Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Draw Odds For Montana

The National Weather Service is predicting a "colder than average" winter in Montana, which may just be an odd's-on bet after the past week.

On ther other hand, it may be time for a few colder winters, after a decade or two of milder winters (with one or two exceptions). Which convinced a lot of people that Montana was LA North.

When I first started hunting in Montana in the 1960's, there was snow on the ground about half the time on opening day of the big game rifle season in the mountains, though most of the time admittedly not much.

I admit to being more than concerned with our declining elk herds. The obvious concern is the uncontrolled "predator on steroids" issue. The last couple of days, I have noticed many more elk traveling down the interstate (several super bulls). This latest storm will undoubtedly increase the harvest.

they threatened legal action we didnt join, we told them to show up an try stopping the kids from getting in the boatsand if they chose that rout the 30 of us would have no problem running the 2 of them out to the middle of the lake and dropping them off.....didnt hear from them again, half expected them to show up with cops though i couldnt see the Valley County sheriff getting in the middle of it when FWP had no problem with it.....

TFF......told our new editor from Indiana if he went there he was on his own, dont call us to come help him the guy has gotten a hell of an education the short time he has been here both good and bad but he is freezing to death......had to buy a heater for him to put under his desk to thaw out his toes

Havent you gone and got all sassy since moving away from the promised land Hope all is well.

Oh, and a big thanks to you guys for sending DINK to Wyoming

Elk, I saw a herd of approx. 40 cows with only a single raghorn bull in their midst this AM. In this zone only a brow tined bull can be taken. I saw a tremendous 10 point WT at approx. 1000 yds. plus. I will try to rattle him in tomorrow AM. Cold this morning but lots of critters moving. MTG

With little reason to or places to go outside, I am getting a bit jumpy. But, I do like DOG! Hope things 'there' are still going well. If you know someone who chases kitty-kats I may be interested next winter!

I just got back from my annual trip,man was it cold. grins

My buddy took a dandy 5x5 whitetail,and I got a pretty fair 5x8 mulie buck.

Life is good and Montana is my second home,if I can't get a tag next year,I'll stay home,but hopefully that won't happen.

But there is a bright side to the tags I'll get in the future.I'll be able to hunt public land with some of the people I've met here.

That would be pretty cool.

I also just got back from a Montana deer hunt along the Powder River. There were 5 of us hunting and all but one guy filled their tags. He could have but kept 'waiting for the BIG one' which never showed up. We took two 8 pt. white tails, one was a 4x4 and the other a 5x3, one 5x5 mulie and one mulie doe. The weather was COLD with lows around ZERO and highs in the upper singles. There was 6-8 inchs of snow on the ground also. Everyone had a great time and a great hunt all on public land!! We talked to a couple of guys that were using outfitters. They said they hadn't seen any deer as good as the ones we took in two days of hunting. We tried to bag a couple of Wyoming speed goats but had no luck.
We applied in 05 for the first time and again in 06 with no luck. In 07 we all got tags. Tried again in 08 and 09, again no luck but we got tags this year. We seem to be getting tags every 2-3 years. Don't know if I'll go back again as draging deer out of public land is a young man's job and I'm getting kinda long in the tooth. My knees have been hurting big time after the trip last week.