Hunting opener a big success

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

Opening day for the 2006 big-game hunting season produced a 14 percent increase in deer and elk counted at check stations across Northwest Montana.

"Even with the beautiful autumn weather, hunters were able to harvest good numbers of deer and elk throughout Region One," said Jim Williams, the regional wildlife manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "It was great to see the young hunters out at the check stations."

The six standard check stations were busy Sunday, with 2,649 hunters stopping with 171 whitetail deer, 27 mule deer and 19 elk for a rate of 8 percent of hunters with game.

Compared to last year's opening day, there were more whitetails, fewer mule deer and the same number of elk harvested.

Of the whitetails checked, 72 were bucks and 99 were antlerless.

The check station on U.S. 2 west of Kalispell tallied more than 1,200 hunters, the most of any check station, along with the highest counts of deer and elk.

The Swan Valley check station had the highest percentage of hunters with game, 10.7 percent.

Hunters are reminded that either-sex whitetails are legal game through Sunday. After that, it's buck-only hunting for whitetails until the last four days of the season (Nov. 23-26) when either-sex whitetails can be harvested legally again. Mule deer hunting is buck-only all season.

Antlerless deer can also be harvested with B licenses, which were available by drawing for select districts.

Hunters ages 12-15 can harvest antlerless whitetail deer and elk during the entire season in most Northwest Montana hunting districts. Hunters are advised to carefully review state regulations for districts where they plan to hunt.

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