SE Montana Whitetails ???

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

Hey Huntalkers !! I've have some friends that took Randy's advice to come hunt SE Montana for deer after watching his recent YouTube vid, I am helping them gather Intel as this was a spur of the moment decision for my friends , so I am asking 2 questions???

1. On X maps for Montana , is the cell reception in SE good enough you can use your cell phone with on X , or is a gps hand held be the way to go ???

2. My friends want to hunt whitetails, we can hunt Mulies whenever over here in Oregon, so if anyone could pass along some areas to look at to chase Whitetails would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[TXinTN]

1. Cell service will be spotty. OnXMaps on your phone will work as long as you save the map areas you will be using ahead of time.

2. Take a look at block management areas along river-bottoms.

 

[antlerradar]

The vast majority of whitetails live on private land on the river bottoms. There are some whitetails on the Custer but large parts of the forest are whitetail free but there are good numbers in small pockets. Look for whitetails in the head ends of the longer creeks. There are some good bucks but hunting them in the thick timber is challenging but also a lot of fun. You may be better off going all the way east to the Long Pines

 

[Busyfarmin]

I would recommend getting a gps onxmaps I have had troubles with the phone app. Also I found a fair amount of whitetails along the river bottoms next to ag fields.

 

[Brian in Montana]

I second what TXinTN said. Cell service is spotty out there in the SE MT (it's actually pretty spotty across the state). Human population is pretty sparse and dispersed east of Billings and although it's not as mountainous as the west, there are plenty of geographic obstructions for signal. Whitetails seem to thrive in the green belts around rivers in Montana. You'll find some populations in low mountainous terrain, but they're mostly in the river bottoms. Most of these places are, of course, farmland so doing some research on block management areas is advised. The BMA's that schedule their hunters in advance have the highest quality of animals. The ones where you just sign in and hunt get shot up quick, but you can almost always get opportunities on does. Like I said there are a lot of them and they're generally pretty concentrated. My wife and I have shot a handful of decent bucks, but in terms of meat hunting, MT river bottoms have pretty much fed our family, and then some, for the past 15 years.

 

[mtmander]

hunt river bottoms

 

[RooseveltJohn]

so which model of gps works best? I'd love to do a rino so i had a radio and gps in one unit but the screen is so small

 

[phutch30]

Your going to drive past a lot of good whitetail hunting in Eastern WA and ID to get to SE MT. If all your depending on is cell phone apps u will find big gaps in eastern MT. Id bring a GPS with a chip

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

i would just like to say a BIG THANKS to all you who chipped in with a word or two