Waiting until the last two weeks

[Pagosa]

How many of you Montana hunters wait until the last few weeks of season to get serious about elk and deer hunting? Due too a busy fall I've made it out two mornings on opening weekend for elk and a couple evenings behind my house for deer with the kids. I'm not able to really start until NOVEMBER 12th, but have the last couple weeks pretty open for hunting. I just wonder how many of the resident hunters find success later in the season. Good luck of there.

 

[zachthebowhunter]

That was my plan for my deer but a nice 155" buck presented himself to me last weekend and i couldnt say no! Good luck on your adventures

 

[antlerradar]

Most success has come early in the season and was due to a lot of scouting. I like you don't have a lot of time early in the year. It is hard for me to string two days together until Thanksgiving. I enjoy hunting later in the year with the colder, often snowy weather and the rut keeping the bucks active. Some good memories form the late 70's and 80's. Recently I have found that the hunting pressure is much more concentrated during the rut and on the public land I prefer to hunt and finding a nice buck or getting away from other hunters is difficult. One thing about the rut is it shifts the chance of success from hard work to getting lucky.
As a sportsman I really enjoy the opportunity provided by the long season. However the negatives associated with the opportunity season are high and for me out way the positives

 

[MThuntr]

Deer wise I tend to do better later in the season when animals are doing their rutting business. Elk wise, I hear most get shot opening weekend (or the first few days of the season) and judging from the FWP checkstation data that is holding true for this year.

 

[----]

If you're talking about whitetail around home, then yes, that's absolutely the way to do it.

 

[Pagosa]

I was mainly thinking of elk. The few evenings I deer hunted the whitetail bucks still seem to be together. I'm going over to Region 3/4 to elk hunt next week, so I hope I run across something. I appreciate the feedback guys.

 

[sra61]

Deer always during the rut, so later. Elk lately, I have been hitting at the beginning of season. Elk were always usually a late season kind of thing hoping for snow to bring them down.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I'm just starting to get serious. I actually don't feel to frantic if I don't get to hunt at the beginning of the season. My time off mirrors yours.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I've got 5 weeks. I'm going to use all of it regardless of harvest.

 

[TRS_Montana]

I take what I can get. I'm not good enough to be able to forego hunting in the early season because I know that, once the snow falls, I will just go out and shoot an elk. Besides, I love hunting in the 40-60 degree weather!