Me and my wife drew tags for Montana general deer. That is pretty cool. We are both quite avid hunters, especially me. We live in Ontario Canada. We have taken quite a few whitetails and have hunted mule deer quite a few times in the past. I have only taken one and my wife has not harvested one yet. We shoot a lot of does around our farm in NW Ontario for meat so we are not interested in travelling across the continent to shoot a small buck. We are probably going to pass any buck under about 170". I know it seems crazy as I have ate a lot of tags over the years but I have no desire to harvest a small buck, let em grow so that someone else can have a trophy in the years to come. I am not expecting a high probability of success on this hunt but to be sure we are going to have a fun time glassing and trying to find a couple good bucks! We are looking for some ideas and direction all the way up to and including some sort of hunt swap or semi-guided hunt. Anyway, I am reaching out here. I used to be an active member but have not been back for awhile. I admin a large Ontario hunting forum and find that a lot of work...lol

Regards,

Rene W. Cadene

Hmmm. No interest. I'll post some pictures of past adventures and of me and my wife....


Various.











[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/Copyofjeffcoldwell4-1.jpg[/img]

My Dad.



My Bro.



My wife

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/2007Emodeer027.jpg[/img]
[img]http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/142004/20090327/075908.jpg[/img]

Renee: Fabulous whitetails,and great pics of your hunts!

I wish I had a mule deer hunt( I do!)but am not at liberty to swap it out,because I would love to hunt Ontario for a big buck.Looks like you have some great ones.

Hopefully someone on here will want to swap you. Good luck!

Rene - WELCOME or welcome back to the 'Fire'.

THANKS for the pics. SOME really nice bucks. I enjoyed ALL of the pics.

Looks like you're well equipped for a variety of hunting scenarios.

I can not help you out, BUT GOOD LUCK ANYWAY.

Nice pics...good luck with the hunt.

Rene if I where you I would be looking to hunt around the fort peck area. Lots of public land and lots of good country if you hunt it hard you have about as good a chance as anywhere in montana at killing a nice mule deer buck.

I am thinking that what I need to do is find a location to start from. Accomodations be it camping or motel or cabin to start from. Get acquainted with the public land and block management land there to have options. I think I will chat up biologists and even may take a drive out there this summer or early fall for a scouting mission and see if I can find a private property or two that has not been leased up. Offer to help somehow. Yes the swap is a possibility for someone or their kin to get a great opportunity at a nice whitetail. You are the second person to direct me towards the fort peck area. I will look closely at it. Still plenty of time to decide. Thanks for all input.

I dug up some more pictures that you guys will like. Various adventures. (:

Our first turkey's in Ontario. 2005?



Deb's first bear.



Wyoming antelope



Oklahoma sunset



Flying through the air.



Me and Shawn out for rip. Between Manitiouwadge and Marathon.

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/Westernhunt06050.jpg[/img]

Colorado view

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/debspicsflorida015.jpg[/img]

Deb's Osceola

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/drydenfish07037.jpg[/img]

Me and Dad, flying out to fish.

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/KBI07022.jpg[/img]

Kenora bass international

First bow kill antelope.



Deb's first x-bow kill.



Indian carvings, Wyoming



Dad and Frank in Northern Quebec.

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/2007moose005.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/NewMexelk07029.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/NewMexelk07038.jpg[/img]

My Son

[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/03antelope.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/huntfish4No2.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f158/renegade77/Whitelake-1.jpg[/img]

Nice pics Rene. You married over your head like I did.

Very nice pics. Odviously you and yours are very accomplished hunters.
Can't give you much advice, but I'd be inclined to hit Montana's Fish, Wildlife and Parks website and go from there. I've found their wildlife people very helpful especially when it comes to Block Management Lands. For quality maps, nothing I've seen beats MyTopo.com. Their maps are often made from the latest aerial photos, etc. A set of BLM maps are also very helpful as they show public and private land. E

Years of liberal seasons, followed by winter kill in 2010-2011, followed by disease, my make some tough sledding in anything other then LE HD's in eastern Montana, but good luck and have fun.

awesome pics

If you're going to set a 170" minimum, Montana is not your place right now. I'd wait a few years.

I would agree with bellydeep, at least with respect to the mulies. Numbers are down quite a bit for unknown reasons. Not much of a whitetail hunter so I can't speak to those.

Oh well. Not like I haven't eaten tags before. It is the thrill of the chase that keeps me hunting and seeing new counrty and meeting new people. Me and Deb might even take a road trip out there this summer and do some scouting. Combine that with some antique and yard sales and sight seeing and you have the recipe for a great trip! If we pass up on all animals this year hopefully we can build a foundation and relationship with some people out there so that in future years we may return and have a success or two. Thanks for the feedback!

Are you looking for either 170 whitetail of mule deer? If you're willing to lower your standards on the whitetail to 140ish, you'd have a really realistic chance of killing one.

For mule deer, you've probably got a better chance hunting in one of the island ranges of Central MT than hunting Eastern MT, especially if you're setting your standards at 170 or bust.

Whitetails, 170 or better would be a recipe for never shooting a whitetail. lol. No, whitetails would have to be about 150 or better. Still a high standard but more realistic. Yes, for mule deer it will be a 170 or bust situation with a few exceptions. Score is a guideline not a rule. If I was faced with a monster 3x4 or huge mature buck with great mass and say a broken tine I would probably pull the trigger. Age trumphs the score of the rack to some extent. I was generalizing with the 170 thing but Yes, all small and medium sized bucks will be viewed with pleasure and allowed to grow. Thanks for the feedback rl1. I would bet there are some great bucks in most regions of the state, the key is to find the spot on the spot and probably many of those spots will be on private lands but there seems to be a fair amout of public land in Montana as well. I plan to hunt the last week of the season so maybe I should be looking at the basins adjacent to rugged elevated areas.

Rene, some have eluded to this year's potential. I will give it to you straight up. There are still some good bucks in Montana (very few), but other than last year you probably could not have picked a worse year to trophy hunt in Montana in the last decade. We had two extreme back to back winters that killed a lot of deer, then a big EHD outbreak in 2011 that killed off the majority of an already struggling deer herd. Now granted, most of the EHD victims were whitetails, but Old Man Winter put plenty of hurt on the mule deer as well. If I were you, I would completely rule out the entire Northeast portion of the state. There are a few pockets of deer in the Southeast but it is largely private land, with a few exceptions. There is some Block Management and some Forest Service, unfortunately the word is already out that that is where the deer are, and you will likely have company. Some serious time on the phone with wildlife biologist would be prudent in trying to find areas in the state that still have enough deer to make it worth your time out here. I'm not saying there are "no" deer or "no" trophy bucks, but the numbers game is not in your favor this year.

Region 1, 2, and 3 haven't had any significant winter kill or EHD since 1996, for comparison's sake. We've got a predator problem though.

It's a big state, lots of different areas with different stories on them right now. Year after year I'm amazed at the amount of big deer that come off public land and block management in this state.

Region 1 was slammed two years ago by snow. Predators or not, lots of game died two winters ago. Not this spring, but the previous 3 have been long in getting here. Weather has contributed just as much death as preds during those winters. Its has basically been the utter schits up here.