General Rifle Season Ends: Fewer Hunters, More Whitetails in Western Montana

General rifle season is over and hunters in the Missoula area harvested game at about the same pace they did in 2013. However, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokeswoman Vivica Crowser says harvests are still lower than they have been in past years.

"It is below average if you look at the long-term average, so the last five to ten years, lets say," Crowser said. "They are definitely below that. A lot of that is by design, if you look at where the populations are at in some of the hunting districts, or our cow/calf ratios in some cases. [We've been] setting hunting seasons to be a little more restrictive to balance those seasons out."

The number of recorded hunting trips also dropped. Bonner check-station, which many consider the bellwether of region 2 (Missoula area) had a 10 percent drop in hunters.

"We had less hunters than we have seen in the past handful of years," Crowser said. "If you look at the Bonner check-station fore example, down about 600 hunter trips from last year. Our Anaconda numbers were about on par."

The overall numbers will look even lower, but a lot of that is due to the fact that this year's numbers are not a full apples-to-apples comparison. The Darby check station switched this year to weekends only, whereas it used to be open seven days a week.

One of the big surprises this hunting season was the number of Whitetails harvested. Despite fewer hunter trips recorded at the Bonner check station, whitetail harvest was up to over 380, the highest it has been since 2010.

A more accurate view of how many hunters went out and how much game came home will be available after FWP finishes their call surveys of area hunters. These surveys should begin in about mid-December.