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.

Dont forget about the south side...a lot rougher than the north.

Southside of the lake buck I killed in 2008....

good hunting on the southside, or so i have heard.....but im only familiar with the chunk of land on the northside from the dam to Timber Creek and north so thats what i kept my details to....have yet to set foot on anything between 200 and the lake so figured i better not comment on it have fished that shore line for walleye an awful lot though....

Don't forget the Terry Badlands. It was my favorite place when I was in college.

The north side as seen west of Timber Creek...lot of ups and downs in this part of the world...

why do you think i stay on the east side of Timber Creek?

I hear ya.....laffin!

I agree about the south side too. That's a great buck scenarshooter. A friend arrowed a 27 incher on the southside a few year ago. He went to a place we discovered on the map and could only easliy get to with a boat.

If you are applying for a Non resident Deer combination tag (Deer A) your draw rate without ay bonus points will be around 20%. With 1 point it goes up to 32 and seadily increases from there. Montana issues around 2300 + or - tags for Nonresidents as the Deer combination tag. These tags are statewide unless you want to hunt a limited draw area in which you would have to go into the drawing for a limited draw area.

Hope this helps,

ddj

Near the confluence of the Missouri and the Musselshell River..

180+ B&C. Good bucks to be had if you look hard enough and pass up the young stuff....

Seen lots of deer sign in that area, but haven't hunted it. Did the bay at Crooked Creek fill up this year?

As full as its been in about eight years...we still need a few more good snow years in the moutains to get it back where it was in the mid 90's...

I drove over there last spring turkey hunting and the water was about a half mile away or so.

it came up quite a bit last year.....if it comes up as much this coming year as it did last year they figure they will be able to run the walleye tournament out of the Crooked Creek Marina again in 2011.....

Just a little rougher!

I would love to see that!!

That would be great. My Uncle talks about taking the F&G boat up through there into the mouth of the Musselshell netting walleye, but it has been to dry for years to do that.

Many of the reseviors north of the Willow Cr. Road were used to raise walleye and other fish, but they have been dry for many years now. They make great whitetail habitat now however.

that was the talk at the state Walleyes Unlimited meeting a couple weeks ago.....we get the same kinda snow up in the mountains we got last winter and the Corps doesnt do anything stupid they are planning on the WU tourny to be run out of Crooked Creek in 2011......this coming year they are running it out of Forchette....

Wasn't too long ago you couldn't launch a boat out of Forchette either. If your fishing the tourny good luck to you.

i dont fish the ones that far down the lake, only ones ive fished are Rock Creek and Hell Creek....

I want to thank you guys for posting about this area. I've heard of the Breaks most of my life. I've hunted Montana a couple of times for elk. One of these days, I will shoot one that I want and then it's to the Breaks until I get a nice Muley in classic muley habitat. E

Eremicus

As a friend from Kentucky told me back in 2000 when I took him there deer hunting. "I have never been to a place where you can't see a light at night". We were on Reynold's Hill looking up to 50 or more miles away.

Well good luck in those.

scenarshooter: That photo at the Missouri and the Musselshell River, whats the rifle and all the optics there? Great looking deer, by the way! You do find some dandies! Tom

Sako L579 .220 swift....the spotter is an old Nikon that has been replaced with a Zeiss 65T. I still kill a few critters with that old Sako. The binocs are a pair of Leitz 10X40 Trinovids.

You guys are making me homesick!
Nothing quite like muley's and sagebrush.

Alaska Airline flies from Anchorage to Seattle a bunch of times, and Horizon (Alaska Air) flies to most every big town in MT. The weather in Anchorage will suck after about the 1st of October, so you might as well take some time and go back there to hunt anyway... .

Dennis

Flying back for Christmas, leave Monday AM. Not to late for restricted weapon in 309....

I miss this:


and this:


and this:

That's why going south in October and November is a good thing, 'cause it sure ain't good weather here... .

I like the connectivity too.

Dennis

Here is a nice Montana W/T taken this year the day after Thanksgiving. This deer was taken on public land.
I think he told me he killed the deer in "notellum" creek drainage.
Have a good day.

You guys pretty much settled it for me... I'm hunting mulies in the Breaks next fall.

I've hunted Rattlers country a ton, but only with a recurve and after Elk. In fact, I'm pretty sure I arrowed one on that bottom clearing looking past the No OHV sign on 6 ridge. Used to be about 100 archery permits in there and about 95 people put in for it (most guys bowhunt the S. Side, especially after that monster Chuckles shot) Once I got educated there, I started getting into more bulls around home

But seriously, between the winters we've had around here and the wolves eating the leftovers, I need a new playground for a while.

I LOVE the looks of that Breaks country, pretty sure I'm going to dissapear in there for a week and live out of a back pack

I've been to a few places like that. But I've never been any where that has as much game as Montana. Thanks. E

Gee, after all this good info and pics, how do I become a part-time resident???

The only thing missing I love to hunt are pheasant...and I know ya got them too!!

for the record, ive only seen one pheasant where we hunt out there....sage hens, sharptails and huns all over but no pheasants.....dont mean places to hunt them are hard to find though

Maybe I was to narrow in my thinking! I should have just said "Game Birds".

I've done it and it can be fun, but the biggest problem in the Breaks for a backpacker is a water source. It can be a real headache...literally.

No, we don't got no Ditch Parrots here.

Didn't have them in a lot of places this year...

Dennis

saw all kinds of them on Hwy 2 from Havre to the ND border last spring.....i swear i got my limit in one 45 mile stretch of road last May and didnt even have to stop the truck