The whitetail I shot on private land but the other 2 were on state land. The 2 point was a 24 inches wide. I have hunted Montana 4 of the last 5 years and can tell the numbers of deer are way down. I have several friends that own land and the that still live there and they also say the numbers are way down. Even with the numbers way down we would still see an average of 50 deer a day.
A little story on the whitetail. We spotted him and a few other bucks bedded down in the middle of a stubble field about a 3/4 mile off an old farm road. After some debate we took off and pulled a sneek on them. We got within 400 hundred yards with the wind in our face and a little hump in the field so they could not see us. The wind was howling and my hands were freezing. We kept peeking over the hump but could only see horns and they were looking right at us. I told my bro that we needed to get closer as I was not taking a shot off hand at that distance. We crawled about another hundred yards and now could see horns and just the top of the head. So we crawled another 50 yards and I set up my bi pod so I was sitting. With in seconds the buck then stood up took a couple of steps towards us and turned to run. As he turned I shot he ran about 50 yards and piled up. The Shot was a little far back but had just a split second to shoot. Then the work began NOT my buddy drove out into the field and we loaded him up. That is a first. The last couple of years were always a couple of hours with a couple of guys hauling animals out. Thanks Joe.
