Best time for Combo Deer/Antelope Hunt in Eastern Montana

npaden · 08-08-2007, 10:57 AM

Well, I was successful in getting drawn for a speed goat tag along with my combination Deer/Elk license this year as well for Montana.

My antelope tag is for district 630 in South Valley County. I was unsuccessful for my special Elk permits so I think I'm just going to focus on Mule deer and Antelope. I'll be hunting BLM land in South Valley for Antelope and going down to the CMR wildlife refuge and along Timber and Plum Creek for Mule deer. I grew up in Glasgow and will be staying there with family when I'm not spending the night out in the boonies.

Trying to decide on the best time to make the 1,250 mile one way trek up there to go hunting. Antelope season opens October 7th and ends November 11th and Deer season opens October 21st and ends on November 25th.

From my recollection, the antelope get pretty spooked after a few weeks into the season so I was thinking about going up there and starting Antelope hunting on Saturday the 20th and being ready for deer season opener the next day. I'm thinking the antelope won't be too spooked by then and I would still have a decent chance at one. I'll probably budget myself 3 days of antelope hunting and 4 days of mule deer hunting.

I'm afraid that if I wait until the end of Antelope season that they will be really scattered and spooked and the deer still won't be in rut anyway so that wouldn't be good timing.

Any other ideas on a good time to do a combo hunt? Any other tips or advice from anyone that has hunted that area recently? My memories are from 20+ years ago hunting there as a kid.

Thanks, Nathan

Nemont · 08-08-2007, 11:41 AM

It will also depend on what the weather is doing.

I was out there over the weekend and saw a really nice antelope buck right along the road before you hit the TC access road.

I think that coming out when you mentioned would work out okay since you are only after an average speed goat. Remember that the opening of deer is a zoo out there. I refuse to partake in that circus. You have every local and NR driving all over and shooting up a storm.

Don't expect it to be anything like it was 20 years ago. Also don't expect the same kind of courtesy you used get out there.

You shouldn't need 3 days to get a speed goat though unless they are really spooked up.

Have fun

Nemont

npaden · 08-08-2007, 01:13 PM

Thanks for the reply!

I've actually been back a few times in the last 20 years and hunted with my Dad a few times down on Timber Creek when he got drawn for some cow Elk tags (He was 80 the last time I went with him and there was no way he was going to be packing out an elk) but I haven't hunted antelope in 20 years at least. Your right that I'm just looking for an average antelope, I would be very happy with one around 14". I shot one a little bigger than that as a kid, (Just under 15") but never had it mounted or anything and the horns came off after a while and it was really nasty so I just threw it away.

I'm going to have to get some BLM maps mailed to me or do some more work with Google earth to get my bearings on the areas that we used to hunt antelope. We did most of our hunting for antelope out toward the old bentonite plant. Looking at the Hunt planner on the FWP site it looks like there is about 20 or 30 square miles of BLM land out that way. I don't remember ever having to get permision from anyone when hunting out that way.

I hadn't really thought of the first week of gun season for deer being a zoo. We never really went out on the first day of hunting season growing up (Church on Sunday) and we didn't take off school that week either. Is Sunday the only day that will be a zoo or will it be pretty much the entire week? Hunting with my Dad these last few times down on Timber Creek we would only see a couple other hunters per day but that was later in the season.

I don't remember any honey holes but there are a few spots down on the CMR refuge that I've seen some pretty large bucks.I would be really happy with a 5 pointer with a 22 to 24 inch spread. As a kid I don't recall ever really passing up anything with horns so the largest I've shot to date is a nice 5 point but it was narrow with an 18" spread and scored around 130" or so. (of course I had no idea about scoring at the time, I just recently measured it to see what it would score)

In the past I've hunted deer up north of Cornwell Ranch on Buggy Creek on BLM land there, and I've sent them a letter asking for permission to hunt on their property but I haven't followed it up with a phone call yet. I've seen a lot larger deer down south than I have along Buggy Creek though so if they don't give me permission I don't figure it as being a big loss. I did some looking on the hunt planner up north of Hinsdale and remember hunting up there a few times and seeing some large deer there, but there is a lot more private land up there and it sounds like it has a few outfitters working some of the best areas now.

I'm getting pretty excited and it is still over 2 months away!

Thanks again for any additional input or advice.

Nathan

hillbillyhunter1 · 08-08-2007, 04:55 PM

Nathan, You should also call the FWP and get the Block management book for district 6 and if there is anything in that that looks close enough or interesting to you you can call them back and get then phone numbers and/or maps of the local participating landowners (if any). Sometimes theres quite a few in a given area...just another avenue.

drs1961 · 08-09-2007, 06:03 AM

Been out to the CMR refuge a few times the past few years and like Nemont said, the opener of deer season is loaded with hunters for about a week. We still got ours and actually used other hunters spooking game to our advantage. We would flank them at a distanceover lookingcoulees checking out the deer they were pushing as they bumbled around.