Officials have high hopes for hunting season

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

The 2006 big-game hunting season gets under way Sunday at sunrise, with an optimistic outlook from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials.

"Things look good," said Jim Williams, the regional wildlife manager for Northwest Montana. "What we're seeing in all of our deer and elk populations is steady population growth."

And that's largely due to eight successive mild winters that have allowed for robust reproduction and survival.

Williams describes it as a long "recruitment pulse," and it has been confirmed in spring and summer aerial surveys as well as the success for hunters who have been stopping at regional check stations in recent years.

This year's surveys across the region counted 2,294 elk, with 26 calves for every 100 cows. "That's a real good ratio for this region" that portends good hunting several years from now.

Surveys counted 988 mule deer with 42 fawns per 100 adults. For whitetail - a "bread-and-butter" species in terms of hunter opportunity - counts totaled 4,163 deer, with 45 fawns per 100 adults.

"That's typical recruitment for Northwest Montana," he said.

Check station counts in recent hunting seasons have shown a general upward trend in the number of animals harvested and in terms of hunter success.

"We had some older bucks show up at check stations last year, and there should be even more of those showing up this year," Williams said.

Whitetail harvests should increase this year also because of increased availability of "B" tags that allow does to be harvested in select districts. The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission initially considered offering over-the-counter sales of B-tags this year, but that proposal was pared back to a drawing for increased B-tags in select districts.

As usual, hunters are excited about the five-week season.

"There's almost an electricity in the air," Williams said. "Think about any other time of the year when so many people are preparing for and talking about the same thing."

Opening day conditions should be favorable, he said.

"We've had some good rain and the woods are wet, so we'll have some quiet hunting conditions," Williams said. "I think we're going to have lots of hunters out there."

Williams urges hunters to remember that they are required to stop at check stations when they're returning from the field, even if they don't have game.

"This is the one time of year when we are provided an incredible amount of information to help us manage wildlife," he said. "We talk to hunters about what they saw. They report wolves, they report bears, you name it. They report violations. We really enjoy these check stations because we can interact with the hunters all day long."

There are six standard check stations in Northwest Montana: One in the North Fork Flathead basin at Canyon Creek, one at Olney, one in the Swan Valley near Ferndale, the U.S. 2 check station west of Kalispell, one at Thompson Falls and one north of Libby at Canoe Gulch.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com