It should be a bumper crop for hunters

Opening day for deer and elk hunting is always one of the highlights of the fall hunting season. Last Sunday there were nearly 20,000 Northwest Montana hunters in our mountains and meadows.

Many of us headed east to the prairies to enjoy a combination antelope and deer hunting trip. Our hunting group left last week to hunt antelope for a couple days, then hunt both deer and antelope on Sunday and early this week.

In some areas of Eastern Montana, "7" license plates outnumber those of local residents during the big-game rifle season. Last weekend was especially busy in Eastern Montana because opening weekend of deer season coincided with the annual teachers convention when kids had Thursday and Friday off.

Not only were lots of school kids out hunting, but I bet a large percent of Montana teachers skipped part of their convention to go hunting.

All the predictions were for a bumper crop of deer, elk and antelope this year. We've had a number of consecutive easy winters for several years, plus decent rainfall last fall and this June to provide a good forage base for wildlife.

Montana hunters harvest more than 100,000 deer each year, with whitetails and mule deer harvest levels about even. Whitetails seem to be gradually expanding their ranges and probably will soon pass mule deer as the number one deer species in Montana.

In Northwest Montana, where whitetails are plentiful, wildlife officials are contemplating allowing all hunters in Northwest Montana to take a extra whitetail doe next year. That proposal will depend on harvest levels this year, whether we have another easy winter and spring survey results of fawn survival.

Last week a dental technician told me the clinic started Saturday hours to allow working men to get their teeth cleaned outside of the normal work week. But they suspended that working men's schedule in the fall because most of the men went hunting. Welcome to Montana!

I recently talked with a representative of a national land-use planning firm who understood delayed business schedules in Montana during the fall hunting season. But he remarked that Montana's hunting heritage was nothing compared to Wisconsin, where deer hunting is a state holiday. Many rural Wisconsin schools close for the primary week of deer season.

While it is great to have deer season open in Northwest Montana, the first week or two of our five-week season usually do not offer the best deer hunting. It is the third to fifth week of deer season that offers the best chance to get a big buck.

That's when the bucks will be in full rut. Most of the does get bred the last two weeks of November. At that time, bucks will be running with the does and lose their normal caution. Some hunters like the week prior to the peak of the rut, believing that bucks may be more active looking for a receptive doe.

Once a doe is found that is getting ready to breed, then the buck will stay with her until she can be bred.

So the next week or so will be a good time to do an armed reconnaissance of your favorite hunting areas in preparation for the last half of hunting season. Usually the weather is milder, so it's a great time to be afield.

And you never know when you may catch a wary buck with his guard down. It's been nine years since the very tough winter of 1996-97. During the spring of 1997 there was almost no fawn crop.

But there were bumper fawn crops during the next two or three years. Those buck fawns are now fully mature, so there should be more mature bucks this year than any year over the past nine years.

So slip into your orange jacket, shoulder your rifle and enjoy Montana's hunting heritage. Take a friend or kid with you. Have fun!