Is hunting always great?

When I return from a hunting trip, people frequently ask me, “How was hunting?” My response is almost always the same, “Hunting was great!”  

Then the usual standard follow-up question is, “What did you shoot?”  Then, they are surprised when I sometimes respond by saying, “Nothing.” I hunt because I think it is unnatural not to want to hunt, fish and grow some of my own food. People have been subsisting on wild game and fish, and raising some of their own food for thousands of years. One of my great pleasures in life is sitting down at our dinner table and having my wife serve meat or fish we have shot or caught, and eating the potatoes, corn, onions or other vegetables we have raised in our garden. It gives us a lot of satisfaction to being kind of self-reliant. 

On opening day of the current deer season, I was hunting out of our farm near Malta. I was up before dawn. My hunting buddy of 20 years, Todd, who is like a son, had a good breakfast cooked. The dirty dishes were quickly stored in the sink and we headed out to hunt. It was an exceptional Eastern Montana day -- cool, but not cold, sunny and no wind. The Eastern Montana sunrise was spectacular.  

Todd and our two other hunting buddies headed east to hunt at what we call Gas Well Coulee. I chose to hunt the south half of my farm. Later in the morning, the plan was that I would take my truck and pick up those guys at what we refer to as the Shepard Shack, an old ranch building on public land. That way they would not have to walk back to their pickup, about three miles away.   

On the south end of my farm, I chased a mule deer doe and her two fawns off my property onto BLM land. I didn’t shoot. A half hour later I was hunting what I call my deer coulee. Eleven mule deer does and fawns came out of the coulee. I only have one mule deer tag in my hunting pack, so I wasn’t going to use it the first hour of the five-week deer season by shooting a mule deer doe.  

Usually, FWP issues hundreds of mule deer doe tags for my hunting district. In the past, like this year, you could apply for one of those extra mule deer doe tags. I didn’t apply for such a tag this year because in past years, after the drawings, there were hundreds of mule deer doe tags left-over, so I, like any other hunter, could just go down to FWP and buy several tags. So why bother with applying for a permit!  

This year, after several years of drought and a very tough winter in 2021/22, FWP decided to really limit extra mule deer tags. So, there were no extra tags to buy. So, my one and only mule deer tag, my “A” tag, will be reserved for later in the season when the rut kicks in. Then the bucks will be moving around all day looking for does. Then, I should have the chance to harvest a nice buck, either a mule deer or whitetail. 

During the first couple of weeks of deer season, the number of hunters and hunter success was up in most hunting districts in Western Montana. That’s good news. That probably reflects a milder winter this past year, with less starvation and higher fawn survival. This coming couple of weeks, the number hunters and hunter success will likely drop a little as many hunters have satisfied that opening day urge to get out. Also, the surviving deer and elk are more wary after being chased for a couple of weeks.  

Deer and elk hunting will then really heat up as hunters see the end of the general deer and elk hunting season winding down, as well as having the increased likelihood of snow, which really helps hunters find, track and harvest deer and elk.  Also, the deer rut will kick in, when bucks will be much less cautious.  

This coming week, I will hunt the edge of thick bedding cover and more open timber with enough sunlight to produce deer and elk food. If I am lucky, I will catch a critter feeding late or early between their feeding and bedding areas. I will also sit and watch semi-open habitat in hopes of sighting a critter that another hunter may have spooked. Whitetail deer are very smart and always on the alert for danger. Most of the whitetails I’ve shot in the forests of Western Montana have been when I have been sitting on a stand, watching some semi-open habitat. Although it is a little early for the full rut, it probably wouldn’t hurt to bring a set of deer antlers and do some rattling. A very very important part of your hunting gear should be a spray bottle of powder for testing the wind. You will be surprised to sit in the forest, thinking there is no wind movement. Wrong! There is always air movement. Spray a shot of powder out of your wind indicator bottle and watch how it drifts. It will never go straight down. 

The most important part of hunting this weekend is just getting out into the hills and quietly easing your way through the wild natural environment. A side event for me will be to be on the lookout for a nice Christmas tree. If you want to cut a tree, be sure you are on public land and have a permit! Have fun!