Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Montana DIY deer hunt

Anyone have experience setting up a hunt like this. I would like to hunt the breaks near Ft. Peck, or otherwise, depending on feedback. I have heard drawing tags are difficult. Is this true.
Most of my western hunting has been in Col. and Wy. I`ve not had a problem drawing in Wy. Just thought a change would be nice.

Thanks in advance.

define the "the Breaks near Fort Peck", thats a huge chunk of land.....the north side? southside? Fred Robinson Bridge area? Pines area? Hell Creek?

i hunt a small portion of it on the northside from bout 3rd Ridge to the Murray Road(elk area 632) and north.....almost all public land and most of the private is in Block Management....lots of deer, some nice ones if yah work for them.....

And I quess thats why I`m asking, depending on you locals to help steer me in the right direction. I have no problem working for animals.
I did not know an area in the breaks would be someting to look at.
Do you think we could draw the first time we try? (632)

Thanks

You might draw a buck tag ("A") the first time -- my daughter did this year, after drawing a "landowner sponsor" tag last year. Better luck than I've had, though I've done very well and have no complaints. I have hunted down near Ft. Benton the past three years, and dearly love it. I hunt mostly on private land, through a variety of arrangements, but have hunted on some state land as well. Just down the river it's mostly BLM, thus readily available.

You can often times get doe ("B") tags as well, and since all the mule deer meat my daughter and I've gotten along the Missouri River have been very very good, that's a pretty good addition. Lots of places along there also have antelope, and the seasons generally overlap a couple of weeks.

The people in that part of Montana are wonderful people, if you're agreeable and functional yourself, or at least try to be... . A bunch of the nicest and hardest-working people I've ever encountered, anywhere.

Dennis

for Montanan's the deer tags are over the counter....it is a special draw area for elk and speed goats though....odds for either improve the farther west you get from the dam....i honestly have no clue on the odds but it is my understanding that out of state deer hunters get an either sex/either species tag good for nearly the whole state(minus a couple special draw areas) just like the locals normal 'A' tag....

im gonna use elk areas for reference just cause thats easiest for me to think of and is easy enough for you to look up on MT's F&G site and is more split up than the special draw mule deer doe areas which is the only other thing i can think to use......

we normally hunt 630, 631 and 632, using my inlaws cabin at the Pines area as a base....basically covers the dam to Timber Creek and north to Highway 2....mainly we hunt 632 and the southeast part of 630 but i have covered nearly all of the three in the last 7 years...the topography ranges from sage brush flats(and i mean nearly perfectly level flats) to some impressive timbered coulees in 631 that can be rough hunting if your not in shape...ive done rock climbing on a sandstone bluff east of the Bone Trail campground....other than sandstone, mudstone and shale out croppings scattered around its all powdered gray clay gumbo which is nearly impossible to drive on when wet.....if the roads are wet or a storm is coming its wisest to stay out of the bottoms unless you have provisions and time to wait it out for a few days...

as for the deer, i see 3x3's and skinny 4's all the time, passed up a half dozen of these this year i could have shot from the truck.....heavy 4's and larger are in there and require luck and usually alot of miles on your feet to find....there are really big deer in there but given its almost all public ground finding them aint easy....but as with most anywhere, get out of the truck and walk and you find very few hunters if you get more than a half mile from the road OR choose to drop down off a steep sided ridge...

i love hunting the area...have been for 7 years and am not looking to find a different piece of ground to hunt.

I certinally try to do my best, agreeable and functional, tho my wife may disagree...and I agree about the folks. Find the same in Wy.and SD
Thanks for the info

I used to live in the Black Hills of SD, and guided part-time for nine years in NW Wyoming, so I would agree with you. But...I've never met anyone like the folks I've met in north-central Montana. A mark above the rest, and I really like people in SD, WY, and AK in particular, that I spnd time with. Pretty wonderful, for sure.

And I agree completely with rattler's deer hunting description...just like where I hunt in the Breaks...

Dennis

Dennis, who'd you guided for in NW Wyo? I spent a fall in NE Wyo guiding for 7-J, good people and wonderful country.

Thx
Dober

K bar Z, about 50 miles NW of Cody. Great people...they still keep my horse for me, because they get great use of a good horse, and he wouldn't have worked out real well in SE Alaska .

Gorgeous country, and I also shot my two biggest mule deer there...

Dennis

Nah, there's no big carp deer in that part of the state...<g>

And I big time second it's wonderful country.

Dober

CGPAUL

The deer hunting in the area just west of the town of Ft Peck is better now than in the 20+ years I have been hunting it. We used to see the occasinal deer, but now they seem to be all over. The F&G were practically giving away mule deer doe tags to NR this past season as they feel there are too many deer.

If it rains it is best to stay off the dirt roads, but the state has been doing a good job of graveling some of the roads. Have you ever experiance gumbo mud? It will cake up on your vehicle until it seems like you will need a chisel to get it off once dried and a thick mess when wet.

I don't know if there is a better area than another anymore due to the amount of deer. I only hunt BLM or block management when over there and you can hunt the CMR Wildlife Refuge the first 3 weeks of the season than they close it down to mule deer hunting and you can't use your doe tag in there the whole season.

Like has been said it will take some major foot work to get a good deer usually. I remember some years ago there were people elk hunting who said there were no elk in the area (West of Ft Peck). Well, my uncle and I had seen all kinds of elk,but you had to bust the brush for them. It is the same way with the deer. The juniper is so big that it easliy hides an elk let alone deer. The juniper gets big and thicker the closer you get to the resevoir. Farther out is rolling hills and sagebrush flats with big open valleys. The deer use that expance quite well to get away from hunters.

This year I saw several NR hunter push deer from one side of a valley to the other with their vehicles because they wouldn't get out and walk( I have seen resident hunters do the same thing.) My wife shot hers at 60 yards after walking and sneaking a mile.

The odd on drawing are better if you put in for an elk/deer combo tag from what I hear, but that is quite a bit more expensive if you don't plan on going after the elk. One thing about it should you draw a deer A-tag you can hunt anywhere in the state that doesn't require a permit.

muledeer

I have to agree with you about the deer in the Missouri Breaks. I shot my first and many deer after that in an area south of there. We had people who wouldn't eat deer swear they were eating beef burger.

that juniper sure does look short till you get down in there......looking down on them they look like any normal juniper bush in front of someone house....walk down into it and those lil bushes turn out to be 15 foot tall .....there is also ponderosa pine trees intermixed which is how the Pines area got its name.....

i agree the mule deer out of there sure do eat good, we usually shoot a couple does out there for our steaks and roasts instead of the whitetail we can shoot close to town here south of Wolf Point...

The draw rate in MT for a NR for deer and/or elk is ca. 50%.

here is some of the country in 632

6th Ridge as seen from 7th


7th ridge as seen from 6th, from the bottom of the timber bout the middle of the top pic.....6th ridge is mostly pine, 7th is mostly juniper


end of the road on 6th looking west


these are from walking down from the west side of 6th starting at the sign in the above pic






looking south from the Murray Ranch corrals
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/rattler_mt/hunting/IMG_0866.jpg[/img]

around Graveyard Hill which is more or less south of the Hill Ranch
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/rattler_mt/hunting/IMG_0871.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/rattler_mt/hunting/IMG_0873.jpg[/img]

some of the stuff up and out of the CMR
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/rattler_mt/hunting/IMG_0824.jpg[/img]

Boy, some very good info guys...thanks Rattler for the great pictures...makes makes me want to go NOW.

Thanks again

Hey rattler

My Aunt was the postmaster at Ft. Peck for many years and also worked at Wolf Point when they were short handed. My Uncle worked for the F&G up there. The Pines is a pretty area. Well, the whole area is pretty to me.

i love it out there, started hunting it 7 years ago when i started going with the gal thats now my wife.....aint interested in hunting many other places around here even if it is public land.....if i get the itch for a big whitetail ill look elsewhere but for mulies and killing time for the general season ill stick to out there....keep trying for a bull elk tag for the Pines area, we see monsters every year but there are only 10 rifle tags doled out....kinda funny to see mulies, whitetail, elk and speed goats on the same walk some days.....

on the north side of the Willow Creek road way up on the north side of the creek, there is a big sagebrush flat that we hunt speed goats on when we have the tags.....most ppl bang away at them from a 1/4 mile away but the wife and i figured out how to hunt them and can usually get with in a coupld hundred yards if the wind is blowing right....have some pictures somewhere of the flat where yah see some bushes off in the distance.....but the bushes are actually the tops of 40-50 foot cottonwoods, the creek has sure cut a deep ditch through that flat...

I know the area well. I know what you mean about the road hunters. That does make it nice for someone willing to put time on his feet. The antelope eventually learn to stay away from the roads and then become stalkable.

On our first anniversary I took my wife up on the Stonehouse Rd. We put in 8 miles on our feet, but finally got my buck. She wasn't too happy with me. (Grin.) I shot the buck out of his bed at about 100 yards.

I got my antelope this year on the Triple Crossing Rd and my wife got her muley buck on the north side of Willow Creek.