My opening day Montana mule deer

ismith

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-25-05 AT 07:13PM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Oct-25-05 AT 07:10?PM (MST)

I was hunting elk not far from my dads place in south western Montana when I stumbled into a group of six bucks. Four of them were smallish threes or fours and two of them were decent bucks. The buck I ended up shooting is a 4x4 or 5x5 depending on whether or not you count the browtines. The other nice buck was probally around 26 inches wide but didnt have back forks and not alot of height. My buck is 24 inches wide and 18inches tall I usally wait until the rut starts to hunt deer but I couldnt pass this one up. The pictures not great, but as it was unseasonably warm I was in a hurry to get him dressed and cooled down in the shade. http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/User_files/435ecabd49b771bb
 
435ecabd49b771bb.jpg
 
ismith, Nice buck. Me and my buddy are leaving on the 8th of Nov. for Montana. We have general deer tags. My buddies son lives in Bozeman but he has'nt been there too long. He has us signed up for some block management ground the first 3 days.
If you have any tips you'd care to share that would be great.
This will be our first mulie hunt. We've both been hunting blacktails for 30+ years in the brush jungles of northwest
Ca. and southwest Or. (with good success). So this will be a new deal for us. Thanks for any info you might share.
 
So you will be hunting in the Bozeman area? I go to school in Bozeman and head home to Ennis on weekends. You should be able to do pretty well on block management property. Make sure you have a good set of binos and youll find a good spotting scope worth its weight in gold. Let me know which general area you will be hunting in and Ill see if I can put you in a good area. The mule deer should be starting to rut around the time you get here so you should be able to find some decent bucks. Be sure to check out the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks website, http://fwp.state.mt.us/hunting/planahunt/ Youll find the plan a hunt feature very helpful.
 
Hey Ismith...

I'm from ennis too! Well grew up there and moved away a few years ago... My parents and family still live there.

Nice buck too. Public land?
 
Yeah he was on Forest Service land. While I was dressing him I noticed a ton of traffic and rigs parked on the other side of the drainage. Im sure they were watching the group of bucks he was in. I was hunting the Gravelies. Oh boy was it a zoo up there on the roads. Couldnt believe all the people out there. Thankfully most of the people up there were hanging by the roads.
 
ismith,
talked to my buddies son today. He has us signed up for 3 different block management ranches for our first 3 days of hunting. It looks like they are in the Whitehall, Cardwell,
and 3 forks areas. Units 311,333, 370, and 380 i beleive. He also has an elk tag, (we don't). We're willing to travel some so if you have any tips it would be greatly appreciated. E-mail me if you can. [email protected]
Thanks, Barry (sisqhunter)
 
nice to see a bit of Montana, My wife and I are going to try to make the move up there in a year and a half. She grew up in Missoula but we are thinking about Helena.
 
We're heading to Ennis on the 18th, My dad lives there. Don't think we'll be able to get up on the Gravelleys then but reminded me of a funny story about an out of towner who lost his wallet up on the Gravelleys. A guy in town sez Yeah I know right where it is. Now that's funny, I don't care who you are. heh heh. I think it's about 50 miles from 1 end to the other.
 
Got a report today from my dad. He said he had to chain up to get up johnny ridge road and he still got stuck! Good thing he has a winch. He also said he saw some nice muley bucks and they are definately starting to rut. The call road is drifted up pretty bad and unpassible except with a snow machine. They had some really high winds last night (70mph gusts) The forcast is calling for some rain and or snow this weekend. Hopefully the elk will be moving around some ;)
 

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