I'm looking at putting in for a deer tag for Montana. Any suggestions on where a guy could find a nice whitetail? I'm willing to do a lot of hiking to get to them. I'm not interested in a muley for this hunt. I have read about the low deer numbers so I don't really know where to start. Any suggestions is much appreciated!
Montana Whitetails
- Thread starter Gerbs
- Start date
Mt. Shooter
New member
Good luck! This past year is the first time in 42 years that I didn't tag a whitetail. Ranch I hunt on is 28 sections and we seen 6 deer in 2 weeks of hunting. The winter 2 years ago, poaching,continual pounding of Block management ground and hemorragic has been very hard on the deer. Tried 4 other ranches with ideal habitat with pretty much the same results. The Yellowstone river bottoms from Glendive to Fairveiw and up into the Lindsey/Richey/Lambert country have also been severly affected. Alfalfa fields where I used to see 20 to 100 deer now have from none to maybe 6 or 7. Alot of this is leased by outfitters and they report the same findings locally but may be reluctant to saying so when clients are involved.
The Milk river area along with the rest of the Hi-line was reporting same as above too.
There are small pockets of deer around but finding one is a hit and miss proposition.
Finding whitetails during the winter usually isn't too tough since they migrate to the haystacks and I'm not seeing many at all this year.
I travel the entire most eastern part of the state from the Canadian border to Ekalaka about every week for 30 years and haven't seen such a shortage of deer. Maybe able to find a decent shooter up in the Missouri Breaks or on the CM Russel in the willows? Good luck!
The Milk river area along with the rest of the Hi-line was reporting same as above too.
There are small pockets of deer around but finding one is a hit and miss proposition.
Finding whitetails during the winter usually isn't too tough since they migrate to the haystacks and I'm not seeing many at all this year.
I travel the entire most eastern part of the state from the Canadian border to Ekalaka about every week for 30 years and haven't seen such a shortage of deer. Maybe able to find a decent shooter up in the Missouri Breaks or on the CM Russel in the willows? Good luck!
