Missouri Breaks Muley's

[schaaf]

Wondering if anyone has any recent information on the deer numbers around Fort Peck and the Missouri Breaks. I know Hunting pressure and Winters of '10/'11 took quite a toll on the deer population.

Recently moved to Fort Peck and I'm hoping that between my boat and boots I can get to some remote areas to avoid the pressure and hopefully find some decent muley's still to be had. Any thoughts are welcome!!

 

[AT Hiker]

Good luck to you first off.

This will be my first year hunting MT, so I cannot offer anything. I will also be in the SW corner and mainly hunting private, I do plan to expand my hunting further and that area is one of the places I plan to research.

Since MT has a long season and you live there I suspect you will be fine. I plan to go in mid Nov, I cannot wait to hunt rutting muleys!

 

[6mm Remington]

Last winter was a tough one for the deer over in the breaks and over northeast of Lewistown, they got Blue Tongue and started dying from that too. We hunted elk over there last year and did not see very many deer before winter and the disease showed up so I don't know what it was like after. That is amazing country though and there's some wonderful deer in there. Good luck!

 

[jdan9]

Hunted the breaks last November, mostly the country north of Winnett. Deer numbers are way down. Saw a couple of young bucks but never pulled the trigger. Going to give MT a few years to recover before we go back.
jd

 

[medtech10]

Bring your camera and learn how to take good landscape photos......deer numbers are not way down they are WWWAAAYYY down in the breaks. Disease, winters, and FWP giving out WWWAAAYYY to many doe permits has hammered the mule deer in the breaks. Sad, but hopefully they'll be coming back now that they finally stopped the doe permit madness.

 

[medtech10]

and not to mention letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry hunt mule deer on general tags with rifles clear through the entire rut.....sound management especially when numbers already hurting

just my 2 cents

 

[6mm Remington]

and not to mention letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry hunt mule deer on general tags with rifles clear through the entire rut.....sound management especially when numbers already hurting

just my 2 cents

I think that they should close it in certain areas like the breaks COMPLETELY for a couple of years to let the numbers come back. Same with the antelope. Unit 480 used to have about 1200 either sex antelope tags and an additional 1200 or so doe/fawn tags but the numbers have tanked and there just aren't any antelope.

I put in for a antelope last year just because it was my son's last year home before he leaves for college. Not only did I get drawn for an either sex tag, but they also sent me a doe/fawn tag also. What the h@$* is that about! I did not hunt antelope as I wanted to give the poor buggers a break. When we were over elk hunting, admittedly we were not really in the antelope country a lot, but drove through it quite a bit and we saw ONE antelope!!

FWP is all about making money and I think we should consider somehow supporting them through so additional means other than just selling hunting and fishing licenses because they are seriously hurting for money. If that was done, maybe they would start putting a bit more emphasis on taking care of and properly managing our wildlife.
David

 

[AT Hiker]

Interesting perspective 6mm, coming from a resident that means a whole lot more than us NR. Hopefully something will happen for the good and happen soon.

 

[25contender]

I used to love to hunt the breaks back in the day. There used to be great numbers of Deer and Elk. The last two times I drew I had a hard time getting out of all the hunters and this was during Bow Season. Hope and wish they would reduce the numbers of tags.

 

[schaaf]

My neighbor is the Region 6 Wildlife Director, I talked with him the other day and asked him this exact question and he was saying that in their surveys this past year the deer population is double what they observed two years ago and they seem to be rebounding. I don't know him well enough yet to see how much influence he has in simply restricting the hunting in that area for the next few years. I do think that is what's needed, when absolutely anyone can go camp there and shoot the first young buck that moves it doesn't make for a real great area for mule deer.

 

[Musket Man]

FWP is all about making money and I think we should consider somehow supporting them through so additional means other than just selling hunting and fishing licenses because they are seriously hurting for money. If that was done, maybe they would start putting a bit more emphasis on taking care of and properly managing our wildlife.
David

FWP and MT residents put them in this situation. It was MT residents that voted to do away with outfitter tags and raise prices and IMO FWP should have been alot more agressive with the wolf issue. Combine that with dieoffs and bad winters and FWP is in bad shape forsure. I would love to hunt E MT every year or every other year but Im not paying $600 for a general deer tag. Its just tomuch money for what they have to offer and I can hunt other states for alot less.

 

[Musket Man]

its been a few years but I have hunted these areas. Feel free to PM me and I will share what I know of the area.

 

[Dakota Kid]

5 years ago we did this and it was a great hunt. We saw lots of deer, elk, and sheep. We never did see any bucks worth taking. There was lots of hunters out there and deer were skittish. Bring a fishing rod incase things are slow.