Good season for hunters predicted

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is expecting a good year for big-game hunters in Northwest Montana, particularly those planning on bagging a white-tailed deer or an elk this season.

The agency on Monday released its annual forecast for deer and elk seasons across the state, and like last year, white-tailed deer should remain in good supply. Game surveys and interviews with hunters indicate another good year for white-tail fawn recruitment, continuing the upward trend of local deer populations throughout Northwest Montana Region One.

“I think a lot of places are doing very well, and we’ll see what the season brings,” regional wildlife manager Neil Anderson said Monday.

Consecutive years of population growth also mean the number of trophy-class bucks is increasing, according to the agency’s forecast.

Recent mild winters have played a major role in the increasing numbers of whitetails, but Anderson said that some places were hit hard by several severe winters leading up to 2010, and populations there are still recovering.

“I think it’s a little spotty in places where they took a bigger hit than others,” Anderson said. “If you start out with very few, even if you have good recruitment, it takes a little while to build those numbers up.”

Still, agency biologists estimate between 30 and 50 percent of the newborn whitetails in the area have been surviving their first year.

Elk typically have a lower recruitment rate, but Anderson said the lower survival rates that populations in Northwest Montana have been experiencing still indicate a growing population.

“I wouldn’t say they’re increasing in great bounds, but I think they’re holding their own,” he said. “In elk, we were looking at mid-20s. That’s good, but not phenomenal.”

Areas in the western part of the region have been reporting the best elk numbers — particularly around the Clark Fork, Thompson River and Lost Trail Game Reserve, Anderson said.

Mule deer, meanwhile, continue to struggle, a trend that has state wildlife biologists puzzled.

Anderson said that habitat loss and increased predation are the obvious suspects, but some studies have indicated they could be getting out-competed in areas that are also home to robust whitetail populations.

Several years of poor mule-deer numbers have compelled the agency to launch a regional study to find the cause of the decline. Anderson said he hopes to get the project underway this winter.

The 2016 hunting season will also include several new opportunities for big-game harvest in Northwest Montana.

During the first week of the season, hunters can use a general whitetail license to harvest either-sex deer. The same applies to the last week of the season, but those harvests are restricted to private land only, excluding Weyerhaeuser, F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. and Stimpson lands.

That change applies to all Northwest Montana hunting districts except 140, 141, 150, 151 and 170.

The rest of the general season will be restricted to antlered bucks.

In Hunting District 170, an extended archery season will run from the end of the general season through Dec. 15 — excluding the Kuhns Wildlife Management Area north of Kalispell.

Previously a bucks-only public hunting ground, the Kuhns property will allow antlerless harvest during the general season.

An elk shoulder season began Monday in Hunting Districts 101 and 109 near Eureka and will continue through Oct. 16.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks developed the shoulder season in response to a problematic herd of elk that was damaging alfalfa fields while in their Tobacco Valley summer range, and the agency will issue up to 50 B licenses for antlerless elk this summer.

The hunt applies to private land only, excluding Weyerhaeuser, F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. and Stimpson lands. Hunters must obtain permission from landowners to participate in the shoulder-season hunt.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.