I live on the east side of the Spotted Dog WMA almost due east of Deer Lodge and I can give you a fair amount of info about the areas in the mountains east of the flat land you are talking about.
Most of the animals will start moving off the tops of the mountains when the snow gets to a foot or deeper, some will move toward the flats on the west side toward Deer Lodge and some will move toward Rimini on the east side. You can't really predict what the weather will be like in November, in 2016 we had no snow at all until the last weekend of the general rifle season, in 2017 it started snowing in September and it hasn't quit yet, I'm getting a light rain/snow mix as I type this. The snow has pretty much melted at the lower altitudes but at the top of the Spotted Dog you'll still need a snow machine to get around. My wife took a hike yesterday and had places where she sank to her hips in snow - and she was using snow shoes.
Crowding is sort relative in my opinion. I have a spot I love to go where I might see a half dozen people all season long but only 1 mile to the west you can see hunters lined up in the their pickups along the forest service road. Most people simply don't get out and walk any more and if there is a good spot with a road then you'll probably see lots of vehicles and lots of people illegally hunting from their vehicles. All you have to do is walk in a mile or two and you'll see animals, the further you can walk in the better. As for the hunting guides, well again, it depends on where you go. We had several that were guiding people to the top of the Spotted Dog in recent years but the forest service has pretty much reduced their numbers, and rightly so since quite a number of those guides were actually just fly-by-night outfits that weren't following usage rules; some were running continuous camps with semi-permanent setups for 5 or 6 months at a time, they were dominating the area and basically redirecting other hunters away from what was actually open public land.
The valleys on the east side of the Spotted Dog area aren't very good for elk or deer most any time but when the snow starts to fall there just aren't enough animals to produce much of a success rate. They are there but you have to know the area well and hunt hard. The game managers feel that hunt area 215 is overpopulated for elk and deer and they may be right but I'd bet that most of the overpopulation is spending their time on private land because you don't really see that many animals on the public land. My money would be on the west side of the mountains for mule deer, I had a guy that I helped a little last year get a very nice buck and he was just down in the foothills to the east of Deer Lodge. The buck was sitting on a knoll looking over some low land with lots of grass and widely spaced trees, he had to make a sneak and he took a 300 yard shot because he just couldn't get any closer. The elk are a different story, you'll find them pretty much anywhere as long as there is water, food, and security. I've had the most luck with south facing slopes with grass first thing in the morning and then as the day goes along the elk will move toward a high spot that is in the trees with easy access to water and grass. They'll spend the day laying in the trees chewing their cud and then every few hours they'll walk over to the nearest grass and eat and then lay down and chew again, just think of them like really good looking cows with antlers instead of horns. You'll find that most cows and calves will be in half dozen to a dozen sized groups while bulls will be in groups of no more than 3 or 4 or by themselves.
I'd suggest working on the northern end of the mountain range just below highway 12 sticking to the west side of the mountains. Don't bother with going any farther than a line straight south out of Avon. You can access that area with county and forest service roads. I'm not saying that the Spotted Dog area is not good, it actually is, but it's harder to hunt and it'll take a lot more time to scout it out and find your way around it. Remember to bring some kind of map that shows local private lands, it's illegal to hunt on private property without permission, you can't even cross private land without permission and if you get caught you can loose your hunting privileges in the state and be fined. Also remember that hunt area 215 has a brow tine requirement for the bulls meaning that you can't shoot a bull unless it has at least one brow tine that is at least 4 inches long.
