Montana draw 2026
- Thread starter 8andcounting
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antlerradar
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You don't get to hunt for five weeks and all of November in those states.
SAJ-99
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Possibly. The FWP didn’t bring that up as an option when talked to the person. I would have bought the 2027 point and still only had 2 so it just comes down to cost of buying the stuff to apply (conservation license, app fee). I think I anchored on the old price of the PP and not the new price, so it might have been cheaper to go that route. The FWP HAL 9000 might have freaked out when I didn’t check the “buy PP” box knowing I was applying for something I had a 0% chance at.
Forkyfinder
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Not anymore
Forkyfinder
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Imagine how foolish someone would be to come here for the mediocre deer and dumpy access in october.
SAJ-99
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I would rather MT deer season be in October. Reduce the road hunting and make people work a little harder for deer that are scattered rather than just sit a pivot. I don’t expect it to change though.
Over the weekend, I drove across I90 across the Columbia plateau (eastern 2/3 of the state of WA) at prime dusk hours and saw 3 deer. It’s all relative. Don’t expect NRs to suddenly come to their senses and rescue MT deer hunting.
Not like my opinion matters here whatsoever, but I would too.
rjthehunter
Well-known member
Agreed, everyone should stop hunting in MT!
Yes. You can choose to only keep the elk portion. When that happens, the deer portion gets allocated to someone else (referred to as "orphaned" deer tags). Before this year, FWP was allowed to sell 5000 of those orphaned deer tags. The 2500 NR deer tags that were cut this year came out of this pool. So instead of being able to sell all 5000 orphaned NR deer tags, they can only sell 2500 this year.
Five days in Colorado and Wyoming can offer some pretty good hunting as you know. I would happily give up my 5 week opportinuty of carrying a rifle in Montana for one of those tags
Hams42
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Speaking of this. Did the proposal to shut the general season down at the end of October get killed? I liked the idea of October being general and then needing to draw to get a November rut hunt tag.
Hams42
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I usually see more mule deer in my yard than I do during the season where I can hunt.
8andcounting
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You can choose to keep the deer portion of the bg combo but not the other way around to my knowledge only way to keep only elk is to apply for the elk only combo … I could be wrong but I’ve been applying for bg combo for long time and never seen an option to keep only elk
cgasner1
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Didn’t get killed we need more people helping to push it. The commission won’t make a change until there has been enough noise made. A great way it was put to me is it’s Fwp parks job to manage the numbers and it’s the commissions job to manage the social aspect. So the tide still needs to turn for something to change
I hear you. A 5 week season can be a heck of a time for someone that has loads of time off, but what good does it do if in that 5 weeks you’re still only going to see dinks? And most Nonresidents can’t take 3-5 weeks off anyway.
The double edged sword of the season being 5 weeks and open for all November is what keeps those public bucks small anyway.
Plenty of opportunity for better quality bucks in other states for half the cost and 5,7,9 and 14 day long seasons.
cgasner1
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The 5 week issue is more that it’s easier to pencil the time in around other hunts
Ide spend the $900 for a 5 week long season tag if they only had rifle deer in October and first couple three days of November. But a $900 tag for a 5 week season including all of November, not for me. Quality is gone. Damn shame.
