Big game season finishes strong

The Daily Inter Lake

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say Northwest Montana's 2004 big game hunting season finished with strong numbers in most categories Sunday.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say Northwest Montana's 2004 big game hunting season finished with strong numbers in most categories Sunday.

With a total of 25,693 hunters stopping at seven check stations during the five-week season, hunter numbers were the highest recorded since 1996, when 26,542 were counted.

A total of 1,930 white-tailed deer were checked, also the highest since 1996, when 2,579 were checked.

But this year's white-tailed buck count of 1,103 lagged slightly behind last year's count of 1,272.

A count of 398 mule deer was the highest since at least 1996, as was the elk count of 208.

Jim Williams, the state's Region One wildlife manager, said that nearly three-fourths of the white-tailed bucks that were checked had four-point antlers or better.

About 70 of the elk harvested were brow-tined bulls, with the remainder of the count being antlerless animals taken by hunters with special permits or by youth hunters.

The most significant harvest increase appeared to be in the Swan Valley, where hunters checked 25 elk this year compared to just four last year.