custer national forest - ashland district

[ND taxidermist]

I went on a little scouting mission opening weekend down in the forest and spent 4 days hiking and getting familiar with the backcountry. Anybody out there that has spent a lot of time down in that country willing to exchange any knowledge? PM works for me. Looking @ heading back down there in a week or ten days to hunt the rut.

 

[mixedbag]

Don't forget about all the block management you can hunt all around there.I found decent deer numbers west of Forsyth on block management

 

[antlerradar]

I have lived next to the Custer and hunted since the late 70s. I have spent 1000s of hours on the forest. I would break the Custer in to three parts. The first is the all of the land to the north 212. In general this part of the forest has the highest deer numbers. It also may have the most hunters. Last year nearly all of the land north of 212 burned.
The second part would be the part of the Custer that is south of 212 and east of Otter Creek. There are a lot roads and lots of roadhunters .
The third part is the land west of Otter Creek. This part of the Custer has the most road less ground but also has the lowest deer numbers. The hunters also tend to be a better class of hunter. people that will walk in before day light, glass all day and come out after dark.
There is no magic place on the Custer to find a big deer during the rut. You could blind fold your self and throw a dart at the map and start hunting and have just as good of a chance and some one that studies the map for the "best spots".
A few year ago a good friend of mine and took and accounting of all of the 180+ bucks taken on the forest and the near by private land that we could think of. We took note of were they were taken and witch week of the season. The results were interesting.
Big deer were take in all three of the parts of Custer. None of the three was better that the others.
The number of bucks taken during the first week was the same as the number taken during the last three weeks combined on the Custer and the close by State and BLM. On the private there was a good number of bucks taken the first week and almost none in the second week. Hunting started to pick up in the third week and three times the number of bucks were taken in the last three weeks on private as the number taken in the first week. I have pondered the reason for this. First almost all of the bucks taken on public the first week were by hunters that scouted the buck and knew were to hunt him. During the last three week most of the hunters just flat lucked into the buck. I think that on private the bucks taken the first week were all resident bucks. By the end of the first week almost all of the top end deer were gone. When the rut started in the third week new bucks started move out of the back country to rut with the does in alfalfa. Many of the bucks likely came form the Custer. If I was to book a hunt with an outfitter in SE Montana I would avoid the second week of the season.

There was a definite advantage to hunting the back county in the first two weeks but this advantage was gone during the last three weeks of the season. It may have even been a slight disadvantage to hunt the back country.. I didn't expect this. The reason for this could be found in an old article in Montana Outdoor titled Bucks are from Mars Does are form Venus. This Cliff notes of this article is that bucks tend to live in the least productive land and does tend to live in the most productive land. On the Custer the productive land is in the bigger Creek bottom, The uplands and on the hay fields on the nearby private land. This is also were most of the roads are. The least productive land in the rough breaks is also the most roadless. It only makes sense that bucks are leaving the roadless areas to rut with the does in the more productive land.

Antlerradar

 

[El Jason]

Very good synopsis. I think any portion of the Custer is capable of turning out a bruiser buck. Some of the areas are easier to hunt in terms of glassing, although I have not hunted it in quite a few years and the fires will have changed things a lot in terms of animal visibility since I last hunted there.

 

[ND taxidermist]

Excellent insight on the forest antlerradar! Thanks for the info guys.

 

[antlerradar]

The big fires in the past have greatly improved the feed and water. They have also made the burn areas much too easy to hunt. Deer numbers went up and the quality went way down. This happened in both Cook MT in 88 and King Mt in 2000. You could still find a big deer in the burns but it is a lot harder now for a buck to avoid hunters long enough to get very old.

Antlerradar

 

[antlerradar]

The FWP has not helped the Custer is the recent past by issuing tons of doe tags. Way too many of these tag are filled on the Custer and not very many on the private were doe numbers need to be reduced. The result has been fewer deer on the Custer and more does on the private. It is no wonder many of the bucks on the Custer end up on private during the rut. Try to figure that one out.

Antlerradar