Big game harvest reported lower than normal so far
Josh Boyd killed this 200-plus pound buck with his bow on Nov. 4 in the Libby area. The deer was a 5 by 6 and its antlers had a 22-inch outside spread.
By GWEN ALBERS Western News Reporter
Rain and unseasonably warm temperatures are blamed for a lower than normal big game harvest this fall.
But neither stopped Josh Boyd from making a trophy kill.
Boyd, 33, took his biggest deer ever on Nov. 4 with his bow. From a tree stand in the Libby area, he killed a 5 by 6 white-tailed buck with a 22-inch outside spread.
The 200-pound plus deer scored a 180 using Pope & Young, the official scale for big game harvested with a bow in North America. As a comparison, the world record typical buck killed with a bow in 1965 in Illinois scored 204 4/8.
"I packed him out in quarters," said Boyd, a hydrologist and watershed manager with the U.S. Forest Service.
Jerry Brown, an area wildlife biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, hopes more hunters will experience success as the five-week general deer and elk season winds down. Since the season opened on Oct. 22, the kill has been down more than 20 percent in northwest Montana.
"From all eight check stations, it's down from last year," Brown said. "Four or five days of heavy rain kept people from hunting much, and the first week we had sunshine and blue skies."
With Thanksgiving around the corner - a popular hunting time - and bucks in rut, things should pick up, he said.
"The rut is in and if we get more snow, they will start moving to their winter areas, (lower elevations)," Brown said. "Some deer and elk move great distances. As the Cabinets start to get heavy snow, the elk and mule deer will move from their summer (home) to winter (home). Some move 25 miles."
During the first two weeks and final four days of the season, hunters can harvest a doe or a fawn. The season closes Sunday, Nov. 26. In addition, FWP issued 1,300 B licenses for local hunting districts 100, 101, 103 and 104. The licenses allow hunters to take a doe any day throughout the season.
"We're offering hunters to take more white-tail doe if they will," Brown said.
As for the deer Boyd took, he'd known about the animal for some time.
"I was hunting in that same area last fall and I had seen it last winter, but I had already killed a mule deer," he said. "I spent a good solid month looking for his sheds and found one from two years ago."
The antler's distinct shape told Boyd it was from the same deer.
The day he killed the deer it was very wet.
"I got into my stand and let things calm down and rattled in three other smaller bucks," Boyd said. "They came in and started sparring, running in front of the tree stand and feeding."
About 20 minutes before dark, he spotted a much larger deer.
"I saw him coming at me through some thicker vegetation," Boyd said. "He walked right under my stand. He walked behind the tree, which gave me a chance to draw."
After hitting the deer, Boyd said it ran for about 80 yards.
He plans to have the buck mounted.
Hunters are reminded to stop at FWP check stations they pass. It's the law.
Locally, the station is at Canoe Gulch Ranger Station on Highway 37 north of Libby.
The station will be open weekends during the season.