Elk Hunting Montana Outfitters

[Deadfall]

When did you last hunt WY?

2017 or 18 that I bought a tag.

I've been going to other states and helping new guys get going for years.

 

[Deadfall]

My dad uncles been hunting colorado since the 70s. That's where I got my start when I was little.

Since then spent alot of time in wyoming, Idaho and here.

Actually right now at this second I'm in post falls Idaho. Came over to do some predator hunting. Storms here have wrecked that for now. Heading back to Montana in morning. Supposed to be nice at home this next week. So I'll give those ones the attention.

 

[Deadfall]

Over the years have made alot of friends around these states. Meet people all over. Funny how often after a pleasant well thought out conversation that someone goes from anti. To curiosity. To how do I do this. And sometimes they just soften thier stance alittle.

One thing for sure. If I ever came at them with a my way or highway attitude. Thier stance would only stiffen.

When I started taking that approach with government stuff. I started seeing different results and getting a different perspective. Then my resentments started to dissolve

 

[mtluckydan]

Interesting that Buzz says Montana hunting sucks, is mismanaged, too many lions & that if you kill a trophy sized animal it's in spite of MTFWP yet in the next breath he says he's hunted Montana for years, even after he left & has to pay NR tag fees & kills more animals than everyone else & .....I'm not sure what to believe from Buzz. One day Buzz says there are 5000 lions in Montana...refutes other organizations population estimates...then comes back the next day saying there's 6000 lions in Montana....again not sure what to believe. Buzz continues his BS & spin claiming wolves aren't the problem in NW Montana & Idaho...it's the long hunting seasons & lions even though the supplied supporting scientific information from the Idaho wolf management plan fully substantiate that wolves kill moose & elk calves at a greater rate than reproductive capacity & they negatively impact age structure essentially eliminating older age classes. I think we could coin a new term...Buzzy logic...good for any argument no matter what...need some estimates...use Buzzy logic...then you're good to go...who's the one you're going to call...Buzzy logic....what d'ya think???

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[mtluckydan]

"When I started taking that approach with government stuff. I started seeing different results and getting a different perspective. Then my resentments started to dissolve"

Buzz has a different approach...he works for the Feds & Taxpayers...he's much nicer & polite than you...except when he's trying to convince people he's correct about the topic of the day & he represents Backcountry Hunters & Anglers...he's their poster child...you should join & he could teach you how to get things done using Buzzy Logic...it's a new term & very effective

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[BuzzH]

Interesting that Buzz says Montana hunting sucks, is mismanaged, too many lions & that if you kill a trophy sized animal it's in spite of MTFWP yet in the next breath he says he's hunted Montana for years, even after he left & has to pay NR tag fees & kills more animals than everyone else & .....I'm not sure what to believe from Buzz. One day Buzz says there are 5000 lions in Montana...refutes other organizations population estimates...then comes back the next day saying there's 6000 lions in Montana....again not sure what to believe. Buzz continues his BS & spin claiming wolves aren't the problem in NW Montana & Idaho...it's the long hunting seasons & lions even though the supplied supporting scientific information from the Idaho wolf management plan fully substantiate that wolves kill moose & elk calves at a greater rate than reproductive capacity & they negatively impact age structure essentially eliminating older age classes. I think we could coin a new term...Buzzy logic...good for any argument no matter what...need some estimates...use Buzzy logic...then you're good to go...who's the one you're going to call...Buzzy logic....what d'ya think???

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You haven't supplied anything.

Montana cat estimates are 5-7 thousand...I didn't want to hear your high-pitched whining, so used the lower end population estimate. The large carnivore biologist for MTFWP will tell you its 5-7 thousand....want his phone number to confirm?

Point to where I ever said wolves are not a problem...its not there.

Its not my fault simple math evades your limited cognitive abilities. Even you should be able to to do the math required to know which is having the bigger impact between lions and wolves. But, then again, maybe not.

I hunted elk, every year in Montana from 1979-2014, deer every single season since 1979 and I'll be buying my NR OTC deer tag again here in another couple months. Sorry you're so confused.

First elk, 12 years old, Montana

32nd Montana elk 2014....the last year I bought an elk tag there. Wrote a letter to the FWP Director, Governor, and Wildlife Division explaining I would no longer take part in shooting what little was left of Montana's public land elk shortly after I killed that bull. If Montana ever actually starts managing elk again, based on biology rather than social tolerance...I may hunt there again. At this point, it seems doubtful they will ever do that, in particular with the current Administration.

It was a good run, but the last 4 bulls I killed from 2011-2014, I felt guilty doing it. The low elk populations, single digit bull to cow ratios, didn't warrant me killing them.

Hey, on the plus side, there's 7 more bulls out there for you, that otherwise would have been dead if I would have kept buying OTC NR tags.

You can thank me later.

 

[mtluckydan]

Guess I touched another nerve Buzz...I rarely hunt elk...they're not really much of a challenge...last one I only hunted 2 days, shot him in his bed & packed solo for 3 days...I'm more of a whitetail hunter...a lot smarter than elk...you're so predictable Buzz...always posting the same old photos of yourself...I like the new term...it'll get a lot of use

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[BuzzH]

Guess I touched another nerve Buzz...I rarely hunt elk...they're not really much of a challenge...last one I only hunted 2 days, shot him in his bed & packed solo for 3 days...I'm more of a whitetail hunter...a lot smarter than elk...you're so predictable Buzz...always posting the same old photos of yourself...I like the new term...it'll get a lot of use

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I hear you, something we agree on...I like whitetail hunting NW Montana whitetails as well. I like to hunt whitetails that never see an ag field.

Shot this one in November, in our public land stomping grounds my family has been hunting since the 1940's...heard a pack of 6 wolves howling about 30 minutes before I shot this buck.

Year before last:

Year before that:

 

[BuzzH]

Don't want to horn you up too much...but a few more from years past...

Got eyeguards?

 

[BuzzH]

One of my favorites...double eye-guards, 8 year old buck.

Just don't get the drop on bucks like this without knowing what's what:

Watched this buck, and one that was a year or so younger, that would have scored more, fight it out one evening. The heavier antlered, older bucks are where its at...just can't care about score over age and mass.

Another decent one:

Hang some pics of some of your NW Montana whitetails...always like seeing bucks from that part of the State.

 

[Deadfall]

Looks like some cool memories buzz.

 

[BuzzH]

Looks like some cool memories buzz.

No doubt...and lots more pictures from bucks my family has killed in that country. I have a map with pins of every elk, mule deer, whitetail, lion, and black bear we've killed in that area since 1979.

Map's getting crowded, in particular with my nephews now hunting there too...over 150 whitetails, 58 elk, and 17 mule deer.

Part of my ashes will be spread there someday.

 

[mtluckydan]

Some nice bucks Buzz...thanks for sharing....you must have those handily stored on your desktop. I agree...like seeing Montana Bucks. A few questions....since you have decades to draw from....how has the whitetail hunting changed? Specifically is the age structure the same now...I don't know about you but I pull a jaw from all my mature bucks and try to get an idea on age. Since they don't hit their full potential until 5-7 years that's an important component to having a healthy vigorous rut. If we look at the last ten years....if you're hunting the same areas and the same amount of time - one week...two weeks during the rut...are you seeing the same or similar numbers of mature bucks? Are you seeing as many older age class deer?

If something has changed, what do you attribute it to. Since the montana hunting season structure for whitetails hasn't changed...ie still a 5 week season with the whitetail rut being on average the last two weeks, that should provide for a good comparison. I usually still hunt or walk when I'm hunting...I rarely see a footprint from people in areas I hunt so I don't feel the hunting pressure has changed much...more road hunters but that's been historical in Montana and easily addressed. If anything, there is less widespread road pressure with the closure of gates.

My thoughts are I used to see 35-50 bucks in a two week period, I would see 3-5 bucks a day on average. Some days less some days more. I hunt a broad geographical area with my style of hunting and often kill mature bucks in places I've never been before the day I shoot the deer. I do hunt in similar areas and I do hunt general areas that are productive more than once. I also get over to Idaho to hunt Whitetails - more sporadically in the past but trying to get in yearly now since they appear to have the better hunting at the moment. The area I hunted in Idaho this year I easily saw a 100 scrapes in a week of hunting and I haven't seen that kind of scrape activity in Montana in years.

Curious what your take is and what your numbers are? In Montana now, I rarely see bucks every day and can say in the last ten years consistently see 25 or less bucks in a two week period, sometimes much less. When there is snow, I can say there are less buck tracks in a given area than the previous 10 years. In the last 20 years I would say there have been two time periods of reduced deer from bad winters in the areas I hunt, but still huntable numbers of mature bucks. What general area of the state are you hunting as a comparison. I hunt within 2 hours of the Flathead. There are many cat hunters in this area and it gets heavily hunted by dogs after the season. There are outfitters in the Swan, Libby/Trout Creek/Noxon that consistently take cat hunters out as well as all the local residents. I used to shed hunt from December to June...less now because of work commitments but still quite a bit. With wolf trapping I tend not to take my dogs out during open trapping season to shed hunt. I have a pretty good idea about the the number of wolf and cat tracks in broad geographical areas during the winter and see many of their kills both during winter and after. Interested in your comparison for your whitetail hunting area and how much if at all it changed and the factors you attribute to the changes if any??

 

[BuzzH]

Good questions...and because I keep good journals I have a lot of information on the when, where, why, and how.

When I first starting hunting this country in the late 70's there were probably slightly more mule deer than whitetail. Numbers of both were not that great, enough to keep you entertained and those that put the time in killed bucks. Elk were never really "thick" in this place and we hunted elk strictly for meat. There were doe and cow seasons the first 3 days of general...and the mule deer does in particular, took a pounding.

The same day I killed my first elk, my Dad also shot a whitetail buck...one of the first ones he ever killed. He and a good friend focused on mule deer, back when you could kill 2 buck mule deer a year in parts of Montana. They would each kill 2 good buck mule deer a year each in the tenderfoot/dry range areas. They were good friends with a Government trapper, Bud McCauley who lived in White Sulphur and he was why they hunted there. I got to know Bud, hunted with him some as well, and he lived into his early 90's. I still have some correspondence we shared, he typed all his letters on an old script typewriter.

Anyway, once the hunting dried up in the WSS area for mule deer (multiple reasons) we started focusing more on the deer near our family Cabin in the Blackfoot/Seeley/Swan area.

Like I said my family was pretty much mule deer hunters from way back and because there were still fair numbers we didn't really start hunting the whitetails seriously around the cabin until the early 80's. They weren't abundant, but they weren't scarce either. Through about 1987 we shot equalish numbers of whitetail and mule deer. Seeing 20 deer a day was a good day in the early 80's-1986/87, either mule deer or whitetail. We saw enough bucks that we all filled our tags with no problem.

Starting in aboutt 1985, the mule deer numbers took a major dump, and the doe hunting continued. We took our concerns about mule ddeer to the biologist at the time, Bob Henderson, and he ignored them. I think in response to 2 things the whitetail numbers starting climbing: Logging being the biggest factor, and also more habitat since the mule deer really tanked. Elk just sort of held their own, and we killed a few every year when they got in the way while we deer hunted.

Around 1988-89 there was a noticeable uptick in whitetail numbers and that was the start of the best whitetail hunting of my life. Very few people hunted whitetails then and even fewer knew how to do it right. There were 2 families that hunted "our" country that were good whitetail hunters, us and the Knapp's. We hunted it more consistently, but when they hunted it, they did very well. Had infrequent fliers that would hunt a year or two, get discouraged and leave. Still not many hunt it today, and I would argue none that hunt it correctly.

All through the 80's and 90's lion numbers were not high and I would note when I found tracks. I maybe saw 2-5 tracks a season, and did see one lion in about 1986 while deer hunting. During that time frame there was a steady lion harvest of about 90-110 cats a year from the major drainage. I killed a lion in 1991 hunting with a friend that had new hounds before the quota's were slashed.

Then the whining from the houndsmen and that all changed in the late 90's. Quota's slashed and lion harvest dropped from 100ish a year, to 10. Didn't take long and lion numbers began to sky-rocket. So thick, that unless I saw more than say 5 tracks a day, I didn't bother making note of it in my journals. I remember one day after a good snow, my younger Brother and I cut 14 separate lion tracks (to be fair 6 of the 14 were female and 2 kittens). During that time, we saw lions just about every year, I saw 6 one year while deer hunting.

Also, the first "b" tags for whitetails started in about 1989-90. They were limited and by draw only, around 250-500 a year from 89-2002. Not unwarranted as the populations were pretty darn good.

I remember the day I killed the top buck in my post #209...that was in 2006 and that was IMO, the "peak". That was the 22nd 4 point (4x4 for the eastern folk) or better buck I saw that day by 1PM.

The FWP made a huge blunder about then, ran 4 years of OTC B-tags for whitetail. Each hunter could draw one b-tag through the draw, one OTC for rifle, one OTC for archery, and of course your A-tag. So 4 per hunter per year...and yes some did it, just sayin'. Combined with the huge increase in lions, it was a 1-2 punch.

In about 2-3 years numbers dropped. Lions have killed off all the mule deer, I haven't seen one in 9 years. There never were a lot, but usually 20-50.

Been a slow grind back since 2008, but numbers are solid again. Cat numbers declined, I'm sure mostly due to the decline in deer. I think wolves moving in has helped as well with the cats. There's a pack of 6-8 that have moved in the last 5-6 years and since then, cats seem to be declining. I'd much rather see a pack of wolves move through a couple times a year instead of 14 lions slicking 10-12 deer a week.

Habitat changes have made the hunting harder, just can't see as well due to second growth, but the deer are still there. Deer health has remained excellent, they have obscene body fat. Also, the 1996/97 winter didn't impact our country nearly as much as other areas. I think due to the condition they entered that winter in, as well as the quality of habitat. Even making a living in the tree wells for most of that winter, they pulled through in pretty good shape. Other areas were hit very hard.

The biggest negative factors are lions and mismanagement...I talked with Jay Kolbe (Bio at the time and a damn good one) during the OTC b-tag areas, and he begged Mike Thompson to stop it after the 2nd year. I did too, and it did no good. I talked with Mike a few years ago and he admitted that was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made, the OTC b tags, with whitetail there. It pounded the resource hard....some of the numbers checked through the check station were gross.

Anway...enough of that.

 

[mtluckydan]

Thanks for sharing Buzz...I would certainly like to hear more but now I'm understanding a little better your take vs mine & many others. There have never been that many lions in any of the places I hunt & some of them aren't that far from your stomping grounds. I have killed one cat rattling as I always buy a rifle season tag and will take advantage of any opportunity on them I can. I've also rattled in a very big black bear but my tag was already gone & the wife had no shot opportunity. I thought I was going to have to shoot him as he came in hard and fast but finally turned at the last minute with my wind. I see occasional cat tracks with snow, but as the wolf population built, it became increasingly worse to the point that now from north of Seely to Swan Lake on both sides....they are in every drainage and it has severely impacted the deer. I'm not sure about this season, but two or three seasons ago, the last day of the check station at the north end of the Swan - the success rate on their board was +/- 1% on deer/elk for the entire 5 week season...check stations are now only open on weekends, but still there are a lot of hunters that come through during that time frame.

West of Kalispell and north of Whitefish same thing. I spent an entire day in one of my best areas this year during the rut with fresh snow and listened to the wolves howl all day in an adjacent drainage. Saw a few deer, but when that's going on they are on high alert and don't hang around long if they see something move. There were certainly some nice bucks killed this year that I've heard of and we killed some nice ones last year early on so didn't hunt the rut window at all. Sounds like you've been out of the elk woods for seven years and I would bet it's worse than when you were hunting them in Montana. Montana still ranks #2 in highest elk population, but this part of the state isn't where they're at any more. I don't think we'll ever agree on the wolves...I've hunted many parts of Montana and Idaho and I've seen firsthand what they've done. If you were to poll taxidermists in Montana and Idaho about how their quantity and quality of elk and deer is now compared to pre-wolf, I think you would get another perspective from professionals who may not have population estimates but first hand knowledge of what's hitting the ground.

 

[wybwana]

Except for everyone should avoid this POS outfitter. Cody is a S--t bag who should have his outfitters license pulled. However, if Dan would do what he is doing without being involved with carr, this would be phenomenal. This area of montana is pretty much only good for predator hunting nowadays, for the reasons mentioned.

yep, worst guided hunt i've ever bene on. he lied about what to expect. he didn't have the number of guides in camp he said he would have (and guides he had were brand new to montana). meanwhile he sat at his house supervising construction. this guy is weak, not a hunter, not an outfitter and just a con man.

 

[KHNC]

yep, worst guided hunt i've ever bene on. he lied about what to expect. he didn't have the number of guides in camp he said he would have (and guides he had were brand new to montana). meanwhile he sat at his house supervising construction. this guy is weak, not a hunter, not an outfitter and just a con man.

100% accurate. Just sits around on his pile of money praying to God and telling everyone how religious he is.

 

[strattonje2020]

It’s a tough area in nw Montana for any outfitter.