shoots-straight
Well-known member
You lived close to Phoenix Montana?
Montana mule deer Expectations.
- Thread starter mtmuley
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shrapnel
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- Aug 27, 2015
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You’ve obviously seen some, but I wish you wouldn’t divulge the location.
Nick87
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Gross
brocksw
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Montanans wanted to kill more elk, so the fwp obliged and they got a buy one get one. Don't even need to tag the fetus.
MTLabrador
Well-known member
Me reading some of these responses.
MTLabrador
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If this seminar doesn’t include picking up donuts and coffee from the West Side in Malta before driving two tracks all day, I’m not interested.
The Hedgehog
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now last year this seminar conflicted with the keep hammering 5K. hopefully that's not the case.
MTLabrador
Well-known member
Different target demographics. The Keep Hammering 5K is for those who Train, Hunt, Provide, and Honor. It dies by an arrow or it doesn’t die. They’re too hardcore for this.
Kiwi
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The last thing I want to do is upset the people in the state that I hunt. My expectation is to hunt new places for the adventure and meet like-minded hunters.
I plan to hunt MT just one more time, so twice in total, partly as I have invested in preference points and realistically this is my last chance to hunt MT. Odds are I wont shoot a mule deer but looking for one will make for a great adventure in the MT mountains and Breaks area (I have just received the book "A quite place of violence" to learn more about hunting the Breaks).
I plan to hunt MT just one more time, so twice in total, partly as I have invested in preference points and realistically this is my last chance to hunt MT. Odds are I wont shoot a mule deer but looking for one will make for a great adventure in the MT mountains and Breaks area (I have just received the book "A quite place of violence" to learn more about hunting the Breaks).
Straight Arrow
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Pics or no cred.
DouglasR
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If it’s brown it’s down
- Dougleshr
- Dougleshr
Pics or no cred.
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Straight Arrow
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Nice, thanx.
Gerald Martin
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You pay @ 34 times the price of a $19 resident tag. Shoot whatever makes you happy and don’t worry whatever anyone thinks of you.
Jpopejoy1980
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- Feb 9, 2022
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Hello, I am new to the forum. My dad is a Midwest whitetail hunter. His dream hunt has always been mule deer. So I have a few points bought for him and I am looking at unit 705 in eastern Montana. I have focused on this part of the state because I have heard there are decent numbers of deer, decent public access, and the terrain is a little easier to navigate. That last One is of particular concern for my aging father. Anyone have experience in this unit? It doesn’t need to be a record book buck, heck any mule deer is like to look like a giant compared to the white tails we are used to hunting.
antlerradar
Well-known member
You got me thinking about the hunting pressure back then. I really can not say for the late eighty's as I was out of SE Montana for all of the season but Thanksgiving week.
There was quite a few hunters around in the early ninety's, there might have even been more hunters targeting mule deer buck than there is today. What is different today is now we have 225 hunters with bull elk tags and most of them have a buddy or two helping them find a bull. They all have a buck tag in there pocket and if a nice buck is spotted, they turn into deer hunters. The Custer has 600 cow elk tags available and those hunters also have buck tags. There are now thousands of doe tags available. Most the resident doe hunters also have a buck tag and if they don't they have a buddy that does. Soon as they get to a phone they are telling them about any nice buck that is spotted. It all adds up to a lot more hunters than in the past and this increase in pressure pushes deer to private and also makes hunters spread out more. In the ninety's there was places that didn't see many hunters all season, not so much any more. For example in the 90's there was one creek on the east side of Otter that had a reputation as a good spot for a quality buck. Now that creek is full of elk hunter so hunters with just a buck tag go else were and the buck that live there still get shot because all of the elk hunters have a deer tag too.
The hunters have also changed. In the past there was a lot of day hunters form near by towns and the Cheyenne and Crow reservations. Hunters from west Billings were rare. Now there are more people coming from the west and staying a week or two. Opening weekend is busy, but most of those hunters are after elk unless they happen to see a nice buck. Most of the deer hunters are hunting the two weeks centered around peak rut. You still see quite a few locals from the eastern part of the state on a day hunt, but the Cheyenne and Crow are hunting mostly on the reservations because quite frankly the hunting is better there.
Unless things have changed markedly, that’s an astonishingly low bar to not clear.
antlerradar
Well-known member
That is the million dollar question. I do not support adding a few limited entry units. Even if we cut tags in a few units to say even 20% of current hunters, those units would draw the dedicated hunters that would target the top 20% of bucks in the unit and the meat hunter would just hunt a general unit. Bucks like the ones I posted are likely in the top 20% of bucks at age three. Maybe in the limited units a slightly larger parentage of the top end buck would live to see four, but close to zero would live past age five. It may even be that a top end buck would have a better chance of living to old age in a general unit.
This is also what is happening on many private ranches. The number of hunters may be few, but the hunters that are hunting the ranch are targeting the top end bucks. The result is the top end bucks die young and the 130 inch three by three dies of old age.
State wide limited entry might be a different story as now all hunters would have to pick a unit and there would be just fewer hunters killing deer. How much different for the top end bucks is hard to say. I think it would help, but there is no easy way to grow truly giant deer.
antlerradar
Well-known member
Deer hunting on the reservations has improved since you were here. The reasons, The older generations that provided much of the demand for venison are no longer with us and many of the hunters on the reservations have shifted to hunting elk. Are they like the Apache, not even close, but I see far more deer on the reservation than when I was young and more pictures of quality bucks taken on the west side of the river than the east now
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