Good Season or Not??

[robbi]

Well, the general season is over for 2011.  How'd you do?  I expected a so - so season but it turned out great for us.  I think FWP is claiming a record deer harvest, but I know in portions of the state it definitely wasn't that way.  Northeast towards Fort Peck I heard they had a 95% kill rate on deer last winter and spring so they could hardly find a deer during season (and antelope also).  I also heard that towards Helena - Butte area the populations of deer and elk are low because of our friendly, beautiful, wild, right to live wolves are decimating the populations.

My garage is the hanging and butcher place for six of us that hunt together at different times during the season.  Starting with my damage hunt in August we harvested 18 animals.  2 elk, 2 antelope and 14 deer.....all whitetail except one.  Three bucks, one of which was very respectable.  So we're going into winter with lot's of meat.  We made, German sausage, snack sticks and getting ready to make salami from some of the deer.  I had it made from the elk at House of Meats in Great Falls earlier.

I'm interested in what people around the state have to say about populations in their area and reason the populations are good or bad, from a hunters perspective.

[Bullelk34]

Where I hunted in SE Montana, the deer populations are the lowest I've seen in 20 years. The winter was really bad, and bluetongue took alot as well. But if I had to pick one single factor that is causing the problems, I would probably blame Obama. 

[zimmer2]

Generally speaking I seen enough game for the most part.

Went to Malta on an antelope hunt and did OK not a lot of them but enough to stay interested.

Hunted elk around Butte and OK there also, actually saw quite a few elk the last week BUT only one brow tine so bulls were hard to come by for us.

Deer now that is a different story, not very many of them anywhere we were.

The biggest issue is predators.....all of them. Grizzly, Wolf, Lion.  Wolves are #1

I am not really convinced that FWP is doing all the right things either. Too many cow "B" tags I think. Should go back to cow permits and allow one elk/hunter. Also damaged hunts are mismanaged I think. Should be given to hunters that were not successful in general season not another "B" tag. I have also had "B" tags and harvested 2 elk the same year.........and enjoyed them BUT still is that really good management? Easy to do that way is for sure.

[sra61]

I'm not defending FWP, but they found out years ago that there are a few hunters out there that will fill their elk tags. There are a lot of people that won't fill their tags. That's why they went to allowing more than one tag per hunter, not to mention additional money coming in. Just a few years ago the problem was overpopulated elk herds. Now with the overpopulation of the wolves it's completely the opposite. The problem with FWP is that they are always a day late and a dollar short. By the time they go back to one elk tag each, we'll probably be back on the upswing with the elk herds, that's assuming they will actually figure out a way to get rid of those damned wolves before all of the game is gone.