Hunting outlook looks on par with last year, despite fires

The general hunting season for big game starts Saturday and hunters should expect game numbers to be good, despite fires and a harsh winter.

“It should be fairly similar to last year,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife program manager Neil Anderson said last week.

There was some spotty winter mortality in some areas, but overall, big game managed fairly well despite the above-average snowpack, Anderson noted. Winter didn’t get going until December, which helped.

Fire-burned areas probably won’t be very productive this fall, depending on the severity of the burn, but in future years, they could be quite good.

Anderson noted that studies in the Bitterroots have shown that it takes about six years for a burned area to regenerate back into good elk and deer habitat, but it really depends on the dynamics of the site and the heat of the fire when it burned through.

For example, a hot fire that burns the canopy in winter range isn’t beneficial, because it takes away the cover big game need to avoid deep snows.

Conversely, a fire that burned through summer and spring range can be productive with grasses the next summer, provided the fire wasn’t so hot that it burned the seed bed.

Some areas that have regenerated over the years have proven good for big game, others not so much. In the North Fork, for example, the east side of Demers Ridge is primarily a sea of “doghair” lodgepole pine, which isn’t very productive big game habitat.

Meanwhile, south facing slopes in the same area are more mosaic and offer better habitat for deer and elk.

Montana has a long general hunting season. For most areas, it starts Oct. 21 and ends the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

This year, like last year, hunters can take either-sex whitetail deer in most districts of Northwest Montana until Oct. 27. It then switches to antlered whitetails only until Nov. 19 and then from Nov. 20 in some districts hunters can shoot antlerless deer on private lands as long as it’s land that isn’t owned by F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co., Weyerhaeuser or Stimson.

The regulations can vary from district to district so it’s best to check the regulations on the exact area before going afield.