Hunting ends on strong note in Region 1
Dale McLaury, from left, Drew McLaury and Bob McLaury came out of the Fisher region with a pair of bulls. Bob took the initial shot and unknowingly hit a second animal. The second elk was tracked with all three involved in the effort. Bob and Drew are from Libby and Dale is a Libby native who now lives in Kila. The kills occurred on the morning of Nov. 22.
The white-tailed deer harvest picked up
considerably over the final weekend of the general big-game hunting
season, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials reported
Monday.
As reported the previous week, snowfall
and the rut combined to create ideal hunting conditions.
Hunting success in the Libby-Troy-Yaak
region took off late.
“Really, we didn’t have great
conditions in this area until the fifth week ... that’s when our
success went through the roof,” said Tonya Chilton-Radandt,
wildlife biologist with Montana FWP who works the Canoe Gulch check
station near Libby.
At the six northwestern Montana check
stations through Sunday, 17,564 hunters checked 1,055 white-tailed
deer (888 of those were bucks), 159 mule deer and 158 elk for a
7.8-percent rate of hunters with game.
Reflecting the improved hunting
conditions, hunters checked 253 white-tailed bucks through the
check stations on Saturday and Sunday alone.
Libby’s Canoe Gulch check station
reported 2,108 hunters checking 60 white-tailed deer (46 bucks), 36
mule deer and 13 elk for a 5.2-percent rate of hunters with
game.
The number of hunters coming through
the check station were roughly 25 to 30 percent lower than last
year, Chilton-Radandt said.
“This could be a good time to remind
folks to continue the heritage of hunting,” she said. “It’s an
important heritage and we need more good, ethical hunters out
there.”
The counts at the check stations
represent a sampling of the harvest and not the complete number of
animals taken.
“This is just a sub-sample and it
allows us to look at this year relative to other years,”
Chilton-Radandt said. “In general across the board across the
region, it looked a little bit slow again. ... We don’t know what
the numbers this year will mean for next year until we actually sit
down and look at the numbers relative to previous years.”
Jim Williams, Montana FWP wildlife
manager, said the number of white-tailed bucks checked picked up
over the last two weekends of the general season because of ideal
hunting conditions. Snow and cold temperatures spurred animals to
move down to lower elevation winter habitats.
Wildlife officials said the regional
deer harvest has been low the last few years and based on the check
station sampling this year, it will be similar.
“The whitetail deer population is not
continuing to decline across northwest Montana as bucks checked at
most stations have stabilized or increased despite a drop in hunter
numbers this year,” Montana FWP’s John Fraley said through a press
release. “Biologists will also be looking at the age classes of
checked deer to give us a clearer picture of population trend.”
Williams added that survival of
white-tailed fawns through their first winter will determine if the
population will decrease or increase into next year. Fawn survival
improved last year but this year’s early onset of cold temperatures
and snow is a concern to biologists relative to fawn survival this
coming winter.
Biologists will be monitoring fawn
survival closely this winter and into next spring because fawns are
most susceptible to winter kill.
“I will be anxious to monitor the fawn
survival more than anything this coming spring in our surveys,”
Chilton-Radandt said. “It could be a telling winter.”
Adult white-tailed deer does typically
survive well even in tough winters based on years of following
radio-collared white-tailed does in northwestern Montana. Both
predators and hunting can have a significant impact on adult doe
survival, however.
The Thompson Falls check station
reported the most elk checked. Good snow conditions in the Lower
Clark Fork resulted in a strong harvest of bulls.