Reports/Updates from SE?

[elks96]

Just checking in to see any reports? My son and I head that way over thanksgiving. Looking for deer.

Numbers are supposed to be way down, but we are going to try any ways.

Good luck to everyone. We will be in Ekalaka and hunting there and around Broadus…

 

[whiteantlertip]

Had several friends hunted over in that area, they said it was poor hunting overall . They been hunting that area for over 20 yrs and said it was the worst they ever done. Good luck to ya

 

[elks96]

Had several friends hunted over in that area, they said it was poor hunting overall . They been hunting that area for over 20 yrs and said it was the worst they ever done. Good luck to ya

Yeah. I have heard similar stories. Last year we hunted the same areas and last year was the worst they had seen until this year. The biologist said it was pretty bad, but we still found deer and still saw bucks. Hopefully we can find a couple white tail bucks and be done early.

 

[mtmuley]

Yeah. I have heard similar stories. Last year we hunted the same areas and last year was the worst they had seen until this year. The biologist said it was pretty bad, but we still found deer and still saw bucks. Hopefully we can find a couple white tail bucks and be done early.

Nice you are looking for whitetails. Muleys need a break. mtmuley

 

[elks96]

Nice you are looking for whitetails. Muleys need a break. mtmuley

Nice you are looking for whitetails. Muleys need a break. mtmuley

That would be preferred if we can find them. We found way more mule deer on public last year, and more whites on the private. But given the choice we are going to shoot white tails unless we find a smoker mule deer. We will rather take a dink white tail then a 140+ mule deer. A 160 mule deer would be hard to pass, but a 80”
White tail will go down opening day…

 

[leonard]

Deer numbers are really low, a majority of the animals have moved down into private irrigated ground due to the drought.

 

[antlerradar]

Deer numbers are really low, a majority of the animals have moved down into private irrigated ground due to the drought.

It is not just the drought. The mule deer herd on our irrigated doubled the first week of the season. Twenty/thirty years ago this big push of deer never happened but now with all the buck and doe tags and elk hunters deer just do not stay on public long.
The best day of hunting on the Custer I ever had was in late Nov. of 1988. One of the worst drought years on record. I had taken a young but wide with trash buck the evening before. The plan was my brother and I would hunt a little in the morning and then my brother would hunt his way down to my buck and I would drive around to the bottom and we would bring my buck out the down hill.
At day light we were on a great glassing point and deer were everywhere. It wasn't long and we had spotted 50 deer and three were better than 170. We decided to try for one of those bucks and packed up our gear to go after him. We only made it a hundred yards or so and there was a buck chasing a doe right at us. I put the binoculars on him and my brother asked how big is he. I replied he has real big hooking cheaters. Boom

 

[elks96]

It is not just the drought. The mule deer herd on our irrigated doubled the first week of the season. Twenty/thirty years ago this big push of deer never happened but now with all the buck and doe tags and elk hunters deer just do not stay on public long.
The best day of hunting on the Custer I ever had was in late Nov. of 1988. One of the worst drought years on record. I had taken a young but wide with trash buck the evening before. The plan was my brother and I would hunt a little in the morning and then my brother would hunt his way down to my buck and I would drive around to the bottom and we would bring my buck out the down hill.
At day light we were on a great glassing point and deer were everywhere. It wasn't long and we had spotted 50 deer and three were better than 170. We decided to try for one of those bucks and packed up our gear to go after him. We only made it a hundred yards or so and there was a buck chasing a doe right at us. I put the binoculars on him and my brother asked how big is he. I replied he has real big hooking cheaters. BoomView attachment 58093

It is cool how vividly we can remember those stories even decades later. I agree that pressure in the area is pretty high. Luckily last year there was not tons of hunters at the end. It felt like we had just missed the masses, and we actually saw some animals leaving the private and heading into the public.

I wished I had some areas where we could really hike in and get away from the crowds, but instead it seems like the best options are hunting the public/private edges and running and gunning the all the small chunks of public scattered around with extra attention on creek bottoms and the river bottoms.

Last year we killed my sons buck on the Chalk Buttes after a 3 mile hike. It was the only place where we could get away from other hunters. But even that was not great because the private allowed access to the area by vehicle. Luckily they were too lazy to get out of the vehicle and we got a good buck...

 

[Cahunter805]

I just got back from SE Montana and can agree. Lots of younger bucks but the mature bucks seemed less. We did see some good groups of does with younger bucks rutting also.
We did find plenty of deer around/near water. Did our part and burned all the doe tags we bought.

 

[Sheepeater]

Hunted there as well. Grew up in that country. We hunted drainages that I know that well off roads. Always find a big buck or two. All we found was a handful of immature bucks. Every out of state camp up there and very young small deer hanging. That country needs limited tags and a 4x4 rule BAD!

 

[elks96]

Hunted there as well. Grew up in that country. We hunted drainages that I know that well off roads. Always find a big buck or two. All we found was a handful of immature bucks. Every out of state camp up there and very young small deer hanging. That country needs limited tags and a 4x4 rule BAD!

What about white tails?

 

[Cahunter805]

What about white tails?

From what I’ve been hearing the white tails in SE Montana got hammered by EHD this year. Lots of dead deer near many creeks. We didn’t see many whitetails at all. A few does and bucks.