Hunting season numbers in

Though upland game bird season for most species and some specialty seasons will continue into the coming months, the general big game hunting season ended Sunday and preliminary stats from the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game-check station east of Havre show that the numbers are up in many areas.

“It was busy,” Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologist Scott Hemmer said. “Yeah, I think more hunters than I’ve seen. … I started up here in 2010, and it’s more hunters than I’ve ever seen, at our check station at least.”

Hunters traveling east or west on U.S. Highway 2 past the game-check station are required to stop, even if they had been hunting outside of Region 6.

Hemmer said hunter numbers are up by about 24 percent over the long-term average based on the game-check station numbers. He hadn’t tallied the final breakdown of data, but he felt that this was in all categories of hunters including resident and non-resident hunters, plus in-state hunters who are local or from out of the region.

There could be a lot of reasons why, he added, but the warm and dry weather was likely a big factor.

The hunters were having good success with mule deer this year, with 841 mule deer checked at the station this season, he said, which is 7 percent over the 2020 total and about 60 percent above the long-term average.

The upland game numbers were hit and miss this year, he said. The cold spring and drought conditions hit birds hard in some areas.

“Overall, sharp-tails and Hungarian partridges were up from long-term average, but pheasants were down,” he said, and duck numbers were up, too.

Hunters from eastern Montana, the Sheridan and Daniels counties area, did better with pheasants, but elsewhere it was mixed, depending on specific conditions where people were hunting, he added.

FWP biologists continued to take samples for disease testing this year, including starting to test for bovine tuberculosis from animals taken in of Blaine County where the disease was found in a herd of cattle near Harlem.

He said white-tailed deer along the northeastern portion of the state were hit fairly hard by epizootic hemorrhagic disease, though likely only a few in the Havre area, and they continued to see some chronic wasting disease.

“We’re continuing to find chronic wasting disease further north, in hunting districts north of Highway 2, but not any different from past years,” Hemmer said. “Just one of those things that’s going to be here from here on out.”

The test results are pending from the lab in about a week, he said, but he didn’t expect any increase in disease over past years.

Test results for bovine TB will take longer, probably a month or two, he added.

“But, yeah, that is something we’re definitely sampling on,” Hemmer said, “and we’re looking to do some more sampling in some small mammals and stuff like that, as well. We just want to see if it has (spread). Hopefully it hasn’t, but we do want to see if it has spread to wildlife in that area.”

While the game-check station is shut down until next general hunting season begins, some hunting continues in the area, he added.

A special shoulder season for tag-holders will run from Dec. 15 to Feb. 15 in the Bear Paw Mountains. There is an upcoming deer and elk season for muzzleloader hunting Dec. 11-19. Some migratory bird hunting continues to Jan. 14, and upland game bird hunting, except for sage grouse, continues to Jan. 1. The winter mountain lion hunting season started up again Wednesday, as well, and will continue until the quotas are filled or to April 14.

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2021 Havre Game-Check Station Harvest Summary

Animal Total 2020 Harvest % Change from Longterm Average

Antelope 193 164 -24%

Mule Deer 841 783 60%

White-tailed Deer 138 149 -10%

Elk 39 37 -1%

Pheasant 479 467 -38%

Sharp-tailed Grouse 185 97 53%

Hungarian Partridge 78 31 35%

Ducks 97 46 74%

Hunters 2,105 1,813 24%