stepped up to vacate the fowl from the slow moving water. He lobbed three volleys into this flock of white feathers as they frantically fought to get airborne. I was watching from about 80 yards away and it looked like his 20 gauge had called in a snow squall of white birds and feathers. It was close range when he stepped over the lip of the dike and these birds rose to escape. The most carnage I have ever witnessed administered by three shots from a 20 guage.

My first fear was he had slooshed a pile of swans and we were in deep doodoo. So I did not even fire as the few stragglers cleared the mud berm maybe 20 yards over my head. Then, cripples started swimming past my position makiing all kinds of ruckus

I could see they were not swans, but I couldn't tell what the hell they were. They honked like geese, not the whistle or trumpting of swans. They had big roman noses and pink beaks like Uncle Marvin's farm geese back home in Minnesota. They were big. Real big, but not the long-necked big like swans. All a relief, but confusing.

I was going to poleaxe them, but was not sure what amount of carnage laid on the water in front of my son. Normally, I would have finished the job, but the gravitiy of the situation required a little more thought. I rose to see what these survivors would do upon seeing me rush toward them. They all beached it across from me and drug their large butts into the thick cover on the other side of the canal.

Having moved the wounded to tight cover where we could go after them later, I walked over to my son's position. These four lunkers floated there, dead as disco. Holy smokes, this was a pile of geese.

After the relief of seeing they were not swans, my Uncle took the dog into the cattails and commenced to dispatch three cripples that had swan by me. He was laughing and hooting the entire time, knowing he was polishing off the biggest geese of his long hunting career. He yelled that he couldn't find the last one. I asked if he needed some popcorn or cashews to bait the final bird closer, knowing that some City Park in Alberta had probably trained these geese to come to humans with bags of popcorn. A final shot and his bag was now full and all geese were accounted for.

I suspect the Calgary newspaper reported the next spring that their park geese did not show up that May. They probably assumed that they had short-stopped in Lethbridge and took up permanent residence there, when in reality, they were really occupying my freezer, never to make another appearance at Calgary's Prince's Island Park.

These are some sort of Hutterite goose. They flew, they honked, and they ate better than any goose I even had. The rest of the flock, all three of them that could still take flight, retreated over to the Milk River to take inventory. My son wanted to go after the rest of them, but I could not tell what category of goose they were and how they would fit into our allowed daily bag limit.

They were the heaviest geese I ever saw. The dog had all she could do to retrieve them and get them up on the dike. You could not get your hand around their necks. How they were even able to take flight was a mystery to me.

We stayed at a hotel in Wolf Point for some pheasant Thanksgiving shooting and showed these to some locals. They all laughed and could not explain what these kind of geese were doing in the wild. They said they would have done the same thing.

Hopefully we don't owe restitution to the farmer who failed to take better care of his geese. This is still one of my most favorite hunting stories, all within a few miles of the big berg of Saco.

Saco gets my vote for the best hunting and fishing town in Montana. Lots of more these kind of photos and stories to support my assertion.
 
Best hunting town....for me, Kamuela Hawaii. Nice and cool pasture land at 2,600 ft. Upland Bird hunting that surpasses your wildest dreams. Year-Round biggame hunting from sea level to 14,000 ft. No tags, no draws, and all for a $10 yearly license. That's where I plan on retiring. I can always fly back to the mainland to punch a premium tag in AZ, NM, or NV.
 
It's funny, anybody I have ever met from Great Falls has moved away from there. What are the down sides we are not hearing other than no work that pays there? Give Me Pinetop or Showlow AZ. any day.Great hunting ,fishing and in the winter when it gets cold , the desert aint to far away. Flagstaff whould do to.......BOB!
 
Big Fin said:
It was funny. Turkey Day, 2003. Me, my son, and my uncle Elt, a guy who finds immense pleasure in any activity that might seem slightly out of the norm of acceptable behavior.

We were pheasant hunting and could hear some geese cackling down stream on an irrigation ditch. I crawled to a corner of the canal, scaled the berm and could see a big patch of white birds on the water. I trotted back to the truck and got some binos and some steel shot. When I glassed with binos, I could see they were big, but had some dark markings similar to snow geese.

I told my son that he and I would make a big loop. My uncle would come in from upstream, I would be down stream, and my son was to walk straight in on them, using the recently dredged mud row as cover to hide is approach. With me down stream and my uncle upstream, any birds that flushed our direction would be in equally big trouble.

My son snuck up to the fringe, then stepped up to vacate the fowl from the slow moving water. He lobbed three volleys into this flock of white feathers as they frantically fought to get airborne. I was watching from about 80 yards away and it looked like his 20 gauge had called in a snow squall of white birds and feathers. It was close range when he stepped over the lip of the dike and these birds rose to escape. The most carnage I have ever witnessed administered by three shots from a 20 guage.

My first fear was he had slooshed a pile of swans and we were in deep doodoo. So I did not even fire as the few stragglers cleared the mud berm maybe 20 yards over my head. Then, cripples started swimming past my position makiing all kinds of ruckus

I could see they were not swans, but I couldn't tell what the hell they were. They honked like geese, not the whistle or trumpting of swans. They had big roman noses and pink beaks like Uncle Marvin's farm geese back home in Minnesota. They were big. Real big, but not the long-necked big like swans. All a relief, but confusing.

I was going to poleaxe them, but was not sure what amount of carnage laid on the water in front of my son. Normally, I would have finished the job, but the gravitiy of the situation required a little more thought. I rose to see what these survivors would do upon seeing me rush toward them. They all beached it across from me and drug their large butts into the thick cover on the other side of the canal.

Having moved the wounded to tight cover where we could go after them later, I walked over to my son's position. These four lunkers floated there, dead as disco. Holy smokes, this was a pile of geese.

After the relief of seeing they were not swans, my Uncle took the dog into the cattails and commenced to dispatch three cripples that had swan by me. He was laughing and hooting the entire time, knowing he was polishing off the biggest geese of his long hunting career. He yelled that he couldn't find the last one. I asked if he needed some popcorn or cashews to bait the final bird closer, knowing that some City Park in Alberta had probably trained these geese to come to humans with bags of popcorn. A final shot and his bag was now full and all geese were accounted for.

I suspect the Calgary newspaper reported the next spring that their park geese did not show up that May. They probably assumed that they had short-stopped in Lethbridge and took up permanent residence there, when in reality, they were really occupying my freezer, never to make another appearance at Calgary's Prince's Island Park.

These are some sort of Hutterite goose. They flew, they honked, and they ate better than any goose I even had. The rest of the flock, all three of them that could still take flight, retreated over to the Milk River to take inventory. My son wanted to go after the rest of them, but I could not tell what category of goose they were and how they would fit into our allowed daily bag limit.

They were the heaviest geese I ever saw. The dog had all she could do to retrieve them and get them up on the dike. You could not get your hand around their necks. How they were even able to take flight was a mystery to me.

We stayed at a hotel in Wolf Point for some pheasant Thanksgiving shooting and showed these to some locals. They all laughed and could not explain what these kind of geese were doing in the wild. They said they would have done the same thing.

Hopefully we don't owe restitution to the farmer who failed to take better care of his geese. This is still one of my most favorite hunting stories, all within a few miles of the big berg of Saco.

Saco gets my vote for the best hunting and fishing town in Montana. Lots of more these kind of photos and stories to support my assertion.
Click to expand...

Great story! ;)
 
My wife grew up in Great Falls and I knew nothing of it till I was stationed there. For a small town kid from Maine the culture there is tough to beat. Trucks mean something and you best display antler after a successful hunt. The town has everything you need and the people are pretty great too. We are back once a year and everytime it's tough to leave.
 
Great Falls certainly doesn't spring to the front of my mind as a best place for a hunter to live. It's not horrible, but "best", that's pretty funny. Plus I think a lot depends on what an idividual hunter likes to hunt the most. If a person lives to hunt pheasants and upland birds the Dakotas would be the ticket. If elk are the top desired animal any one of several Western states would fill the bill. Big whitetails, Kansas. For really big critters, Alaska. If a guy is a hard-core predator hunter it's pretty tough to beat Arizona, Texas, or Nevada. For the guy that wants to hunt everything...marry Greenhorn. ;)
 
I think any place in MT is over-rated. I wish I could get out of here for better hunting opportunities.
 
Salmon, Id., comes to mind. Fishing (steelhead, trout) , bird hunting, bear, lion, some whitetail, mule deer, elk, moose, goats, sheep and of course wolves.
 
Lawnboy said:
Salmon, Id., comes to mind. Fishing (steelhead, trout) , bird hunting, bear, lion, some whitetail, mule deer, elk, moose, goats, sheep and of course wolves.
Click to expand...
That may very well be my pick as well. Though I wouldn't hate to be around the Twin Falls area as well. Fishing probably not as good but it's closer to some REALLY good bird hunting.
 
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