Eastern Montana Muleys
 

Has anyone harvested anything in Eastern Montana this year?

We are not seeing normal antler growth, I believe, do to the extended drought. We've taken 3 that are decent. The numbers are good, but the ratio of good bucks seems to be down a bit.

Has anyone else experienced this delima?

Blackhawk

-----Every day is a great day in Eastern Montana-----

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RE: Eastern Montana Muleys
 

i hunted my place east of great falls for a week. this is the worst year i have ever seen, only saw 2 decent mule bucks. my buddy shot one of them it had thick mass and a 23 inch spread and huge rutted out neck. the other was a 5 point and noticable larger horns, i didn't go out back after him and hope he makes it. saw several 3 points with their own heard of does which i have never seen before and probally indicates they were the biggest around.

i have noticed increased hunting pressure in the last few years but have my place posted. also the drought couldn't have helped but have had good rain in september and more grass has grown then i've ever seen before.

hope it's better next year.

RE: Eastern Montana Muleys
 

Must be the drought or the weather in general we had a pour elk havest in the southwest part of the state. I can`t say much about the mulies but it seems to be the same for the whitetails never seen a big buck and and ended up passing on the smaller bucks shooting a doe.
Man I wish we would get out of this drought cycle were in because of right now I`ll bet we don`t have more than a couple of feet of snow at 10,000 feet its sick looking.

RE: Eastern Montana Muleys
 

EASTERN MONT. HASN'T PRODUCED ANYTHING SPECTACULAR EITHER. IT WAS REAL SLOW , I DO BELIEVE THE NUMBERS ARE DOWN. AND AS FAR AS BUCKS GOOD LUCK.

larry

RE: Eastern Montana Muleys
 

Robert,

The season didn't start out well, and I thought is was the drought to begin with. However, we started seeing better animals later in the year. I think now that it was just the extremely warm weather we had so late. Here is a buck that was taken on the last day. The photo was taken Monday morning after it had snowed. Of course mother nature waited until after dark on the last day of the season to snow. Look close at the right antler, this is a 4x6 that went 26" outside and has the left brow tine broken.




So it didn't turn out to be as bad a year as it looked like earlier. What kind of luck did yu have?

Blackhawk

-----Every day is a great day in Eastern Montana-----


Edited by - Blackhawk357 on 12/26/2002 16:01:41

RE: Eastern Montana Muleys
 

I live in Cut Bank, Northwest of Great Falls. I'm only 17 but I've been hunting since I was 12 and long before that along with my dad. This year, I got a 28 in 4x5 Mule that was really heavy and I got him in rut. I was hunting the sweet grass hills on a private ranch. My dad also got a really thick 5x5 whitetail there, and we saw a few other big bucks but not nearly as many as we did a few years back. I think hunting pressure and the drought has combined to produce fewer big racked bucks. I also got a 16 in. antelope, and a cow elk with my bow. I did alot of pheasant hunting too, and although I got my yearly limit pretty easily, there weren't many birds either. I also went down to SE montana last spring and my dad and I got 2 toms and a jake turkey, but there wasn't alot of them either. Hopefully this drought has ended this year. Does anyone else here hunt turkeys down in SE montana?